Fashion entails many sectors, products, categories, companies, and customers, though for most people, it relates mainly to apparel and its successive trends. Throughout history, different meanings have been assigned to clothes. First used mostly to protect the body, very quickly fashion took the lead over apparel functionalities, and people began to interpret and communicate through fashionable clothing items. For example, fashion appears in Occident during the 14th century with the supremacy of costumes, signaling social status. Then, its vast rise during the second part of the 19th century stemmed largely from industrialization and the development of many factories in various industries, the expansion of distribution channels, the creation of department stores, and the emergence of haute couture, as signaled by famous designers and brands such as Dior, Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, and Chanel. Today, fashion represents a powerful industry, generating trillions of dollars and employing millions of persons all over the world. It encompasses multiple products each season, which share mainly their short life cycles, volatility, and their means of communication.
Thus, fashion has become a means of expression for both shoppers and companies, which they use to convey their images and identity. Therefore, it goes beyond the products’ characteristics, in that it adds and brings value to its related apparel and accessories. When a shopper buys the latest shirt for this summer, he or she also buys the image and meaning that go along with it.
Yet the modern fashion industry confronts some recent changes too, such as globalization in the manufacturing process, the development of new distribution channels (e.g., fast fashion and online), more price sensitive shoppers, and ethical considerations. To address these changes, fashion managers must learn about, understand, and anticipate their customers’ behaviors, using marketing tools that help them react to, adjust, or revise their attractive fashion products so that they can encourage and stimulate customers’ desires and improve their financial performance. In particular, fashion firms must achieve fair prices for products with short life cycles, adjust creativity through successful business moves, and integrate new challenges. Therefore, to develop fashion marketing adapted to their target market, it is necessary to manage economic, sociological, and symbolic stakes concomitantly, while also handling new stakes regarding business and communication through online and social networks, as well as ensuring the development of ethical business practices.
In response, this book describes, in the first chapter, the importance of the fashion industry and fashion’s diffusion process along several trends and products each season. The second chapter details the influences, both symbolic and experiential, related to fashion. In the following chapters, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, the different elements of a fashion marketing mix such as product, cost and price, communication, and distribution are covered. Chapter 7 outlines the benefits related to fashion equity. Finally, this book closes with an explanation of the development of fashion loyalty and an investigation of ethical concerns and practices in fashion.
Throughout the book, I raise and address several questions:
• Why and how do fashion products appeal to consumers, despite their constantly varying attributes?
• What specific elements and benefits of fashion influence consumers, and how can companies exploit them?
• Which marketing strategies and tactics should companies use to increase fashion products’ success while communicating and managing customers’ images?
• How can companies maintain customers’ loyalty and generate higher profits with fashion products?
• How should fashion firms handle the development of e-business and the significant stakes of ethical trade?
Based on the latest research in fashion marketing, insights from fashion companies, best practices and examples, and interviews with fashion consumers, this book assists managers in leveraging the value that fashion adds to their products while creating loyal customers in the competitive fashion market.