Acculturation: An exploratory study of clothing consumption among Black African women in London (UK)

Abstract

Purpose

Given that a “one size fits all” strategy might not be sufficiently robust enough to capture all the idiosyncrasies of the ethnic minority market in Britain, due to the heterogeneous nature of their consumption behaviour, the purpose of this paper is to specifically explore clothing acculturation of Black African women in London, UK.

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 20 in‐depth interviews were conducted with women of Black African ethnicity resident in London, as recruited through the use of purposive and snowballing sampling methods.

Findings

Essentially, the study shows that clothing acculturation among these women is influenced by a number of interconnected factors which are identified and categorised in this study to be weather condition, social factors, religion, and personal factors.

Originality/value

Theoretically, the study supplements the existing ethnic minority studies in the literature, and extends understanding on acculturation and women's consumption of clothing. The implications of the study for marketing practice are discussed especially in relation to the use of segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy by organisations towards satisfying their disparate target markets in the society.

Citation

Gbadamosi, A. (2012), "Acculturation: An exploratory study of clothing consumption among Black African women in London (UK)", Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 16 No. 1, pp. 5-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/13612021211203005

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