Consumers Engagement with Fashion - Essay Example

 Consumers Engagement with Fashion Consumers now in this era use different types of textiles, jewellery, and many other things in their everyday lives. Various studies done on the topics as fashion, the arts, personal studies, visual images, performance, and cultural history shows that the aesthetic discourse is no more limited in the consumer research. Consumer aesthetics have become an important field for the consumer researchers. The word “aesthetics” used in this report can be described from different angles and dimensions with different meanings. One meaning of this word is related to sensory experiences that are relevant to everyday objects. Another meaning can be expressed as all the forms of sensory-experiences that are relevant to arts, different visual forms like painting, music, crafts etc. The third meaning can be referred to a vast range of conceptual-categories which can define aesthetics as symbolism and imagery, harmony and order, form and expression, taste, beauty, and feelings. All these three meanings are considered important when market researchers conduct researches on different consumer activities. [Placeholder2] From the consumer side, everyday objects have the potential to satisfy aesthetic needs of the consumers through sensory experiences. [Hei02]. Consumption of experiential-type products, according to [Mor82] becomes a need to engage in experiences for pleasure. That is, the consumption experience is a phenomenon directed toward the pursuit of fantasies, feelings, and fun. Hedonic experience, defined as enjoyment or pleasure, is one type of aesthetic response that activates the multi-sensory, fantasy, and emotive aspects of experience. Taken together, the contribution of Holbrook and Hirschman's collective work leads to an understanding of the notions of the experiential [Mor82]symbolic (e.g., Hirschman 1983), and hedonic properties of artistic (aesthetic) endeavours and products. [Mor82]. Other recent studies that consider arts consumptions (and in many cases address arts production issues as well) include [Gii95] etc. Fashion depending on identity, class and gender It is said by many fashion professionals that clothes makes a man or woman, though it is not true in many cases of the present life styles. However, once upon a time there were very clean differences between men and women clothing styles and the types of clothes used by them, which is not observed in the similar way in today’s life. Styles and fashion have been changed over years. Diana Crane in her book “Fashion and its social agendas” demonstrates how the social significance has been transformed in case of clothing. She compares nineteenth-century societies of the United States and France with the twentieth century America. In the nineteenth century, social class was very noticeable feature of social identity which was very much relevant to clothing; while in the twentieth century America individuals focused on constructing their wardrobes by considering various things like gender, lifestyle, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and age. According to Diana Crane, clothes worn at work indicate social class, though many people may not agree in this fact. She also states that leisure clothes convey different meanings ranging from political to trite. In the multicode societies of today, clothes facilitate as well as hinder communications between highly fragmented societies. [Loz13] [PRI12] Crane extends her comparison by showing how nineteenth-century French designers created fashions that not only suited lifestyles of Paris elites but were also widely adopted by the people outside the France. By contrast, today's designers operate in a global marketplace, shaped by television, film, and popular music. They are no longer only confined to elites and the trendsetters are drawn from many social groups and most of the trends have short trajectories. To assess the impact of fashion on women, Crane uses voices of college aged and middle-aged women who took part in focus groups. These discussions yield fascinating information about women's perceptions of female identity and sexuality in the fashion industry. [Dia00] Role of arts in consumers’ lives: Many scholars hold the view that the purpose of art is to bring emotional enjoyment and feelings of pleasure to people's lives. Recent consumer studies consider arts consumption (and in many cases address arts production issues as well) in this light. In the field of aesthetics, expression theory comes closest to acknowledging emotions and feelings as the basis of aesthetic experience. The two most frequently cited theories in the field of aesthetics are the imitation theory (later to be known as formalism) and the expression theory. The imitation theory is concerned with matters of representation; that is, how well the art object imitates reality. The main limitation to this theory is that it fails to take into account both the emotional involvement of the artist in the creation of the object and the viewer's emotional response to the aesthetic object. In contrast, the expression theory takes into account the feelings and emotions of the subjects emanating from their aesthetic experience. [Cla01] Consumers either directly consume artistic products or are exposed to popular images whose source can be traced to the world of art. In the former case, as some scholars argue, the consumption of art involves an emotional experience of some sort and most consider the emotions felt in the relations to art to be different from those expressed in daily life possibly because artistic feelings are associated with disinterestedness in a Kantian sense. That is, disinterested individuals (those experiencing detached affect or bad relationships), put aside ordinary concerns of life and enjoy art for its own sake. In the alternative case, as [Jon02] states that art has become part of everyday encounters by entering other institutional sectors of life. Thus, according to Schroeder, art can be the source of advertising images to which consumers are exposed on an everyday basis. FASHION RELATED TO ANTHROPOLOGICAL AND ETHNOGRAPHICAL APPROACHES Anthropological Approach: Over the past two decades, the anthropology has as well attracted the market researchers as far as the interest in clothing and fashion is concerned. The anthropological observations of the fashion are that it is usual nature of human beings that they all compare themselves with the people in their surroundings such as with their friends and family members to evaluate their own dressing and the fashion sense and imitate the ways through which others make themselves fashionable. Anthropology is the one approach in which a person is viewed from the point of view that what could be made of him. This approach focuses on the creative and the spirit of the person to convert its imaginations of its dressing and fashion into the reality. [Kan78] Anthropology studies the fashion by evaluating the fashion styles that are socially accepted and that are not socially accepted. The certain way of the clothing is selected as a trend and that trend is named as the fashion. So fashion is a thing that is defined as a whole and if it has meaning it is followed by the fashion followers of the society. Anthropologists describe that the process of commoditization and capitalization has removed the lines and barriers between fashion and anti fashion and now the things that were considered as the anti fashion earlier are considered a part of the fashion too. According to this anthropological approach, anti fashion is defined as that it is a trend which is fixed and changes a very little over a time period whereas, fashion is the trend that changes quickly, it is not affected by any particular group of people and it spreads widely throughout the world between people who can communicate with each other easily. [Tim06] [Eae12] [CNS10] Mary Douglas further states in this approach, that fashion is concerned with the social mobility and the continuity of time. People in the variety of countries are working collectively to create and promote the fashion in reality that the consumers imagine. The people in the rich countries are connected to the people in the poor countries through multiple mediums of the communication, capitalization and the commoditization. People in one part of the world work hardly to produce the fashionable clothes and goods that are anxiously demanded by the people in the other parts of the world. This creates an ideology of working hard and in the end results a large amount of goods and commodities is consumed by the people. [Mar79] Why the anthropological studies for the fashion are important is because these studies define the ways through which traditions and ideas all over the globe are revoked and expressed. These studies identify that how the traditions have emerged at the historical junctions and the changes that those traditions made to the national identities, political and social bodies. Anthropological studies demonstrate the strategic implication of the traditional classification adapted by the local groups of the various regions. [Dia00] For the business people these studies help them to identify the opportunities and challenges that are present in the market. It is usually done by understanding the history, politics and cultural factors that are linked to the fashion. Retailers can enter into new markets if they understand how the fashion represents the identity in that nation. For example, at some states the western dresses are taken as the modern dresses and in some parts the Indian dresses are considered as the traditional ones so according to the Dant marketers should identify those opportunities. [Tim06] As clothing is the means through which the identity of the people is expressed, overall anthropological approach helps to understand how the identity is constructed, how it affects social and political meanings, how the people differentiate from each other, the historical origins of the societies made by consumers and how the capitalization and commoditization are the global factors now. Ethnographical Approach: According to the Yuniya, a cultural analysis is done to search the meanings that could be given to the interpretations of any culture. Ethnography is an approach that offers methods and ideologies to analyze the clothing and body ornament that originate from the social and cultural roots of the specific peasant and small scale communities. Ethnography is associated with the range of theoretical perspectives from the anthropology and sociology such as functionalism, interactionism, exchange theory and conflict theory etc. [Yun11] As states by Kawamura, through the ethnographical approach the researchers are able to identify the phenomena exactly the way it is perceived by the consumers of the product. In relating it to the fashion it could be evaluated that ethnography helps market researchers to understand how the consumers perceive about the products of clothes or body ornaments are concerned in accordance with their understanding of the fashion. Whether, they consider the products fashionable or they do not consider them fashionable or up to date products. Stated by Robin Patric, ethnography in terms of fashion includes the collection and assembling of the systematic fashion, that is the trend in which the fashion flows, to speak or write about some culture. [Rob03]. Much of the ethnography research within the field of fashion studies relates to original cultures, in which the practice of using traditional dresses is common. It not only provides and in depth understanding on the specific cultural practice but on the entire fashion as a whole. It describes how the traditional culture affects the fashion of that area and what type of dresses are more appropriate for that market. If there is a scope of the traditional dresses then brands should focus on presenting traditional dresses with unique qualities to differentiate as stated by the Kat. [Kat10] So when the market researchers focus on ethnography they identify the types of jewelry, textile and fashion that are most preferred by the people of some particular culture. They identify the trends that whether the current fashion is a long term trend or if the symptoms portray that it will be disappear within a short period of time. With this the companies can analyze opportunities in the markets and they can capture the segments according to the fashion prevailing in the culture and interests of the people. [Rob03] References Placeholder2: , (Venkatesh & Meamber 2008), Hei02: , (Heilbrun, Marczyk & DeMatteo 2002), Mor82: , (Holbrook & Hirschman 1982), Gii95: , (Ger & Belk 1995), Loz13: , (Blain 2013), PRI12: , (PRINT AND PATTERN FASHION 2012), Dia00: , (Crane 2000), Cla01: , (Clarke 2001), Jon02: , (Schroeder 2002), Kan78: , (Kant 1978), Tim06: , (Dant 2006), Eae12: , (Eaesthete 2012), CNS10: , (CNSMEDIA_LIBBYSTANNAGE 2010), Mar79: , (Douglas 1979), Yun11: , (Kawamura 2011), Rob03: , (Clair 2003), Kat10: , (Kat 2010), Read More