Search results

The purpose of this study is to identify distinct segments of apparel shoppers based on their fashion shopping orientation. The difference among the segments based on mall attractive dimension is also examined.

The data were collected through mall intercept survey from the mall shoppers. Samples of 375 respondents are used for data analysis purpose. Exploratory factor analysis is used to extract the factors of fashion shopping orientation and mall attractive dimensions while K-means cluster analysis is applied to identify the segments.

This study resulted in three factors of fashion orientation of apparel shoppers, i.e. fashion involvement, variety seeking and economic value, and four factors of mall attractive dimensions: convenience, entertainment, atmosphere and architecture design. Based on these factors, this study came out with three distinct segments of fashion shoppers: pragmatic shoppers, variety seeking shoppers and highly fashioned shoppers. These three segments are attracted towards the mall dimension differently.

This paper presents the three distinct profiles of fashion shoppers based on their fashion shopping orientation and mall attractive dimensions. The findings of this study may help retailers and mall developers to target mall visitors appropriately.

The advent of media and technology has led to growing inclination among Generation Y (Gen-Y) consumers towards diverse fashion influences and they tend to dress either to fit in with their peers or to articulate self-identity and conform to the society. This trend has become a fashion dilemma and the purpose of this paper is to leverage on this matter by investigating the factors influencing the Gen-Y consumers’ attitude and purchase intention towards fashion apparel.

A sample of 250 respondents is used to assess the measurement and structural models, by applying a partial least squares-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach.

The results indicate that brand and self-identity are the factors that most shape Gen-Y consumers’ attitudes towards fashion apparel. Furthermore, brand, style, price, and social identity are the most influential factors of Gen-Y consumers’ purchase intention for fashion apparels. The findings also show that style, price, country of origin, and social identity are not relevant to Gen-Y consumers’ attitudes towards fashion apparel, and that country of origin and self-identity do not have any relationship with the Gen-Y consumers’ purchase intention.

This study is among the few attempts to investigate the Gen-Y consumers’ buying behaviour of fashion apparel based on the theory of planned behaviour, optimal distinctiveness theory, and social identity theory. PLS-multi-group analysis reveals that age, gender, and income are moderating variables of several proposed structural relationships.

The purpose of this study is to examine the reasons that Greek consumers purchase imported high fashion apparel over Greek designers high fashion apparel. The objective of the research is to detect the underlying factors that affect their purchasing behaviour.

Qualitative research was conducted through discussions with consumer focus groups, all purchasers of imported high fashion apparel. Quantitative research was undertaken by means of a questionnaire with 28 items referring to the reasons for purchasing imported high fashion apparel. The sample consisted of 200 high fashion consumers from the city of Larissa, Greece. Data analysis includes descriptive statistics, reliability, as well as factor analysis by principal component analysis with Varimax rotation.

Results indicate that the consumers perceive that the imported high fashion apparel have better aesthetics, a better line and are produced from quality textiles, compared to the domestic high fashion apparel. Four factors derived underpinned the purchasing reasons of imported high fashion apparel: “status and image”, “quality of the product”, “marketing reasons” and “in fashion”.

This research was exploratory in nature and employed a non‐probability sampling method. Future research should be carried out to confirm the findings of the current study.

This study provides a useful source of information, which can be used by Greek high fashion apparel designers regarding the reasons why Greek customers of high fashion apparel purchase imported over domestic ones. This paper suggests which elements Greek designers of high fashion apparel should focus upon in order to gain a larger market share.

This study is important in terms that it is the first one to explore the reasons for purchasing imported high fashion apparel over domestic ones in Greece. It highlights 28 reasons (items) derived from qualitative research. In addition it suggests appropriate quality and marketing actions to be undertaken by Greek high fashion apparel designers.

The purpose of this paper is to reconfigure a new component of dynamic capabilities across firms, and to summarize propositions and to construct a conceptual framework of the dynamic capabilities in fashion apparel industry.

The author used the interviews with the industry experts and trade association executives to develop an understanding of the strategic and technological issues facing the industry and to gain a historical perspective on the evolution of the industry.

This study explored the establishment of dynamic capability and market competitiveness in the fashion apparel industry from the perspectives of dynamic capability and resources embedment, and brought out the insight that commonalities/component has been overlooked. The “conceptual framework of dynamic capabilities in fashion apparel industry” developed by this study, which consists of the major key factors for the maintenance of fast fashion apparel industry in market competitive advantage.

Although the five top fashion apparel groups interviewed in this study are representative, there are limits in classification of other brands, which is one of the limitations in this study. Second, although qualitative research can achieve understanding of the utmost layer of situations, its greatest limitation is that it cannot investigate massive amount of interviewees, which is a second limitation in this study.

The theoretical contribution of the study is to construct a conceptual framework of dynamic capabilities in the fashion apparel industry using eight theoretical propositions. Such conceptual framework will become a basic knowledge system for firms in the fashion apparel industry to develop strategic directions, as well as an important knowledge reference to other firms when choosing what to establish as their core competences.

This study aims to examine cosmopolitanism, global social identity, green peer and social media on green apparel knowledge and sustainable fashion perception. Further, it explored the mediating effect of green apparel knowledge and sustainable fashion perception on behavioral intentions and electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM).

Data was collected through a mall intercept method across five cities adjoining the national capital region in India.

The results indicated that social identification with online (social media) and offline (cosmopolitanism, global self-identity and green peer influence) groups predicted Indian consumers’ perception of sustainable fashion, behavioral intentions and eWOM.

A better discernment between social identity versus self-identity and social media influence versus peer influence may be considered in future studies.

Sustainable fashion designers can use social media to create awareness and promote sustainable apparel. The information about novelty, design and style attributes of sustainable fashion can help overcome the skepticism regarding sustainable clothing.

This study extends the earlier research on online and offline influences by examining their role on green apparel perception, purchase and eWOM.

Developing countries engaged in apparel value chain are going global, seeking opportunities to upgrade the industry through providing higher value-added products and services. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how Sri Lankan apparel industry designers interact with the western fashion world in the apparel value chain process, and how they acquire, adapt and apply the knowledge needed to develop high-value fashion products in their fashion design practice.

The study adopts a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews conducted with fashion design and product development professionals in the Sri Lankan apparel industry. An inductive thematic analysis is used in identifying participants’ experience of the western fashion world within their fashion design practice.

The study proposes a “fashion knowledge bridge” illustrating the ways in which Sri Lankan designers acquire and merge high-value fashion consumer culture and lifestyle knowledge with the manufacturing industry, through multisensory and virtual experience, termed “exposure”, in their interactions with the western fashion world as well as the manufacturing culture of the Sri Lankan apparel industry. Designers’ exposure improves the feasibility and reliability of their apparel products, aligning to the end-consumer needs. The study also proposes a “designers’ exposure framework” that illustrates gains made by the Sri Lankan apparel industry resulting from knowledge enhancement through the designers’ exposure.

The study is based on a qualitative methodology that has potential subjective biases on the part of the researchers; in this case only the Sri Lankan designers’ perspectives were used in synthesising the findings.

The findings propose frameworks with theoretical and managerial implications for developing designers’ capabilities in apparel manufacturing countries that seek industrial upgrading through value-added fashion design practice.

This study investigates if females fashion leaders and fashion followers differ in their attitudes toward buying imported and domestic apparel products. A sample of 283 female consumers between 18 and 25 years of age completed a mailed questionnaire. Repeated measures analysis of variance and t‐tests were performed to determine if differences exist between fashion followers and leaders regarding their attitudes toward buying domestic and imported apparel. Results showed that fashion followers have the same overall attitude toward buying American or imported apparel. However, fashion leaders have a more positive attitude toward buying imported apparel than buying domestic apparel. In addition, fashion followers and fashion leaders have similar attitudes toward buying American apparel, but fashion leaders have a significantly more positive attitude than followers toward buying imported apparel.

The authors investigated the role of cultural (i.e. traditional and religious) values in predicting the relationships between the attitudes toward the environment and slow fashion and the purchase intention for sustainable apparel.

An online survey was conducted in Amazon Mechanical Turk with the millennials of the US (n = 317). The data were analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM).

The connection with indigenous cultural values in terms of the (1) traditional values positively influenced attitudes toward the environment and slow fashion; (2) religious values positively influenced attitude toward slow fashion but did not influence attitude toward the environment. (3) Both attitudes towards environment and slow fashion positively influenced purchase intention for sustainable apparel. (4) The connection with cultural values did not influence purchase intention toward sustainable apparel directly; however, (5) attitude toward slow fashion mediated the relationship between connection with cultural values and purchase intention for sustainable apparel both in terms of traditional and religious values, and (6) attitude toward the environment mediated the relationship between connection with traditional values and purchase intention for sustainable apparel.

Instead of focusing only on pro-environmental messages, marketers should use culture-specific cues to evoke favorable attitudinal and behavioral responses toward sustainable apparel.

Advertisement cues of sustainable apparel imbuing the target market's cultural values could help in protecting culturally significant elements of nature in the long-term by evoking positive attitudes toward the environment and slow fashion and encouraging purchase intention for sustainable apparel in the short-term.

The authors indicated the importance of indigenous cultural values in shaping favorable attitudes toward the environment and slow fashion and purchase intention for sustainable apparel.

The objective of the research is to characterize various key factors affecting apparel design and product quality.

In the fulfillment of the objective, the Delphi method and a survey questionnaire were used to collect related materials. This was followed by descriptive statistics, reliability, and factor analysis in order to set up the “house of quality” using the method of quality function deployment.

The factors that were found to affect the quality of apparel design were fashion sensitivity, ability of material application, colour sensitivity, fashion trend, fashion market positioning, and management. Fashion style, cloth quality, cutting quality, discount, and personal favourites were the key factors affecting consumers when choosing apparel. Keen observation ability, marketing analysis, and market development were very important for designing and producing high value‐added products.

The survey was conducted in Taiwan, which perhaps limits the usefulness of the findings elsewhere.

The article may assist apparel designers to understand the requirements of consumers of fashion products.

Apparel design rules have been formulated in Taiwan using the method of quality function development to assist apparel designers to improve design quality and production performance.

To identify dimensions of evaluative criteria used when purchasing casual apparel and casual home furnishings and to determine which evaluative criteria served as predictors of brand extension purchase behavior of these products.

A mailed self‐administered survey sent to a randomized sample of 739 female consumers residing in three metropolitan areas in a southwest state in the USA resulted in a response rate of 32.7 percent. Purchase frequency of 15 brands that extended across apparel and home furnishings and the importance of 17 evaluative criteria were measured using 7‐point Likert‐type scales. Principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation and path analysis using LISREL 8 were performed.

Image, quality, color/style, and design/beauty of fashion products are important criteria when purchasing extended brands of casual apparel and home furnishings. Image of fashion products was the strongest predictor when brands were extended from apparel to home furnishings products.

This study was limited to female consumers living in urban areas in one state in the USA and to casual apparel and home furnishings fashion product categories.

Suggests retailers focus on brand or store image when extending brand from apparel to home furnishings and merchandise multiple product categories to increase sales across product categories.

Little research on brand extension of fashion products exists yet this is a growing strategic area of fashion product development and merchandising. This study addresses the need to examine consumer behavior associated with fashion brand extension.