From Spectacle to Ideology: Aestheticized Political Narrative in Zara’s Campaign

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between aesthetics and ideology in fashion advertising by analyzing Zara’s 2023 “Atelier” campaign within the framework of Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiotic approach. The research investigates how images evoking war, destruction, and death in the campaign visuals are reconstructed within an aesthetic narrative, thereby rendering their political meanings invisible. Accordingly, the study is grounded in a qualitative semiotic analysis of the concepts of signifier and signified. Within the scope of the analysis, three visuals from the campaign were examined in detail; visual codes, symbolic elements, and compositional arrangements were evaluated in relation to their ideological contexts. The findings reveal that although the campaign visuals are presented within an aesthetic unity, they implicitly refer to underlying realities of political violence and conflict. However, it was determined that through aestheticization, these visuals neutralize ideological content and reproduce political indifference. The study concludes that fashion advertising is not merely a field of aesthetic representation but also a medium through which ideological meanings are produced and cultural codes are circulated.