Refashioning Post-Cosmopolitan China: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Prada’s Use of China Women’s National Football Team Athletes as Brand Embodiments

Abstract

In this study, we examine Prada’s 2024 social media advertising campaign featuring the Chinese women’s national soccer team, analyzing the intersection of popular nationalism, consumer culture, and sportsbased luxury branding in China’s evolving marketplace. Using critical discourse analysis, we investigate how this global luxury brand utilized specific communication strategies to adapt to local markets through sport figures within China’s post-cosmopolitan context—and the tensions that surfaced therein due to a shift from “foreign worship” (嗜洋) to “cultural confidence” (文化自信) amidst a broader transformation in Chinese consumer culture. Our analysis reveals three key tensions: first, the integration of Chinese mass cultural signifiers with Western luxury brand aesthetics, creating tension between local cultural accessibility and highend Western luxury positioning; second, an aesthetic presentation that disrupts traditional gender conventions, with women portrayed in masculine-coded attire that challenges conventional feminine representation in both sports and luxury marketing; and third, the use of athletic bodies—traditionally associated with speed, strength, and physical aggression—as a departure from conventional luxury marketing that typically employs models conforming to fashion industry standards. The findings advance sport communication literature by demonstrating how luxury brands seek to discursively navigate post-cosmopolitan consumer sensibilities in the Chinese market during a time of increasing national insularism.