Introduction. Modern fashion is both art, business and industry. But first of all, the phenomenon of fashion has socio-cultural significance: it forms new images of femininity and masculinity that meet not only the ideals of the time, but also the values of specific subcultures; fashion serves as a manifestation of social status and prestige, which are different for different segments of the population; fashion changes and reflects changes in labor, social tastes and needs. The purpose of the article is to present and describe the concept of “fashion” in the Russian language space. Materials and methods. In the article a psycholinguistic (associative) experiment was conducted, in the framework of which 141 responses of subjects (men and women) of different age groups to the questions stated in the questionnaire compiled by the authors of the study were analyzed. The following methods were used in the work: directed sampling technique, corpus analysis method, associative experiment method and cluster analysis method applied in the selection of the received answers of the respondents. Research results, discussions. The associations derived from respondents in relation to the stimulus “fashion” constituted the findings of the study. The examination of these associations revealed that fashion, as a phenomenon, goes beyond merely reflecting societal values and traditions; it serves as a distinctive indicator of society’s unique characteristics and identity. Conclusion. While examining lexicographic sources, it was discovered that the understanding of the term “fashion” differs between men and women. Additionally, an experiment was conducted to identify the primary ways in which the concept of “fashion” is expressed. Furthermore, the study employed cluster analysis to observe how the concept’s semantic content is influenced by time.