Abstract
The Web 3 technology disrupting the fashion industry and bringing the emergence of the commercialisation of digital clothes, arrives in a context in which the fashion industry needs to innovate in creating value in ways that do not involve further polluting the environment. However, the coevolution of field-level frames and the materiality of the technological categories has received relatively less attention. As a consequence, this coevolution occurs remain unidentified, and an understanding of how sociocognitive constructs “emerge” and of “what they come to mean” is still missing. In order to fill up this gap in the theory, we explore the research question – how do fashion brands story tell digital garments vis a vis environmental sustainability?, we use the theoretical framework of industry categories and adopt a qualitative multi-case study design to investigates the genesis of the legitimacy of digital garments in the fashion industry. Our preliminary findings reveal that all digital brands use sustainability in an attempt to legitimise the emerging category of “digital garment”.