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Innovations in fashion retailing and distribution
Edited by Stephen M. Wigley and Pammi Sinha
The trend is fuelled by more than pure economics. Vintage items contain elements of nostalgia. To those people who actually lived during the period in which the goods were manufactured, they often call back positive memories. More significant from a marketing viewpoint, for those who are not old enough to have experienced the actual decade in which their vintage product was created, vintage still recalls what they perceive as more prosperous times in our nation's history ([28] Iverson, 2010).
Introduction
Vintage fashion has emerged as a growing trend in the last ten years in Western cultures as well as developing nations. China, a country in which consumers dislike wearing someone else's used clothes, has embraced the trend with the opening of stores specialized in vintage pieces such as Mega Mega Vintage in Beijing's Dongcheng district. Following this consumer craze, several luxury brands such as Ralph Lauren have started hunting for vintage pieces and selling them in their flagship stores, side by side with their new collections. Also, benefitting from this trend, some second-hand retailers and thrift shops have renamed their stores "vintage", whatever the age and origin of their stock ([28] Iverson, 2010).
Yet, as the market for vintage develops, little is known about the profile of the consumer and the motivations to purchase vintage. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the unique characteristics of these consumers and offer a better understanding of the specific drivers towards vintage consumption. In particular, this research explores the reality (or lack of) of a number of assumptions related to vintage consumption, equating it to the consumption of used previously owned clothes by nostalgic prone, environmentally-friendly or value conscious consumers. We also compare vintage consumption to the purchasing of second-hand fashion. Although vintage pieces might be second-hand, we suggest that vintage purchases are determined by totally different drivers to those of second hand fashion purchases.
In the following sections, a definition of vintage is suggested and some possible antecedents to vintage consumption are tested, motivational drivers such as bargain and treasure hunting and psychological traits such as Fashion Involvement, Nostalgia Proneness, Need for Uniqueness, Need for Status, Eco-consciousness and Frugality. Next, the results...