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Keywords Fashion, Consumers, Young adults, Social change
Abstract Previous researches have considered that the impact of fashion change and fashion consumption is linear. Therefore, one reason was found as the ultimate source to explain why a fashion style/ trend was spread to the mass market. However, the existing market is complex and difficult to find out the holistic reason to explain fashion consumption. In this study, the chaotic perspective is taken into account to investigate the relationship between fashion change and fashion consumption. By using the grounded theory method, 33 in-depth interviews were conducted. A chaotic fashion consumption model is developed from the findings to explain how different fashions are consumed and rejected while fashion changes. It is found that the interaction of being fashionable, perceived fashionability and system participation affects the ultimate decision on fashion consumption. It is also found that a pattern can be traced to forecast the degree of fashion consumption even when the fashion change phenomenon is chaotic. Thus, it is similar to the principle of chaos theory that short-term prediction is possible in relation to the degree of fashion acceptance among consumers. Marketing implications are suggested with reference to the chaotic fashion consumption model.
Background
Fashion change can be viewed as planned obsolesence promoted by fashion retailers which aims at motivating consumers to buy new clothes continuously. There are different market segments and each of them has its own fashion trends. Among different segments, the young segment is the study target in most fashion consumption research (Goldsmith et al., 1996; King and Sproles, 1973; Kwon and Workman, 1996; Palegato and Wall, 1990; Workman and Kidd, 2000). This is because young consumers have the courage and interest to try on new innovations; and new fashion often starts with the young. However, behaviour of Western consumers may be different from that of Eastern consumers such as Chinese in significant ways. An example is the special situation of Hong Kong, which had been a colony of Great Britain for 100 years and is mixed with culture from both West and East. It has developed a particular culture which differs from Chinese societies in other places. This affects consumers through fashion consumption (defined as the actual purchasing of a fashion). In Hong Kong,...