Fashion Consciousness: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Being fashion conscious means having an interest in it, wanting to dress up and hang out in trendy settings. The desire to adopt and follow contemporary fashion in order to maintain one\'s status in a social network was referred to as \"fashion involvement\" or \"fashion consciousness.\" The bibliometric analysis of fashion consciousness was examined in this study. For the bibliometric analysis used in this study, R studio software and the Biblioshiny packages were used. Documents by year, country, author, source, document type, and subject area have all been examined in the study. The new fashion consciousness trends have been highlighted in this review. The study\'s findings offer recommendations for aggressive marketing in emerging markets like India.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, consumer values in developing countries are changing quickly. Due to globalization, consumers are now more aware of the various luxury brands from around the world, especially those that they perceive to be an extension of a self-image that they want to enhance through consistent shopping (Handa and Khare, 2013).

Although the majority of young students are unemployed, the various product and service producers still view them as a significant market segment. Young people in developing nations are adopting a more materialistic lifestyle, becoming global consumers, and showing preferences similar to those of people in the West. They are also more aware of global products, particularly those related to fashion, and are thought to be more fashion conscious than older people (Park et al., 2007). However, the majority of prior research on fashion consciousness was primarily conducted in developed nations; researchers have only recently turned their attention to developing nations to study fashion consciousness, such as China (Lam and Yee, 2014) and Croatia (Ani and Mihi, 2015). In fact, studies demonstrate that individuals in developing nations hold different attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs from those in developed nations (Rathnayake, 2011).

People in developing nations are beginning to exhibit higher levels of self-consciousness as they recognize how important brands are to enhancing one's appearance (Nandini and Jeevananda, 2014). The two facets of self-consciousness that have previously been acknowledged in literature are private and public self-consciousness. While a person's latent, invisible side is reflected in their private aspect, their public aspect refers to how they present themselves to others or how they are perceived by them (Quoquab et al., 2014).

It is asserted that both fashion involvement and fashionability can be related to public self- consciousness (Workman and Lee, 2013). Public self-consciousness has received extensive socio-psychological study, but studies looking into it in relation to purchasing behavior have only recently been conducted. The variable "fashion-consciousness," which refers to the general sense of self-consciousness in relation to fashion consumption, is specifically examined in this paper (Casidy et al., 2015). According to this study, "a person's level of involvement with clothing trends or fashions and implies an interest in fashion trends and someone's appearance" is what is meant by fashion consciousness (Koksal, 2014, p. 434).

Previous research demonstrates that fashion-conscious consumers are willing to spend more money on clothing because they see it as an extension of their own identity (Kaur and Anand, 2018). They shop for the sake of shopping; they buy more frequently, spend more money, and are more drawn to clothing items than people with less fashion awareness. However, some studies point out that spending should not always be a result of fashion consciousness because consumers can occasionally be price sensitive and constrained by a specific budget (Iyer and Eastman, 2010), which reduces the amount of time spent shopping. Even so, they might continue to have a positive attitude toward shopping and continue to buy clothes in an effort to keep their wardrobes up to date and improve their appearance (Iyer and Eastman, 2010).

Fashion consciousness is a useful consumer attribute for clothing marketers because it refers to a person's level of involvement with fashion trends or clothing. The important study by Babin and James (2010) expanded the idea of how value functions in the context of marketing in the twenty-first century to support the outcomes of the service-dominant logic dimension through value co-creation. The study confirmed that adequate value is a crucial outcome variable that is frequently overlooked in favor of other behavioral intention constructs like customer satisfaction, word-of-mouth, and customer loyalty. Shim and Bickle identified three distinct fashion and lifestyle segments: symbolic/instrumental users, practical/conservative users, and apathetic users (1994). Hedonic motivation has a direct impact on intention to search and an indirect impact on intention to purchase, according to To et al. (2007), who also found that utilitarian motivation is the driving force behind consumer intention to search and intention to buy. Although these dual motivations have a significant impact, utilitarian motivation is the best indicator of the likelihood that a person will search for and make a purchase. There is enough proof to conclude that the extent of consumer value disposition in online retail services, as expressed in terminal and instrumental values, fashion consciousness, and behavioral intentions, is causally related in a significant way (Kautish, & Sharma, 2018).

Fashion consciousness refers to a person's level of interest in clothing trends or styles (Nam et al., 2007). According to O'Cass et al. (2013), a fashion-conscious consumer is someone who is very interested in all things related to fashion. Fashion consciousness refers to a person's awareness of fashion, their capacity to choose, dress in a similar manner to, or imitate, and their responsiveness to it. Many studies have demonstrated that fashion consciousness is a significant construct that defines ardent consumers who are conscious of their appearance and physical attractiveness, according to Wan et al. (2007). Consumers who are fashion-conscious, however, don't necessarily mean that they are industry leaders or experts; rather, it just means that they are conscious of their appearance and try to stay in style. Consumers who are fashion-conscious pay close attention to the latest trends, regularly update their wardrobe, and enjoy shopping. They frequently take in images and fashion trends from advertisements (Wan et al., 2007).

The culture of consumers who define their identities through their consumption of fashion can be thought of as including fashion. According to Cardoso et al. (2010), fashion is used as a code and a means of self-expression to communicate a social identity (Hassan, & Harun, 2016).

For the purposes of this article, we were interested in the topic of clothing and how gender influences the purchasing and self-identity of Generation Y men, even though the term "fashion" is frequently used to denote trends in consumerism. It is not surprising that many studies have found that gender is a significant variable in the consumption of fashion clothing because materialism has been argued to be a key influence in creating a sense of self-identity. For instance, a study on the functions of clothing and clothing (dis)satisfaction among British students found that men approach clothing in a more "self-oriented" manner and place a greater emphasis on functional benefits like warmth and durability. Contrarily, women are more likely to adopt a "other-oriented" strategy in which clothing is used for its symbolic meaning in order to win peers' acceptance (Cox and Dittmar, 1995). Clothing advertisements that place more emphasis on girls' appearance than on boys' can be used as evidence that social conditioning, which begins early, is the cause of the "self" versus "other" behavioral difference between the sexes. In addition, girls start buying clothes earlier than boys do and are more focused on receiving approval from their peers than from their parents. Additionally, clothes swapping, which is more prevalent among girls, can be seen as a mutual sharing of identities (Lurie, 1991). Women are typically more interested in and aware of clothing than men as adult consumers.

In this section, we go over the elements that changed men's fashion awareness and allowed men to redefine masculinity. Mort (1996) specifically cites the rise of men's fashion magazines, which began in the early 1980s, in redefining male masculinity in the UK. This market expanded by 674 percent in volume terms between 1988 and 1993. (Mintel, 2000). In what he called "new man" advertising, men were used as role models to promote appearance concerns and link success to clothing and style. This changed the cultural norm and encouraged men to believe that their social value is determined by how they look. It is believed that this change in emphasis from man the producer to man the consumer/consumed is an inevitable result of a post-modern economy (Featherstone, 1995). The modern consumer/citizen, according to Lasche (1979), is now more interested in aesthetics than utility. In other words, we judge things based more on how they appear than how they perform, and this holds true for how men look. The importance of appearance management has also increased with the shift to service-based economies as part of service quality communication and maintenance (Bakewell, Mitchell, & Rothwell, 2006).

II. BIBLIOMETRIC METHODS

The journals that will be used must be chosen before the bibliographic data can be analyzed. We have used the data from the Scopus database in order to be as impartial as possible in this selection process. The database contains content from numerous fields of study. More than 10,000 journals and 60,000,000 papers are currently organized into 250 subject categories and 150 subject areas. This number does, however, include 15 different kinds of publications, such as journal articles, proceedings, notes, reviews, and brief communications. As a result, we reduced the number of publications in the analysis by only including "journal articles" and "reviews" in order to concentrate on the most representative research articles found in Scopus. Reviews are occasionally not regarded as significant scientific contributions, but we have included them because they offer a compelling viewpoint on a subject that typically influences future research.

There are 331 papers if we filter this data by "articles" and "reviews." It makes sense to choose every journal in this group. The main drawback of this strategy is the disparity in journal quality, as some of them may publish more papers while maintaining a lower standard. Because of this, it is impossible to avoid the problem when calculating the publication count, which has a big impact on the authors' analysis. Therefore, we split the latter into two categories: authors with the highest productivity and authors with the lowest productivity who are also highly cited.

However, in general, the findings of this study support the idea that the best journals and authors are frequently mentioned by the scientific community in settings like conferences and are ranked at the top of journals directories like ABS Academic Journal Guide. despite the possibility of some exceptional variation. Numerous journals can currently be found on Scopus. Some journals relevant to the field are left out, including some INFORMS journals like Marketing Science and Organization Science, which are included in the Business and Management categories, respectively, and social sciences, which is included in the Management category. where it is possible to compare the rankings of the top business and management journals with those of other journals. For the sake of objectivity, the study adheres to the journals chosen by Scopus, which is regarded as one of the most influential.

III. ANALYSIS

Since 1979, there has been one article published on fashion consciousness. Other years, like 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, and 1984 had no publications. It was one in 1985 once more. It was zero from 1986 to 1988 once more. Another paper in this field was published in 1989. It was 0 in the years 1990 and 1991. Progress in research papers has been occurring since 1992. And the maximum number of publications—13 and 12—have occurred in 2019 and 2020. The analysis's findings show that there aren't many publications or studies in the field of fashion consciousness. The specifics of the research progression shown in figure 1 are given here.

Documents per year by source reflect the major journals in which research on fashion consciousness has been published. "Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management," "Journal of the Japan Research Association for Textile End Uses," "International Journal of Consumer Studies," "Journal of Global Fashion Marketing," and "Sustainability Switzerland" are the major journals. These are major journals where the majority of research is published over time. This is illustrated in Figure 2 of this study.

The major studies have been conducted by various authors in the field of fashion consciousness. The following chart illustrates the same. Anic I.D., Casidy, R., Kim, Y.K., Masuda, T., Walsh, G., Woo, H., Anand, S., Dose,D., Dovlatova, K.J., and Goldsmith, R.E. are the principal researchers who have published their findings in the field of fashion consciousness. Principally, the aforementioned authors conduct the most influential research and produce the most seminal works. Figure 3 provides information about the authors.

The major university in the world where research on fashion consciousness was done is represented in the figure below. "University of North Texas, Universiti Sains Malasia, Institute of Economics, Oklahoma State University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Mie university, Universitas Indonesia, Guru Nanak Dev University, and Florida State University" are the names of these universities. These are the top ten major institutions where research on fashion consciousness has been published most frequently in international journals. Figure 4 provides more information on this.

There are many countries where fashion consciousness is studied, but there are few major countries where it is studied in depth. Ten countries that are in this list are described as follows: "United States of America, India, Japan, Malasia, South Korea, Australia, China, Indonesia, Germany, and Hong Kong." ‘According to the findings of the study, these countries have a strong focus on fashion studies. Figure 5 provides further information on the subject.

Figure 6 depicts the major studies published in various types of documents. The analysis of the results shows that (88.2 percent) are published as research articles, (7.1 percent) are published as conference papers, (3.9 percent) are published as book chapters and (0.8 percent) are published as reviews. Figure 6 of the study illustrates this.

Fashion consciousness is a well-known concept in the field of marketing management. It was investigated not only in business and management studies, but also in a variety of other subject areas. Figure 7 of the study reflects this. The specifics are as follows: Business and management account for 36.3 percent of total studies in the field of fashion consciousness, followed by social sciences (13.1 percent), Economics (11.4 percent), Material science (9.7 percent), Engineering (5.7 percent), psychology (5.7 percent), medicine (4.2 percent), computer science (3.4 percent), arts and humanities (2.5 percent), energy (2.1 percent), and others (5.5 percent).

Conclusion

Luxury fashion consumption has increased exponentially over the last two decades around the world. India has emerged as the world\'s largest economy, resulting in higher disposable income levels and, as a result, a greater appetite for lifestyle-oriented fashion consumption, such as luxury brands. Luxury is much more than materialistic attribution-oriented possessions. The Indian market reflects a unique fusion of western lifestyles and traditional Indian values. In recent times, the increased fashion awareness and blending of traditional Indian values with western values has given global fashion brands acceptance in the Indian market. Because consumers are overwhelmingly interested in purchasing quality apparel, fashion accessories from online multi-brand retailers, and improved online atmospheres. Online shopping has grown to be a significant portion of the total retail space, promising not only customer satisfaction but also a better shopping experience at a lower cost. Modern Indian consumers differ from their western counterparts in that they are more tech savvy, socially agile, and part of a new breed of individuals who consume online luxury products and services in order to grow their digital self.

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Copyright

Copyright © 2022 Aarush Shokeen, Dr. Anshu Lochab, Dr. Ravi Sharma. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.