Essay, 15 pages (4000 words)

How are people involved in fashion?

Subject: Others

Info

Published: September 22, 2022
Updated: September 22, 2022
Language: English
Downloads: 3

This research is attended to study fashion clothing involvement in public. How they look at fashion, how they adopt it and how they become involved with a new fashion trend by displaying it through their clothing sense. Many research papers were consulted for the literature review to get the idea what previous studies were regarding fashion and involvement and how can it be taken further. Fashion is an ambiguous concept which is measured through variables like involvement, shopping, sense of clothing, materialism, age, gender etc.

Statement Of Problem

In order to find out how people take fashion, how they show their involvement with it and how they manifest it with their clothing and what attributes they give to it, I have conducted this research with the help of research papers conducted on the related topics before me.

Research question

How people take fashion, how they show their involvement with it and how they manifest it with their clothing?

Research objectives

Trendy clothes are independent variable as they will depend on the fact that someone is fashionable or not. If I am fashionable my clothes are likely to be trendy. According to my research, this will happens most likely if I am adolescent, female, my conformity level is high i. e. I tend to adopt current trends and I spend relatively much amount of time in shopping. But this will not happen in case of low income level. Suppose I am fashionable and I want to keep trendy clothes but because of low income level I cannot afford it.

1-5 Significance of study

Trough this study we will come to know which attributes people give for adopting fashion and it will work as guidance for retailing cloth and starting new departmental shops of cloths.

1-6 Scope & Delimitation

Scope: This study was carried out at Bahria university Karachi campus. Study has statistical scope. A sample of respondents was taken by applying statistical tools. This study was generalized for the target respondents (students of Bahria University)

Delimitations

This study was conducted in Bahria University Karachi only.

Being a full time student, It was not possible to me to conduct in-depth

Study of all the people of Bahria university students those are adopting fashion faster and wearing trendy cloths.

If this research is compared with the research by someone professional who is expert in this field, there might be some mistakes and errors despite doing research with extensive care & meticulously.

Respondents were limited to Bahria university students and employees. .

1-7 Definitions

Fashion

It is a form of artistic expression to others, it is almost a religion.

But for many people it is methodical of apply clothing, hair to display or hide out something about yourself.

Trendy clothes

When models every season display new style of clothes on ramps known as trendy clothes . other companies and designers and brands shows these types of clothes.

Sample

A sample is a part of large similar set. It comprises some members selected from population. In other words some but not all elements of the population would form a sample.

Subject

A subject is a single member of the sample, just as an element is a single member of population.

Non-contrived setting

A study setting in which data is collected in the natural environment instead of lab setting for data collection.

Chapter 2 Research Method & Procedure

2-1 Research Design

2-1-1. Purpose of study

This study is descriptive in nature because we are aware of with the problem. This research is attended to study fashion clothing involvement in public. How they look at fashion, how they adopt it and how they become involved with a new fashion trend by displaying it through their clothing sense. Many research papers were consulted for the literature review to get the idea what previous studies were regarding fashion and involvement and how can it be taken further. Fashion is an ambiguous concept which is measured through variables like involvement, shopping, sense of clothing, materialism, age, gender etc.

2-1-2. Respondents of the study

Research on fashion clothing involvement was carried out by taking out a small sample of about 66 people from the huge population. This sampling is done so that cost is reduced, accuracy is achieved, and time constraints are overcome otherwise reaching to the whole population of a particular location or unit is unachievable and quite impossible as well which may also result in less reliable and less accurate information. The target population for this research was adults ranging from 15 years of age to 25 years. The location where it was conducted is Bahria university Karachi campus

A sample of 66 people has been taken.

2-1-3. Study Setting

We have conducted this study in non-contrived setting. it means study has carried out in the natural environment which is known as field study.

2-1-4. Sources of Data

Primary Sources: Main source of data in this study is primary data. was carried out by taking out a small sample of about 66 people from the huge population. The target population for this research was adults ranging from 15 years of age to 25 years. The location where it was conducted is Bahria university Karachi campus.

Secondary Sources: secondary data have been collected through theses sources like Internet, Newspaper and Articles Books.

2-1-5. Research Instruments

Primary Instruments

Questionnaires

Secondary Instruments

Internet

Newspapers

Articles

Books

Questionnaires played a very important role in the collection of data so we can say questionnaires research instruments.

2-1-6. Time Horizon

Here in this study time horizon is cross sectional because data was gathered once during the period of study and I am also doing job.

2-1-7. Unit of Analysis

In this study I have the requirement to get information and data from each and every subject of the sample; I have gathered data individually from every one so I can say in our study unit of analysis is individuals.

2-1-8 Treatment of Data

I have used (SPSS) for my analysis plan. It is statistical software which is used to help in conducting research, calculating means, frequencies and testing the hypothesis which can be done without the help of this software as well but will take lot of time. Thus, I have used this software to conduct my hypothesis testing. First, the questionnaire is feed by assigning values and labels to the variables then mean is computed and one sample t-test is found out, on the basis of which I have accepted or rejected my hypothesis.

Chapter 3 Review of Related Literature & Studies

LITERATURE REVIEW:

Fashion is the generally accepted style in the market or in the community or to put it at a larger scale in the whole country which sometimes crosses even the boundaries if similar culture is shared. Fashion is considered one of the attributes of the lifestyle of people therefore people of a society following a particular fashion represent the lifestyle of that society. Though fashion depicts the lifestyle of a society, it can be differently adopted in other societies due to many factors like income, awareness, degree of interest and adoption of many different styles in the market at the same time etc. But confronting modern changes almost every minute, fashion and lifestyles of societies keep changing.

Change is most likely to be prominent the moment fashion changes as fashion is the most visible media of change. Assume when checks surpass stripes and when alternate person begins wearing it, it is commonly used formula that “ it is in trend” that is why every person is going for it. As it is rightly put by King et al. (1979) who conceived or gestated the fashion change agent as a consumer who not just monitor the changing fashion trends but also keeps his/her wardrobe updated with the current fashion which displays their involvement with fashion clothing.

The degree to which fashion changes depends mainly on:

Combination of social trends

Individual needs to conform

Individual pressures from others

This suggests that change in fashion comes due to multiple reasons like the social trends in the market, how people are likely to yield to the growing fashion and how much they are willing to adopt fashion coming their way from others. This is because fashion and clothing both helps individuals to shape their self image and enhance their appearance.

This change in fashion proliferates through a process which includes different stages:

Change in clothing and appearance styles

Diffusion

Adoption

Decline

Thus, a fashion is first brought about by means of change in clothing and appearance styles then this change is spread mainly through communication and media then it is adopted which has its own process and then it finally fades away so that a new fashion takes its place and this how fashion keeps on changing.

Many theories have been proposed to encompass this fashion process. The trickledown theory states that the upper strata of the society usually serves as fashion leaders and whatever they do and wear becomes the fashion of that society. The mass market theory is of the view that media plays vital role in propagating the fashion and taking it down to the mainstream whereas the collective selection theory says that fashion was previously considered as the socializing agent and an epitome of social standard.

Many fashion retailers view this fashion change as planned obsolescence and therefore persuade consumers to keep buying clothes that are in fashion continuously without much gap because fashion keeps on changing hastily. According to them, there are different market segments and each segment has their own fashion trends and the most researchable segment is young segment as they are more prone to adopting new trends and innovations (Goldsmith et al., 1996; King and Sproles, 1973; Kwon and Workman, 1996; Palegato and Wall, 1990; Workman and Kidd, 2000).

There are various processes of fashion adoption. One of them propsed by Robertson which is divided into 3 stages:

Cognitive

Attitudinal

Behavioral

These 3 stages were allied with 4 feasible relations endorsed by “ significance and “ involvement” of public depicting either ‘ positive” or “ negative” reaction recommended by Cathelat 1998 at premier idea demonstration in Paris in the following ways:

POSITIVE INTEREST AND POSITIVE INVOLVEMENT

This Situation leads to change. Also called Conformity which simply means that people are not only interested in the current trends but are willing to be involved in it personally and will espouse it. Thus, we can call it a “ recognize” dress.

NEGATIVE INTEREST AND NEGATIVE INVOLVEMENT:

This is opposite to Conformity and is therefore named “ anti conformity” where people behave in opposite direction because the current trends not only interest them but they are also not willing to adopt it, therefore they simply resist it. We can label it an “ alternative” dress as people dress belligerently to the fashion to be evidence for they are poles apart and contesters.

POSITIVE INTEREST NEGATIVE INVOLVEMENT

Here, people are interested but not properly involved. They are aware of change but not really want to adopt it exactly the way it is. So they are conservative in their choices. As a consequence, it is called “ cover up’ and dress prospective “ break out” dress as they revamp resembling chameleon.

NEGATIVE INTEREST POSITIVE INVOLVEMENT

Here, people are not interested in new situations but engage them in change. They cleverly modify dominant trends so as not to conform too strongly. Therefore, we will call it “ adapt” dress as people modify it according to their own personal style to show their involvement.

Changes in fashion involve a blend of individual adoption at the social diffusion and micro level at the macro-level. These processes of personal adoption and social diffusion are driven by individualizing forces or conforming forces (Cholachatpinyo et al., 2002). At the macro-level of the general public, fashion is former adopted by fashion innovators, then by a mainstream of consumers and, lastly, by laggards (Rogers, 1983).

As Spores and Burns (1994) celebrated, the adoption of styles within a social organism is brought about by dealings and communication of a figurative nature among group members, which, in roll, produces fashion diffusion among small groups. In other words, we can put it this way that for a fashion to spread or clothing conformity requires some group dynamics which will help in circulating the ongoing trend through communication.

Such group dynamics can be called fashion norms, as one of the group norms, result from visual observation, verbal communication, and negotiations about meaning among group members (Kaiser, 1997). Once formulated, group norms (including fashion norms) are sustained through expectations of conformity by individuals who wish to acquire group approval.

Conventionality to group norms acting a vital role in take in acceptance among adolescents (Ryan, 1966; Harper et al., 2003). As adolescents experience dramatic personal change (physical, social, and intellectual), and as the relative importance of family diminishes and that of peers increases (Kelley and Eicher, 1970), adolescents feel significant pressure from their peers (Hamilton and Warder, 1966; Coleman, 1978). They thus seek their own culture within peer groups as they pursue personal recognition and security (Hamilton and Warder, 1966). Adolescents are therefore very concerned about social relationships, social adjustment, and social acceptability within their peer group (Kuhlen and Bretsch, 1947). During this process, they are especially fearful of peer rejection – reaching a peak at about fifteen years of age (Coleman, 1978). According to Ryan (1966), most adolescents obtain their ideas of what to wear from friends or schoolmates, and are very interested in the appearance of others. In summary, adolescents in small groups seek similar patterns of dress as a result of perceived peer-group pressure to share similarities in appearance (Smucker and Creekmore, 1972).

Fashion involvement is defined as the perceived personal relevance or interest from the consumer by fashion clothing (Engel et al., 2005). Park et al. (2006) found that consumer had been had positive effects by fashion involvement and its emotion attached impulse buying behavior and they can’t help for that kind of uncontrolled situation, with fashion involvement having the greatest effect.

The literature supports that a more fashion-involved consumer might feel more committed to buying fashion clothing (Amine, 1998; Iwasaki and Havitz, 1998, 2004).

by and large, the study explores the scrutiny that avariciousness, gender and age are central antecedents of consumer involvement in fashion clothing and that fashion clothing involvement is an antecedent to one-sided knowledge of fashion clothing. Thus, this paper proposes that patronage, time spent deciding and commitment are consequents of fashion involvement and that the fashion clothing involvement construct is a major mediator variable in this model.

Apparently fashion brands become more and more important as they act as signifiers symbolic of values, encompassing certain identities in creating community. Interaction between self and others within community is the virtual negotiation in shopping time. Chiefly brands endow with fashion commodities ranging from the a good number fashionable to the slightest in which to dole out different levels of have to, depending on the scale of fashion-consciousness in clientele. If one plays as a fashion leader, the most fashionable garments will be chosen and he/she is likely to spend much time shopping the desired clothes. Four unlike in nature culture based interesting claim. Tigert et al. (1980) stated lots of female fashion by public monitors on a regular way of bases new women ‘ s types of fashion . This substantiation might be a sign of that woman are further involved in fashion than men.

O’Cass (2000) proposes and tests 4 types of involvement, founding a scale for capacity:

1. Product involvement;

2. Purchase decision involvement;

3. Advertising involvement; and

4. Consumption involvement

We are more concerned about product development so we will discuss it briefly here that how is it linked with fashion clothing involvement. For instance, O’Cass (2001a) travels to penetrate in to the relationship between self-monitoring, philistinism and product involvement in fashion clothing. O’Cass (2001b) analyzed the impact of fashion clothing involvement on the growth of past experience of product knowledge skillfulness and trust. O’Cass (2004) proposed and tested a theoretical model, finding that fashion clothing involvement is significantly affected by a consumer’s degree of materialism, and that gender and age influence fashion clothing knowledge.

Furthermore, research has shown that strong feelings of pleasure related to possessions make people spend more time buying products (Browne and Kaldengerg, 1997). For some researchers, possessions may be understood as product involvement (Belk, 1985). Thus, it is supposed that fashion clothing involvement could be associated to time spent buying products.

Apart from the traditional thoughts, there are contemporary thoughts regarding fashion change and consumption. Behling (1985) argued that the median age of the population determines the upward or downward direction of the fashion process and that a change in disposable income can speed up or slow down the fashion process.

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

CAUSAL MODEL:

Age/ gender/ conformity level/ time spent in shopping

Trendy clothes <------------------------------------------------------------------------------> fashion

Income level

HYPOTHESIS:

According to my literature review I came up with the following hypothesis:

H1: FASHION AND AGE HAVE INDIRECT RELATIONSHIP

The study so far has suggested that when people grow older, they get busy with other things and priorities of their lives and their sense of fashion starts declining. They are then less concerned about keeping their wardrobe up to date with fashionable and trendy clothes.

H2: YOUNGSTERS ADOPT FASHION QUICKLY

Our study suggests quite strongly those youngsters are more yielding and readily conform to new fashion changes and trends. They have desire to look better and do what everyone else in the world of their age is doing so in order to register their involvement, they manifest it with the help of fashion especially through clothing involvement.

H3: WOMEN ARE MORE INVOLVED IN FASHION

Many previous studies have indicated fair amount of researches indicating that when it comes to fashion and clothing, women are almost always found involved. The best indicator is the amount of time they spend buying their fashionable clothes.

H5: FASHION AND TIME SPENT IN SHOPPING HAVE DIRECT RELATIONSHIP

Our study suggests that people who are involved in fashion or are present in any one of the stages of fashion process tend to go more often for shopping and they spend relatively greater amount of their time in shopping.

H6: PEOPLE VALUE THEIR FASHIONABLE CLOTHES AS THEIR POSSESSIONS

Our research indicates that when people are fashion conscious and they want to remain in fashion; they focus more on their clothes and belongings. Because they are fashionable and they follow current fashion trends, their clothes are also trendy and therefore, they value their clothes a lot.

H7: MEDIA IS A SOURCE OF FASHION CHANGE

When fashion changes, it is mostly depicted through media. As people follow their favorite celebs, they try to imitate what they are wearing so they also adopt it. Moreover, nowadays many fashion shows are organized by media channels where fashion designers promote their clothes and people try to follow them.

Chapter 4 Presentation of Data and Analysis

ANALYSIS:

MEANS:

H1: youngsters adopt fashion quickly

Case Processing Summary

Cases

Included

Excluded

Total

Percent

age * fashion_adopt_quickly

78. 1%

21. 9%

100. 0%

Report

age

fashion_adopt_quickly

Mean

Std. Deviation

SDA

1. 00

.

1. 00

. 000

NANDA

1. 00

. 000

1. 00

. 000

1. 00

. 000

Total

1. 00

. 000

H2: fashion and age have indirect relationship

Case Processing Summary

Cases

Included

Excluded

Total

Percent

age * fashion age

78. 1%

21. 9%

100. 0%

Report

age

fashion age

Mean

Std. Deviation

SDA

1. 00

. 000

1. 00

. 000

NANDA

1. 00

. 000

1. 00

. 000

Total

1. 00

. 000

H3: women are more involved in fashion

Case Processing Summary

Cases

Included

Excluded

Total

Percent

gender * follow_fashion_trends

78. 1%

21. 9%

100. 0%

Report

gender

follow_fashion_trends

Mean

Std. Deviation

1. 43

. 535

NANDA

1. 33

. 500

1. 55

. 510

1. 42

. 515

Total

1. 46

. 503

H4: income and fashion have indirect relationship

Case Processing Summary

Cases

Included

Excluded

Total

Percent

income * fashion_adopt_quickly

78. 1%

21. 9%

100. 0%

Report

income

fashion_adopt_quickly

Mean

Std. Deviation

SDA

2. 00

.

1. 07

. 267

NANDA

1. 36

. 674

2. 64

. 492

2. 00

. 000

Total

1. 88

. 849

H5: fashion and time spent in shopping have direct relationship

Case Processing Summary

Cases

Included

Excluded

Total

Percent

follow_fashion_trends * shopping

78. 1%

21. 9%

100. 0%

Report

follow_fashion_trends

shopping

Mean

Std. Deviation

SDA

4. 50

. 707

3. 67

. 577

NANDA

3. 73

1. 104

3. 68

1. 057

3. 87

. 915

Total

3. 78

. 975

H6: people value their fashionable clothes as their possessions

Case Processing Summary

Cases

Included

Excluded

Total

Percent

clothes trendy * value clothes

78. 1%

21. 9%

100. 0%

Report

clothes trendy

value clothes

Mean

Std. Deviation

SDA

4. 00

.

4. 00

1. 225

NANDA

3. 30

1. 059

3. 67

. 840

4. 12

. 719

Total

3. 78

. 910

H7: media is a source of fashion change

Case Processing Summary

Cases

Included

Excluded

Total

Percent

clothing_affected_by * fashion_adopt_quickly

78. 1%

21. 9%

100. 0%

Report

clothing_affected_by

fashion_adopt_quickly

Mean

Std. Deviation

SDA

3. 00

.

3. 86

1. 231

NANDA

3. 82

1. 079

3. 64

1. 002

4. 00

. 000

Total

3. 74

1. 046

INDEPENDENT SAMPLE T-TEST:

H1: youngsters adopt fashion quickly

One-Sample Statistics

Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

age

1. 00

. 000a

. 000

fashion_adopt_quickly

3. 20

. 969

. 137

A. t cannot be worked out because the standard deviation is 0.

One-Sample Test

Test Value = 3

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower

Upper

fashion_adopt_quickly

1. 460

. 151

. 200

-. 08

. 48

Here, we can see that significance 2-tailed value is 0. 151 and after converting it into significance 1-tail we get 0. 075 which is less than our alpha value 0. 1 so we will reject Ho which means our claim is valid that youngsters adopt fashion quickly.

H2: fashion and age have indirect relationship

One-Sample Statistics

Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

age

1. 00

. 000a

. 000

fashion age

3. 10

. 931

. 132

A. t cannot be worked out because the standard deviation is 0.

One-Sample Test

Test Value = 3

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower

Upper

fashion age

. 759

. 451

. 100

-. 16

. 36

Here, we can see that significance 2-tailed value is 0. 451 and after converting it into significance 1-tail we get 0. 2255 which is greater than our alpha value 0. 1 so we will accept Ho which means our claim is not valid and fashion does not have a direct and rigid relationship with age.

H3: women are more involved in fashion

One-Sample Statistics

Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

gender

1. 46

. 503

. 071

follow_fashion_trends

3. 78

. 975

. 138

Test Value = 3

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower

Upper

gender

-21. 629

. 000

-1. 540

-1. 68

-1. 40

follow_fashion_trends

5. 657

. 000

. 780

. 50

1. 06

Here, we can see that significance 2-tailed value of both the variables is 0. 000 and after converting it into significance 1-tail we get 0. 000 which is less than our alpha value 0. 1 so we will reject Ho which means our claim is valid that women are more involved in fashion.

H4: income and fashion have indirect relationship

One-Sample Statistics

Mean

Std. Deviation

Std. Error Mean

income

1. 88

. 849

. 120

fashion_adopt_quickly

3. 20

. 969

. 137

One-Sample Test

Test Value = 3

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean Difference

95% Confidence Interval of the Difference

Lower

Upper

income

-9. 333

. 000

-1. 120

-1. 36

-. 88

fashion_adopt_quickly

1. 460

. 151

. 200

-. 08

. 48

Here, we can see that sig