Impact of Fast Fashion on Luxury Consumers Essay Example For Students

Impact of Fast Fashion on Luxury Consumers Essay Fashion can be clothing, art, music or anything which is popular among a large group of people. It means that new styles and visions are being accepted by reference groups which share the positive feeling about it. Fashion trends move quickly across the world and therefore it has been noticed to carry a collective behaviour (Solomon, Bamossy and Askegaard, 2002). Consumers can adopt fashion changes through similar people, which are known as opinion leaders, or, for example, through mass-communication channels such as music television which highlights current trends. Companies are pushing their brands forward by inserting their brand name on all products. Finnish youngsters are more and more becoming fashion conscious and they create their own styles by travelling and adapting influences from different cultures (Kaskinen 2008). Womens fashion is a global industry with $47 billion in annual sales. Female consumers act as the gatekeepers and have strong purchasing power, especially when studies show that women need clothes for different situations which increase demand. The clothes reflect many personal issues such as age and style. The untruthful message the advertisers give about female bodies and the idea that everyone should be thin, affect womens behaviour and therefore due to the pressure of looking like the models in adverts, women today take more care of themselves. Women go shopping for something they need or shop without any particular product in mind (Silverstein and Sayer, 2009a). In another study Silverstein and Sayer criticised that many marketers still do not recognise the importance of targeting women. Many companies are not making adequate market research on the female market and they are targeting women based on assumptions of what they think they want. Companies often market small sized clothing for women based on the assumption that is what women want (Silverstein and Sayer, 2009b). Fashion and Luxury Brands There are a number of definitions of Fashion but as argued by Juggessur, J. (2011), the connotations and impact of fashion have evolved in order to match the clothing practices of individuals belonging to various social structures and customs. Fashion and clothing have been used synonymously; one view could be that clothing is fashion, although this is short-sighted disregarding the complexities surrounding the subject. Fashion is frequently linked to apparel and appearance, which is ultimately a visual and tangible factor. Therefore, a difficulty arises when attempting to detach fashion from clothing. This paper uses this context to relate clothing of women with luxury brands. Sociologists and psychologists take different approaches when interpreting fashion. Sociologists seek out the motives which moderate fashion in group behaviour, while psychologists seek to comprehend the basic concepts of perception and motivation. Psychologists state that clothing behaviour is psychological in nature. Psychology can be used as the basis of this study as it explains how clothing can be regarded as an intimate part of the self or personality (Horn and Gurel 1975 as cited in Juggessur, 2011). This can be extended to luxury designer handbags and their counterfeit counterparts. Hurlock (1929, p. 4) gives an explanation of Horn and Gurels (1975) notion: We are apt to think of clothes as we do of our bodies, and so to appropriate them that they become perhaps more than any of our other possessions, a part of ourselves in spite of the constant changes in clothing, it is still impossible to disassociate ourselves from this intimate part of our material possessions (Hurlock 1929 as cited in Juggessur, 2011. p. 26). Women and Luxury Brands The need for research in order to better understand the role of gender on consumers response toward luxury brands motivated this paper. As previous literature shows, women are generally described as more interdependent and more concerned with the opinion of others than men. According to evolutionary and sociocultural schools of thought there are gender differences in consumption behaviour. In a mating context, for example, men are found to be more concerned with visual portrayal as compared to women (Griskevicius et al. , 2007). However, women generally, pay more importance to physical appearance. In order to do so, they consider clothing as a tool to enhance their attractiveness. The research by Stokburger-Sauer and Teichmann (2013) supports these findings and shows that womens attitude toward luxury brands is more positive than mens attitude toward luxury brands. In addition to clothing, Stokburger-Sauer and Teichmann (2013) also argued that women consumers tend to show more positive attitudes regarding luxury brands with respect other products such as perfumes and wristwatches as compared to men. While consumers have a stronger positive attitude toward luxury brands than toward non-luxury brands when considering perfumes, the difference in attitudes between luxury and non-luxury brands for wristwatches is not significant. In addition, their research reveals that consumers respond differently when considering the role of gender and need for unique ness as moderating effects for the relationship between brand exclusivity and purchase intention. Fall Fashion Trends EssayAlthough they are focusing on the mass market the brands are no longer considered low-end or middle-end mass brands (Okonkwo 2007). Luxury fashion brands have responded to fast fashion and are inclining towards the model of fast fashion and developing production and retailing models. Luxury fashion brands have introduced pre- collections in order to spur product rotation and to reach consumers needs for fast and early delivery. They have also created more affordable diffusion lines that are mass-produced and 50 per cent cheaper in price compared to the top-of-the-line designer products (Plunkett 2010, p. 0). Luxury brand companies have started to outsource their production from e. g. France and Italy to cheaper labour countries such as China and use Information and Computer Technologies. Impact of Fast Fashion on Womans Sensibility towards Luxury Brand Aforementioned research shows that women are particularly sensitive to their clothing as a part of their fashion as compared to men. The discussion also shows that fast fashion industry has emerged in various economies and these companies have influenced highly on the existing luxury brands. The impact is reflected by the fact that in contemporary business environment luxury brands are now shortening their product cycles to cope up with the risks and challenges posed by the emerging fast fashion brands. Now integrating all the findings and establishments obtained by the discussion above it is clearly evident that fast fashion influences fashion and luxury brands and since women are sensitive to the meanings that they attach to their fashion products therefore they are also sensitive to the products of fast fashion. Analysing the luxury brand characteristics by Dubois et al. (2001) fast fashion tends to affect quality, high prices, scarcity and uniqueness, and ancestral heritage and personal history of luxury brand. This means that a luxury brand consumers lose these characteristics of their purchases when they see someone using a fast fashion product or a copy of their item. Thus this affects the overall utility of the luxury brand and luxury brand companies lose customers. This is the reason why they have changed their competitive strategies in response to fast fashion products. Thus this paper concludes that fast fashion products have changed the narrative women have around their clothes. This is the reaction that women depict to their clothes due to loss of exclusivity and other characteristics of luxury brand that they use when they see someone using a fast fashion product. Bibliography: Bruce, M. and Daly, L., (2006). Buyer behavior for fast fashion. Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management 10(3). pp.329-344. Dubois, B., Laurent, G., and Czellar, S. (2001), Consumer Rapport to Luxury: Analyzing complex and Ambivalent Attitudes, Les Cahiers de Recherche Groupe HEC, number 736. Griskevicius V, Tybur JM, Sundie JM, Cialdini RB, Miller GF, Kenrick DT. (2007). Blatant benevolence and conspicuous consumption: when romantic motives elicit strategic costly signals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 93(1):85-102 Hines, T. and Bruce, M., (2007). Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues. Oxford: Elsevier Ltd. Juggessur, J. (2011). Luxury designer handbag or counterfeit? An investigation into the antecedents influencing womens purchasing behaviour of luxury designer and counterfeit brands. Kapferer, J. N. and Bastien, V., (2009). The Luxury Strategy: Break the rules of marketing to build luxury brands. London: Kogan Page Kaskinen, P.(2008) Fashion from Finland- Watch out World! Helsinki Times . Available at: http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/lifestyle-and-entertainment/719-fashion-from-finlandwatch-out-world.html Okonkwo, U., (2007). Luxury Fashion Branding: Trends, Tactics, Techniques. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Plunkett, W. J., (2010). Plunketts Apparel Textiles Industry Almanac 2010: The Only Comprehensive Guide to Apparel Companies and Trends. Houston, Texas: Plunkett Research, Ltd. Silverstein M.J., and Sayre K. (2009a) Women Want More; How to Capture Your Share of the Worlds Largest, Fastest- Growing Market, NY: The Boston Consulting Group Silverstein M.J., and Sayre K. (2009b) the Female Economy. Harvard Business Review 87(9) pp.46-53 Available at: http://ebscohost.com Solomon M., Bamossy G. and Askegaard S., (2002) Consumer Behaviour; A European Perspective, 2nd ed. UK: Prentice Hall Europe Stokburger-Sauer, N. E., Teichmann, K. (2013). Is luxury just a female thing? The role of gender in luxury brand consumption. Journal of Business Research, 66(7), 889-896. Vigneron F, Johnson LW. (2004), Measuring perceptions of brand luxury. Brand Management; 11(6):484506. Walters, D., (2006). Demand chain effectiveness supply chain efficiencies: A role for enterprise information management. Journal of Enterprise Information Management. 19(3) pp.246-261. Wiedmann KP, Hennigs N, Siebels A. (2009). Value-based segmentation of luxury consumption behavior. Psychology and Marketing;26(7):62551.