Fashion and Consumer Culture - Essay Example

Fashion and Culture December 2, Consumer goods and services potentially play an important role in who we are and how we construct our social lives, in terms of how we use such goods and services and how we relate to other people through such goods and services I. Background Clothing is not only a necessity or one of human basic needs. More than being a basic need, clothing also represents cultures, beliefs and economic stature. A lot of factors affect the type of clothing worn by different cultural groups throughout the years. Factors include religion, beliefs, climate, gender, and economic and cultural situation, among others. Though fashion may change as dictated by society, clothes are more than just about warmth and protection. In fact, clothes have become a representation of particular cultures that create them. Clothes are considered consumer goods. But then again, more than being consumer goods, it defines the cultural class that wears them. It is one of those consumer goods that are being used as tools for social mobility as stated in the ‘Conspicuous Consumption’ theory by 19th Century economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen. In his book ‘The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions, he says that luxury goods are tools to display economic power, and that such display of discretionary economic power is a means of attaining or maintaining a particular social status. Moreover, as an elaboration, these consumer goods have become tools to provoke envy from other people (Veblen’s Conspicuous Consumption: an Excerpt Review 2011). Ultimately, consumer goods, and fashion is one of them, is a means of displaying a buyer’s superior socio-economic status. II. Discussion In the article ‘Consumption and the Consumer Society’, it says that the average United States resident consumes 275 lbs. of meat, uses 635 lbs. of paper and uses energy equivalent to 7.8 metrics tons of oil. Forty-five years ago consumption was about half of current statistics. In the U.S. there are 2 persons for every 1-passenger car and in Europe, 3.1 persons for every passenger car (Consumption and Consumer Society 2012). The economics shows demand for consumer goods is getting absolutely higher, with first-world countries with the highest demand and huge share of the consumer market. Each era is represented by a brand of fashion and consumer preference. The demands are highly changing and the product positioning constantly evolving. Over the last 15 years, marketers have been beset by a succession of new marketing channels. So have consumers. There is also a shift in how they purchase with the arrival of e-shops selling all sorts of goods via the Internet. Consumers are essential part of a retailer’s marketing strategy regardless of the advertising channel. It’s basically about the user, though retailers and manufacturers have a way of tweaking trends to achieve the desired effect on the customers. A. Fashion Consumer goods In the article Fashion Design Scope, there are three fashion consumer groups: The Fashion Leader, The Fashion Victim and the Fashion Followers (Fashion Consumer Groups 2012). The Fashion Leader group is further divided into two sub groups: Fashion Innovators and Fashion Motivators. This group is perceived to be those who refuse to conform to trends and instead, create fashion on their own, according to their personalities and jobs. These are usually celebrities and media favorite people who have the need to get attention to maintain popularity. However, this does not keep them from purchasing luxury brands because in fact, they are one of the target consumers of these brands. They might not conform to pop fashion, but they create a whole new dimension to brands that they use. And so the effect is that they even tend to lift the brands they use and endorse towards greater market heights. The second group is likely the group to patronize whatever pop fashion in a really hard-core way. These are the brand conscious group, which adhere to trends. They probably form a larger part of the whole consumer ensemble, as they are willing to spend extra cash to purchase trendy bags, even including expensive luxury bags. The third group is very much like the second group but with less preference for luxurious brands. They purchase products according to what is essentially popular in the market, but without so much fuss on the brands. These three groups represent the fact that consumer choices are basically reflections of their very own lifestyle – a socio-economic factor that says much about their background, their financial capabilities and their vision of what they want themselves to become in the future. They share common interests, hobbies, which is evident in the kinds of clothes, they purchase and wear. Manufacturers have been able to analyze this demographics and position their products according to the whims of the market groups. B. Luxury brands The luxury brands of the world have in the recent decade risen to the brands of the hour. Luxury brand products are today found not only in the possession of the wealthy but also in the average homes from Los Angeles via Moscow to Tokyo, where 94 percent of 20-something women owns a Louis Vuitton bag. It is estimated that 40 percent of the Japanese owns a Louis Vuitton product (Thomas 2007). The statistics are relatively high, considering that a Louis Vuitton bag is not exactly cheap. Yet, the appeal to have a luxury bag is so strong among women within age groups 20 to 60 and even beyond is so strong that middle class-group purchase at least one of these in their lifetime. What has happened in recent times is that consumers are beginning to mix luxury brands with premium and mainstream brands. In past times, the luxury companies could rely on consumers buying exclusively from their collection. Kapferer (2005) proposes that there are two different kinds of luxury brands. The ones that capitalize on their heritage and the ones that capitalizes on their storytelling. The latter most commonly lack any kind of long standing history. The first category are older European brands, such as Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Gucci and the second category consists of newer brands, mostly American, the best example is of course Ralph Lauren. Relative to scarcity, Kapferer also introduces the idea of rarity. Traditionally, luxury goods have physical properties of rarity; exotic materials, craftsmanship, complicated production process. If a physical rarity is not at hand, the virtual rarity can help create a notion or an imitation of physical rarity. The commonly used strategies for this operation are for example selective and exclusive distribution and outlets, creating an illusion of scarcity, sponsoring top celebrities, athletes and creators, creating limited and rare products to stimulate buzz and press attention, and finally to create a business entity that compliments the expensive product program with cheaper and mass-produced products like cosmetics, fragrance and simpler accessories. Advertising and media communicates samples of this virtual rarity. This might be a photo-tour of the new Hermés flagship store in Paris, articles about a limited Louis Vuitton bag, fashion reports from the red carpet and articles about the new Tom Ford perfume. In support to marketing luxury bags are several international and national fashion magazines, most of each have gained followers due to its features on luxury brands. Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle and W are some of the major publications with worldwide distributorship. Interestingly, these publications have post substantial pressure on the consumers for them to purchase the featured luxury brands. The publication team are a great force in deciding what the consumers like. The new deal for the large fashion magazines is to venture into other media. Moses (2009) argues that because of the recession and competition from lifestyle and celebrity magazines, the fashion magazines are eager to diversify their business into new areas in order to strengthen their brand. And also offer advertisers different and new ways of advertising. The Internet has made fashion and style more accessible to all for example through blogs, the brands own websites, and live coverage of fashion shows. The fashion magazines have geared their performance to meet this challenge and there are several successful ventures into the world of online publishing. Vogues and GQ’s style.com and Elle.com being two of them. In the article dated August 2009, in the midst of the recession, Moses presents somewhat ambivalent facts concerning the importance and the state of fashion magazines. There is a reduction in advertisement sales and in single copy sales for most, Elle being a notable exception, but this might just be temporary and recession-influenced. It is still hard to say what will happen when the economic climate gets better. However, Moses concludes that the importance of the fashion magazines for its readers and its advertisers will still remain, perhaps change somewhat in its disposition but remain. Global luxury brands share many similar traits of prestige and exclusivity, yet each brand has its own identity and a distinct strategy of brand positioning that sets itself apart (How the World’s Powerful Luxury Brands Stay Strong 2012). This product positioning is what influences the market. For example, Louis Vuitton positions itself as timeless and authentic while Hermes capitalizes on heritage. Hermes is more controlled in terms of distributorship. This puts the two luxury brands in contrasting positioning. Louis Vuitton has become a brand of choice among the general buying public while Hermes sticks to its value proposition of rarity and exclusivity. There are more Louis Vuitton products among consumers that Hermes. It’s basically a mirror image: the choice in the brands reflects the needs of the market yet the manufacturers create pieces that complement what the market actually is. Generally, the luxury brands appeal to a market that is more financially able, with more than excess money to spend on perceived necessities such as luxury bags and other items. This group is considered to be Fashion Leaders. C. Premium Brands Brands that are relatively priced higher than commercial brands are called premium brands. They often imitate luxury brands in their communications (Okonkwo 2009) Products are also alike but with less craftsmanship, usually produced at a higher pace and in larger numbers and with a more moderate pricing. Okonkwo discloses what she calls the redefinition of luxury brands as an effect of more aware consumers. Popularly called the democratization of luxury, fashion brands from both premium and mainstream segments have geared both their brands and communication towards a luxury expression. This makes for that the consumer feels that it is kosher to combine high and main street brands in one outfit, something that was unthinkable just a few decades ago (Okonkwo 2009). The fashion magazines also encourage this notion of combining brands from different realms. Obviously, premium brands attract a market segment that wishes to be fashionable, to achieve that same kind of glamour but without having to spend as much. These are consumers within the age group, but has a slightly difference income bracket. They like to enjoy luxurious items but are also price conscious and would settle for a slightly lower value but with the same market positioning. A sample premium brand is Lacoste, which is cheaper than the usual luxury brands, but nevertheless offer a certain degree of exclusivity and rarity in the market. D. Conclusion Shopping orientations reflect a consumer’s view of shopping, that is, his or her motivations for shopping (Hawkins, Best, & Coney, 1989). According to Visser and du Preez (2001, p. 73), ‘‘shopping orientation consists of a personal dimension (e.g., activities, interests, opinions, motives, needs and preferences) and a market behavior dimension or a general approach to acquiring goods and services.’’ Shopping orientation also refers to a shopper’s general attitude about shopping, for example, a person with a recreational shopping orientation views shopping as a fun, social activity (Solomon & Rabolt, 2009). Consumers with different shopping orientations show different shopping behaviors, such as information search (Lee & Kim, 2008), importance of store attributes and evaluation (Seock & Sauls, 2008; Shim & Kotsiopulos, 1992), channel choice (Chatterjee, 2010; Choi & Park, 2006), and purchase intention and preference (Girard, Korgaonkar, & Silverblatt, 2003; Hansen & Jensen, 2009). Therefore, a consumer’s decision process is influenced by complex sets of factors, and a consumer’s shopping orientation is a good indicator of his or her shopping behavior (Vijayasarathy, 2003). However, there is limited research on factors influencing consumers’ shopping orientations (e.g., Ownbey & Horridge, 1997; Park & Sullivan, 2009; Tai, 2008). Consumer groups define the choices they make in terms of fashion. Usually, they have the same behavior, same social preferences and same economic background. They look for the same value in a product and thus their product choices reflect their own socio-economical profile. Reference List Veblen’s Conspicuous Consumption: an excerpt review. Retrieved December 2, 2012 from http://marklindner.info/blog/2006/12/29/veblens-conspicuous-consumption-an-excerpt-review/ Consumption and Consumer Society. Retrieved December 2, 2012 from http://e3network.org/teaching/Goodwin_Nelson_Ackerman_Weisskopf_Consumption_and_the_Consumer_Society.pdf Thomas, Dana Deluxe (2007). How luxury lost its luster. London: Penguin Kapferer, Jean-Noël (2008). The New Strategic Brand Management. London: Kogan Page Kapferer, Jean-Noël (2001). Strategic Brand Management. London: Kogan Page Kapferer, Jean-Noël et al. (2005). Brand Culture. New York: Routledge Moses, Lucia (2009). The delicate balance (Electronic)Available: (2010-08-10) How the World’s Powerful Luxury Brands Stay Strong. Retrieved December 3, 2012 from http://red-luxury.com/2011/01/26/how-the-worlds-powerful-luxury-brands-stay-strong/ Fashion Consumer Groups. Retrieved December 3, 2012 from http://www.fashiondesignscope.com/?p=148 Okonkwo, Ushe (2010). Redefining the Luxury Concept (Electronic) Available: (2010-08-10) Okonkwo, Uche (2009). Luxury Fashion Branding. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan Hawkins, D., Best, R. J., & Coney, K. A. (1989). 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