CHAPTER 1

Fashion as the Empire of Seduction

Fashion managers handle daily design, merchandising, distribution, promotion, and sales of ephemeral products to first seduce fashion shoppers and thereby generate greater profitability. Some of these concepts related to fashion seem to fall in opposition though. In fact, how can firms elicit high profits when they must introduce and deal with products that change every week or month? The fashion industry actually leverages this opposition constantly to develop its business beyond sequential changes.

Developing the Business of the Ephemeral

Fashion may be ubiquitous, but can anyone really appreciate its power? We first must ask ourselves what fashion represents. For most people, the term fashion designates clothes, but fashion also applies to a broad range of product categories, including mobile phones, cars, house decor, toys, music, and so on. Consider toys as an example: Pokemon and all of its related materials were really crucial for children some years ago, but when all kinds of spinning tops entered the market, no one was trading Pokemon cards anymore. Similar trends are seen in music, vacation destinations, and cooking; in France, for example, foods served in glasses are very fashionable nowadays, whereas in the United States, fancy cupcakes are available seemingly on every corner. As Coco Chanel realized, “Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”1

By acknowledging that fashion does not apply only to clothes, we can recognize how it intrigues many people and surrounds us in our daily lives. However, to provide specific insights, I focus on fashion apparel and accessories. Fashion apparel consists of clothes for women, men, and children and accessories embody several product categories, such as shoes, glasses, hats, gloves, scarves, ties, belts, bags, jewelry, and watches. Together, fashion apparel and accessories account for an impressive proportion of global economic sectors. Just the textile and clothing sector was valued at $1.7 trillion in 2012; figures for 2010, adding footwear and luxury goods, suggest its value reached $2.5 trillion.2 These data indicate that the fashion market represents one of the largest industries worldwide.

Even during the global economic crisis, clothing and footwear markets suffered less in Europe and the United States than did other imported industrial supplies.3 The reason might be that whereas the economic crisis and globalization are often linked with the saturation of supply or demand, fashion retains its enviable top position in developing economic sectors. Fashion supply does not seem to fade, and fashion demand remains high. On average, a European shopper buys apparel nine times per year. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, American households spent an average of $1,700 each on apparel and accessories in 2010: $562 for women’s apparel, $304 for men, and $270 for children, with the remainder spent on footwear and accessories.4 Thus, fashion products account for a significant portion of individual budgets, which fashion company can access—suggesting that the fashion market has great opportunities for continued growth.

In this industry, women’s wear leads the fashion market, as shown in Table 1.1 (figures expected for 2014).5 Many women are always eager to have the latest designs in apparel and accessories. Fashion offers a means of expression for fashionable female shoppers, who constantly follow new trends to stay as fashionable as possible. Fashion apparel and accessories are part of their monthly budget. In fact, women represent 44 percent of the world clothing market, followed by men with 28 percent.

However, some new consumers may offer new growth levers in this business of the ephemeral, such that men, teenagers, and seniors who represent challenging and promising targets for the expansion of fashion markets.

In particular, modern men increasingly participate in fashion today by pursuing more and more fashion trends. They have become more aware of the importance and impact of their looks; according to Calvin Klein, “there has been a change in men’s attitudes toward their clothes. Men are more aware of fashion; they’re not afraid of it.”6 This increased consciousness of their apparel has led men to invest more financially and expand the variety of their wardrobe. In 2011, men’s apparel sales increased by 6.5 percent in the United States.7 In addition, their consumer behavior increasingly matches women’s. Men take greater care with their appearance and adopt more changes in their wardrobes. They appear to enjoy the changes in fashion rather than buying several identical shirts or suits just to meet their functional needs. They now seek the variety and novelty that go with fashion seasons and collection changes. Like women, men are aware of the impact of their fashion choices on their looks and their image, as conveyed in their social environment.

To leverage these new behaviors, brands and retailers design and offer specific fashion lines for men. For example, Mango created in 2008 an urban casual line for men, “HE by Mango,” which referred to Homini Emerito, “man who enjoys a reward due to its merits.” After some struggles in the mid-1990s, this line is now successful. Hence, this retailer decided to target and develop this brand for fashion-conscious men, through 117 stores in 17 countries. Another fashion retailer, Massimo Dutti, started designing fashion apparel for men in 1985 and began operating in the women’s fashion sector 10 years later. These retailers understood early the importance of this market opportunity.

But in the past, before this repositioning in men fashion design and retail market, men had relatively limited apparel choices. Their choices were steered toward classical lines or upscale designers’ collections. The image of men as fashionable shoppers arose largely at the end of the 1990s, surrounding the new concept of metrosexuals—young men with high income, living in big cities, and looking to take care of themselves in the realms of sport, cosmetics, and fashion. The English soccer player David Beckham and the actor Brad Pitt are celebrities commonly associated with this image of fashionable men. According to Michael Flocker, “The new breed of men is one of style, sophistication and self-awareness. He is just as strong and confident as his predecessor, but far more diverse in his interests, his tastes and most importantly in his self-perception. . . . Never slaves to fashion or victims of their public image, these men simply understood the power of images they were projecting and they knew how to play the game.”8

In response to this new demand, a men’s cosmetics market emerged in the early 2000s, along with many fashion apparel and accessory collections from haute couture to fast fashion. This concept has now extended to a vast group of men, spanning different age categories and different income levels. The fast-fashion market, as we discuss in Chapter 6, contributes to the accessibility of fashion apparel and accessories by offering affordable price ranges to more fashion conscious men.

Teenagers are another interesting target customers for fashion firms, especially as their spending power for fashion products has increased constantly: They spend an average of $135 monthly on apparel and accessories in France, and in the United States, their yearly clothing expenditures are estimated to account for approximately 6 percent of the household budget.9 Fashion is a critical means of expression for these young consumers, who are in the process of defining their identities. They are strongly influenced by their peers, who guide their fashion choices, look, and self-appreciation. In the process of finding their identities and positions in their social environment, teenaged consumers often fear the judgment of their groups, leading them to follow fashion trends approved by their peers. In this sense, they are sensitive to fashion changes that signal their continued inclusion in a group they choose to belong to. Following fashion trends is similar to following group norms, reassuring them in their search for identity and social status.

Retailers again have recognized the potential profitability of these young shoppers and adapted their assortments accordingly. Teenagers do not have to fit either children’s collections or adult ones anymore. Instead, they have their own dedicated teen, youth, or junior collections in most stores, such as Kohl’s and Macy’s, which dedicate space in their stores for junior collections of apparel and accessories. Even the United States off-price retailer TJMaxx has a juniors apparel selection. Some brands also choose to extend their sizes charts to reach these young customers. Thus, the smallest size offered by Gap and Aeropostale collections is XXS, and Abercrombie and Fitch and Hollister begin their assortments with a size double zero. Because teenagers represent such promising new business opportunities for fashion companies, managers rely on specific strategies to attract them, from youth collections to size charts, as well as large choices of accessories (jewelry, belt, hat, and shoe) and perfumes offered at affordable prices.

On the other end, seniors are also becoming a demographic and economic fashion consumers group who perform a major role in the expansion of the fashion market. Many of today’s seniors (defined as consumers older than 50 years) are wealthier, healthier, and more concerned with their appearance. They remain socially active and look for fashionable clothes. They also pay close attention to their looks and use fashion products to maintain an image of youth. By staying up-to-date, they can establish and maintain a younger image of themselves; they use fashion apparel and accessories to communicate that they are still “in.” Fashion managers thus have come to realize that reaching a certain age does not mean that people stop being interested in fashion. Because seniors are still eager to wear fashionable apparel, the market has become more and more compelling for fashion companies, especially considering the size of the senior market, its continued growth, and the high level of disposable income of these customers. Liz Claiborne and Levi Strauss are two examples of brands that actively seek to appeal to this customer segment with specific apparel lines. They create indeed specific fashion products to attract these shoppers. Similarly, some retailers have developed new assortments and customer services for this market segment. In fact, Sears’ Mature Outlook Club offers products, services, and discounts to suit seniors searching for new looks. Therefore, this lucrative market represents a key target for fashion companies, contributing increasingly to the growth of this business of the ephemeral.

To appeal to these emerging target markets, fashion companies must be truly responsive and create more diversified designs and selections that reflect the new customers’ expectations. The combination of diverse customers creates a very challenging situation for managers who must deal with different customers’ expectations and product categories with varying trends and designs each season. In particular, fashion managers confront and have to oversee greater product variety, more informed consumers, worldwide markets, and increasing competition. Multiple customer profiles seek fashion trends, and multiple countries produce fashionable items to satisfy them. Rather than a national industry, with nationally produced textiles transformed in apparel by national employees of a national brand for national customers, fashion is worldwide and present everywhere, all year long. What we find in Paris today might be the next trend in New York, or in Tokyo tomorrow or vice versa. This empire of seduction proves to be a crucial actor in world trade, such that companies can leverage the worldwide trade of ephemeral products to gain higher profits.

Hence, the fashion industry involves many countries across the world, whether as consumers of fashion items, manufacturers, suppliers, or all of these roles. A single shirt may require the work of manufacturers in many different countries, from fabric production to sewing. Have you ever thought of the journey your favorite pants or shirts had before reaching your closet? In fact, our wardrobes include many imported items from all over the world. As a result of this worldwide trade, some countries have achieved national growth through the fashion business; for others, their trade has been restrained by quotas imposed by developed countries. Quotas had an important impact on fashion trades. Hence, they arose in the 1960s, with the imposition of the Long Term Arrangement regarding International Trade in Cotton Textiles and Substitutes. It has been elaborated to protect developed countries from competition by less expensive products from developing countries. Many other agreements also affect this competitive industry, so though the quota system has been phased out, it has contributed to create an unbalanced growth in developing countries. Thus, some countries such as China and India enjoy trade superiority and strong exports to developed nations, whereas others such as Lesotho suffer weaker market balances, and still others have lost market share in this competitive industry, such as Hong Kong, Thailand, Morocco, and Mexico.

Throughout this powerful industry, a vast number of daily transactions involve both developed and developing countries. Among these worldwide fashion trades, the main fashion importers are in Europe, the United States, and Japan, accounting for more than 75 percent of world clothing imports ($178 billion for Europe, $82 billion for the United States, and $26 billion for Japan). Total world clothing imports reached $376 billion in 2008, according to the World Bank report for 2010. Concurrently, global apparel exports were worth $410 billion in 2011.10 Among exporters, China holds first place, with 42 percent of total exports, followed by Europe with 32 percent in 2011. Other countries are becoming more relevant with rising numbers of items produced and stronger competitiveness, due to their low manufacturing costs. Bangladesh, for example, has greatly developed its apparel production and exports to different occidental countries. Table 1.2 lists the amount of exports by country in 2012.

To produce more apparel and accessories and satisfy eager fashion shoppers, this industry requires many workers. Fashion clothing is indeed a labor-intensive industry. However, in the past two decades, worldwide employment distributions in the textile, clothing, and footwear industries has changed, such that countries in Europe and North America have lost employment, whereas developing countries in Asia have gained many jobs in this global industry. Most apparel and accessories production and employment has shifted from developed countries, which have become mostly importers, to developing countries, which manufacture items for many countries around the world.

In terms of production and trade, regardless of the employment distribution, the apparel and accessory industries still represent an important employer worldwide. For developing countries, the fashion industry often offers a catalyst for national development, and can even be considered as the main starter due to its low manufacturing costs, favorable trade balances, and access to the many workers needed to create fashion apparel and accessories. It thus enables on one hand the production of fashion items for developed countries and, on the other hand, the employment of many workers in developing countries.

As Figure 1.1 shows, the largest employer by far is China, with 15 million people employed in 2011 according to China’s Textile and Clothing Industry Report.11 Even as employment rates in the apparel and textile industry have decreased due to more efficient equipment, this industry still provides substantial employment opportunities in developing countries.

Figure 1.1 Employment per country in 2011 (millions of people)

In those countries, most of the workforce is young, female, and with limited education. The common skill level in this industry is low, though some countries require, nowadays, more advanced skills from their workforce to respond to developed country consumers’ demands for more sophisticated production and to support new functions, such as logistics. Hence, developed countries require improved skills among the fashion labor forces and developing countries thus commit to providing them, to stay competitive and attract new orders from international brands. The overall workforce in this sector included more than 26 million people in 2000.12 The next figure presents countries that employ most people in this industry.

In these developing countries, employment in the fashion industry mainly involves manufacturing jobs; in the most developed countries though, retailing prevails. For example, the United States continues to be an important textile producer, especially of cotton, but most of its labor force works in retailing, including 4 million people in 2011 (3 million in the apparel industry and 1 million in the footwear industry).13

These data regarding exports, imports, and employment emphasize the worldwide importance of the fashion industry. It represents a real and powerful economic sector, with strategic developments worldwide. It also offers a means to gain and maintain power. Managers may be aware of its strength in trade terms, but they also must realize who grants fashion its power: fashionable customers! Fashion rests on its diffusion to a large number of customers.

Handling Fashion Diffusion Process

Fashion diffusion has gone through several different stages in its history. For centuries, all clothes were tailor-made, such that customers could choose fabrics, ascertain a design, and all other details for the garment, then sew the items themselves or have a designer create a single piece of clothing. The wealthiest members of the society determined the fashion, and their garment could be then replicated by or for other customers keen to imitate these wealthier people.

Various studies have sought to explain the evolution in the process of fashion diffusion, though two theories are prominent: Veblen’s theory of the leisure class and Simmel’s model. Both theories explain fashion adoption as a sequential imitation process of adoption by social classes. According to both Veblen and Simmel, fashion spreads through the highest social classes first, then to lower classes. The desire to be viewed as wealthy or equivalent to the higher economic class justifies this imitation. Clothing offers visual evidence of a person’s social position, such that it encourages imitation. To be perceived as rich or a member of the highest strata in a social environment, a person purchases imitative apparel. However, when the majority of customers start to adopt this product, wealthier consumers begin to avoid it and look for new trends. The elite do not want to be identified with a lower social class but instead prefer to be differentiated.

According to these theories, a person self-identifies through emulation of the wealthiest people, using fashion. In this sense, fashion involves more and more customers adopting the same clothing, which has been recognized as fashionable. As Simmel puts it, “The elite initiates a fashion and, when the mass imitates it in an effort to obliterate the external distinctions of class, abandons it for a newer mode.”14

Another theory also can illustrate this spreading diffusion. In fact, Grindereng explains fashion diffusion through a process of flows.15 Gradually, fashion trends become known and recognized, before finally reaching almost everyone. Depicted as an avalanche or flow, fashion appears similar to a contagion, which requires adoption and diffusion dynamics. George Bernard Shaw, the famous Irish author and Nobel Prize winner for literature, thus offers a comparison: “a fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.”16

Another approach of fashion diffusion consists of addressing unnecessary changes to apparel. For Barthes, for example, the fashion adoption process relates to wear and tear and purchase, so he explains fashion by different rhythms that define the product adoption process.17 A consumer usually buys a new clothing item because a previous version suffered damage through use; however, this path obviously is not the one followed by fashion. Instead, Barthes classifies specific clothing paces to define the existence of fashion. He notes two main rhythms for clothes: wear and tear (w), which represents the natural time to renew clothing, and a purchase rhythm (p), related to the period of time between two purchases of the same kind of clothing. As he explains:

• If w = p, clothing is bought as often as it suffers wear and tear, so clothes just renew damaged or used items. There is no fashion.

• If w > p, clothing is not renewed even if there is wear and tear. People keep their old clothes.

   There is impoverishment.

• If p > w, clothing is renewed even if there is no wear and tear. There is fashion.

The concept of wear and tear thus does not relate to customers’ pursuit for fashion. Fashion instead influences people by its style changes; new trends stimulate fashion shoppers’ desires and reinforce their need to purchase new apparel and accessories.

These fashion diffusion explanations through social class and wear to tear also provoke criticisms though. Nowadays, more modern views of fashion acknowledge that it pertains to everyone and can have varying origins. New trends might come from athletes, as originated by Converse’s inspirations from the basketball player Chuck Taylor in 1918 and the badminton player Jack Purcell in 1935. The shoes that these athletes wore in their sport activities encouraged and then participated to the development of this brand as a fashionable one, such that even today, average customers and celebrities continue to wear similar shoe styles. In addition, punk fashion emerged from street styles and music groups, but it became a real fashion trend when Vivienne Westwood began appropriating the look in her apparel and accessories collections, which made punk style fashionable in the 1980s. This type of fashion diffusion contradicts Coco Chanel’s quote: “I like fashion to go down to the street, but I can’t accept that it should originate there.”18 In modern fashion, the street level is often the origin.

Some fashion trends even start unintentionally. Workers wearing distressed blue jeans with holes, t-shirts faded through their work and environmental conditions, and worn or paint-spattered clothing have inspired designers. The look has been adapted and sold by international brands such as Gap, Abercrombie and Fitch, and even Polo Ralph Lauren. This fashionable trend reaches virtually every social group.

Trigg confirms this direction in a study of “jeans development.”19 People from widely varied walks of life, from regular laborers to top managers, wear jeans to work. Due to this success, jeans have become linear, accessible to every social class all over the world. This product example reveals that fashion is no longer dictated by social class. Yet, imitation still exists in fashion, but the references have changed. In fact, customers choose someone they want to look like, such as a fashion model, celebrity, friend, or sibling. Such mimicry is not based solely on wealth but rather on identity and fashion trends.

Furthermore, fashion changes every season, regardless of the sources of diffusion, and now other theories arise to explain this diffusion. The theory of planned obsolescence seeks to explain the resulting diffusion, by noting that managers purposefully design products with limited life spans, to prompt customers to buy new ones every time a new trend appears. This planned obsolescence causes customers to feel out of date if they choose to keep their old apparel, and so force them to consider to buy the latest design to stay fashionable. For fashion companies, this tactic helps them stimulate more sales and profits and encourages consumers to buy more frequently. Regular, intense new product creation by fashion companies reinforces customers’ desire to have the latest fashions and remain continuously up-to-date. The obsolescence is sustained by regular launches of new designs. Through this continuous renewal, fashion also benefits customers, who can modify their self-image by adopting new fashion products.

In the ready-to-wear fashion market, companies interact with two main actors: designers and customers. The designer initiates the trend and creates the latest design; customers decide whether they like it. Fashion companies thus must acknowledge customers’ power. In fact, if customers refuse a designer’s creation, no adoption occurs, which means no diffusion, no fashion, and no profit! The democratization of fashion emphasizes the influence of customers in the fashion success process.

Fashion exhibits both regular and temporary cycles. Every season, new products appear and then disappear; fashion depends on these regular and constant flows. The ephemeral creations have short life spans that repeat. A new trend replaces the previous one, which quickly fades and becomes up-to-date. Therefore, the existence of fashion requires this continuity of change. It is not product specificities or functionalities that matter to customers; rather, what is important is that the product can be recognized as fashionable by their social peers. Despite changes in styles, colors, fabrics, and designs from season to season, fashion persists over time. Themes, trends, looks, and products change, fashion—as the continuous adoption of ephemeral products—remains.

Regardless of the explanation of the diffusion process we use, fashion is inherently a collective phenomenon that implies adoption by a large number of persons. Fashion success is determined by greater acceptance.

Fashion involves different trends that emerge, grow, and disappear. A fashion lifecycle following successive stages in its diffusion encompasses different groups of customers. Fashion evolves through four main steps:

• Introduction and adoption by a limited number of persons. The new design is launched, but at this stage only fashionistas and opinion leaders have heard of it. These few consumers adopt these fashionable products.

• Acceptance by a larger number. More shoppers become aware of this new trend and want to adopt it to be as fashionable as the opinion leaders.

• General conformity to the trend. The new design spreads to almost everyone who is fashion conscious; to be fashionable in this stage means conforming with others.

• Decline in consumption. Fashion trend declines, fashion shoppers start looking for something new and, more exciting, which restarts the fashion cycle.20

These stages offer insights into fashion companies that plan to launch new trends with their collections. Fashion managers must plan their deliveries with knowledge of which phase of the cycle marks their products. Then they know when to offer fashion shoppers a new trend, just as the previous one is fading. Retailers rarely receive their entire fashion collection at the same time; instead, they stagger deliveries to follow different trends. When a product reaches the conformity stage, they start to introduce new products to constantly stimulate their fashionable shoppers and initiate new cycles. The different stages also inform merchandise display decisions. A confusing display with too many trends mixed in together can lead to consumer indecisiveness, because shoppers do not know which one is fashionable. If managers introduce different trends in accordance with the fashion product cycle though, they can stimulate shoppers to view new trends sequentially. For customers, it is more attractive to find different fashion trends clearly displayed in their favorite stores, which helps them develop ideas and provokes desires. Thus retailers often advertise their new collections with signage at the entrance of their stores, to attract eager shoppers who seek the latest fashion trends to stay fashionable.

The sequential stages also suggest that fashion companies should manage their inventory quantities carefully, so they are not left with too much out-of-style merchandise at the end of a season and ensure good inventory turnover. Zara produces just enough of a new design to test customers’ reactions; if they like it, the company produces and ships these items to their different stores. Zara clerks can reorder hot products in less than an hour.21 The short life cycles that characterize fashion apparel and accessories thus influence company management and trend optimization.

Moreover, fashion managers should anticipate competitive collections, as the same time as they schedule the deliveries of their own new trends. Thus, a critical goal for any fashion company is to be the first to stock its racks with the most fashionable new jeans style, for example.

Monitoring bestsellers, deliveries, reorders, and competitors should take place simultaneously with decisions about promotion policy. Fashion managers must schedule their promotions to attract shoppers, stay competitive, and reduce their stocks. It may be worthwhile for a company to offer discounts on products that do not sell well at the beginning of the season, to avoid high inventory levels and costs for the rest of the season. Such an early promotion even might attract fashionable customers who are also more price sensitive. Although fashion customers would not buy a fashion swimsuit at the end of the summer, knowing that it will not be the same fashionable trend next summer, they might purchase this item if it reaches a sufficiently low price during the summer season. Such considerations are critical to managers’ decisions over the course of fashion cycles.

It remains challenging for these managers to address all these factors—flows of fashion merchandise, deliveries, inventory, competitors, and promotions—together. In turn, many fashion categories of apparels and accessories get managed closely at product levels because in the same products category one swimsuit might represent the best sale of the week, whereas another model might not have registered any sales yet. Fashion managers often monitor sales systems automatically, generating lists of the best and worst sales for each day, product, color, and store. Thus, they can monitor the sales and react quickly and achieve better profitability.

In parallel with fashion managers, the diffusion process and stages affect other actors too, the adopters. According to many researches, fashion adopters can be classified into multiple groups, such as opinion leaders, early adopters, early and late majority, often gathered together and laggards. The evolution of those fashion customers appears symmetric with the evolution of fashion diffusion cycles, such that we can compare customers groups to fashion diffusion stages, as illustrated in Figure 1.2.

Figure 1.2 Evolution of fashion customers and fashion cycles

Opinion leaders and early adopters are the most important consumers, in terms of numbers, during the introduction and adoption phases. The early and late majority then emerge in the acceptance and conformity phases. Laggards are present mainly during the decline phase. Although the different actors follow the same pattern as fashion products, we also need to consider their influences on others during the general cycle of fashion diffusion. We focus on two main categories: opinion leaders and followers.

The introduction and first adoption stages mainly involve opinion leaders, who are eager to be the first to own the latest fashion apparel. By acquiring prior knowledge about new trends, they gain influence over other fashion shoppers. Their power and influence result from their prior adoptions and their ability to share information about what is fashionable or the must have this season. We define an opinion leader as a person who exerts significant influence over a group, such that others seek information and accept advice from him or her. Because the opinion leader is aware of the latest trends and owns the latest fashion apparel or accessories, he or she gains legitimacy and a special position among others as a fashion reference, with social power in the social environment. In this sense, the opinion leader serves a role similar to higher economic classes in Simmel’s model: This actor reveals to others what is fashionable by adopting the new design, but as soon as it gets imitated, he or she abandons this design and looks for newer ones. He or she seeks to maintain leadership and does not want to be confused with mass consumers. According to Reynolds and Darden, three main variables effectively define such an actor:

• Interest in fashion. People interested in fashion look for and transmit in the same time information about fashion novelties.

• Research of information. To gather information, this actor reviews a lot of media and is active in a quest to acquire knowledge about new fashionable items, rather than waiting to receive information from others.

• Self-confidence. An opinion leader is confident in his or her self-image and expresses this confidence easily through his or her fashion choices. For example, by being the first to adopt a trend, he or she transmits an image of being a leader.22

Even though fashion opinion leaders are not necessarily celebrities, they have great influence on others in their social environment, such that their influence is recognized by others.

In contrast, fashion followers encompass the early and late majority and rely on others’ choices to make their own decisions. They are usually influenced by peers in their social environment, whom they pay attention to and follow, to gain their approval. These others are their sources of information; by purchasing clothes of a similar fashion, they conform and join the group. Peers’ recognition matters substantially to followers in their decision-making process. In Table 1.3, we compare the characteristics of these two groups of actors.

At the individual level, opinion leaders represent a source of information. They appear assertive, and their self-confidence helps them lead others to similar fashion choices. With these characteristics, they can convince others to make the same choices of fashion apparel and accessories. At the societal level, they communicate a lot in their social environment and look for attention, which gives them power and influence over others. They exploit their abilities and desire to communicate to influence others’ fashion decisions.

Followers instead appear docile and responsive to others’ ideas and advice. Sensitive to others’ judgments, they do not want to be perceived differently, so they follow opinion leaders’ choices about what is acceptable to wear or fashionable. Their self-image depends on others in their social environment, to whom they look for approval.

These two groups of adopters also differ in numbers along the fashion diffusion process. Followers do not initiate exchanges of information or influence others, but they constitute a larger group, in terms of the adopters of fashion products. Specifically, they represent 68 percent of the fashion market, whereas opinion leaders are only 16 percent.23 In this sense, followers are important actors in fashion adoption and diffusion, because they represent the majority market for fashion companies. They demand managers’ attention, because they are crucial to the company’s success, achieved through a broader product adoption and diffusion. Figure 1.3 illustrates the importance of these two categories of actors during the fashion adoption process.

Figure 1.3 Shifting influence of groups of actors

In identifying their customer targets, managers must recognize that opinion leaders serve a strategic purpose in spreading information and influencing others, but focusing exclusively on these actors can lead to missed opportunities among followers. As one communication manager for a fashion brand explained, “The more we communicate to everyone and everywhere about the latest fashion trends, the more chance we have to succeed and earn larger profit! Our success is based on offering fashion products to everyone.”

Today, information about what is fashionable also is easily available through several channels of communication, which may limit opinion leaders’ importance for gaining and transmitting information. Followers have more access to fashion thanks to these communication and to wider choices of distribution channels. As a result, they have become more important not only in numbers but also in the fashion diffusion process. As we explain subsequently, in the new retailing tradition of fast fashion, followers can readily discover the latest trends and purchase them at affordable prices. Thus, these actors matter to fashion managers by their numbers and their role in fashion diffusion.

Overall though, fashion customers usually follow similar patterns in their fashion decisions, regardless of their categorization: opinion leaders, followers, or even laggards. Three main stages are notable:

• Awareness: People know that the fashion exists. Even if they are not fashion experts, consumers can recognize that the Grunge trend for instance is no more fashionable or that the large boot-cut pants have been replaced by skinny jeans.

• Comprehension: People take fashion into account. When shoppers decide to buy apparel, they usually consider what is fashionable, without necessarily being a fashion victim. Moreover, apparel stores are stocked by fashionable items, making it difficult for customers to find items that are out of fashion. With the vast choices of fashion products available, shoppers integrate these prevalent options in their decision processes.

• Legitimation: People consider the fashion suitable for them. Shoppers may have different reasons for doing so, such as when opinion leaders feel the need to try every new fashion or when followers seek conformity with an aspirational group.24

These stages are important to fashion managers, because each customer likely proceeds through these three steps before considering and purchasing fashion apparel or accessories. Knowing that shoppers process information through these stages, managers can target their communication specifically, to help make their shoppers aware of new trends more quickly or repeatedly. When Old Navy launched its Spring 2013 collection, it communicated the arrival through advertisements on television, magazines, e-mail, and with large stores’ displays. The main goal was to offer information about the designs, colors, and prices to many existing or potential customers and thus attract them to stores.

Fashion does not concern everyone but fashion intrigues everyone. Even if we do not know what is the latest trend for apparels we all know that fashion exists as luxury does.