Fashion involvement and clothing choice criteria

Fashion involvement is associated with differences in sensitivity to social surroundings. Those who are highly motivated to fit into a particular group will need to be aware of the fashion cues not just of that group but also of others less desirable groups, so that the “wrong” cues may be avoided (Auty and Elliot 1998). Clothing has frequently been recognized as a product category likely to induce high involvement. In general terms, involvement is a state of motivation, arousal, or interest. Personal relevance is a key concept in explaining, defining, and operationalizing involvement (Kim, Damhorst and Lee 2002). Seo, Hatchote and Sweaney (2001, p. 210) define clothing involvement as “the amount of time and effort a consumer spends in the selection of clothing”. Some researchers have examined fashion involvement as a multidimensional construct that involves fashion innovativeness and early adoption, interpersonal communication about fashion, fashion knowledge ability, and fashion awareness (Kim, Damhorst and Lee 2002). Consumers vary greatly in their knowledge about a product and their degree of familiarity with it. Knowledge can come from product experiences, such as ad exposure, interactions with salespeople, information from friends or the media, previous consumption and usage experiences (O’Cass 2001b). When consumers form an attitude toward the product they make evaluative associations between the product and its attributes. Some of that attributes may be utilitarian - such as durability or comfort - or hedonic - such as color, fashion ability, or styling (Kim, Damhorst and Lee 2002).

Beaudion, Moore, and Goldsmith (1998) analyzed the attitudes toward buying domestic and imported apparel products using a selection of attributes: good fit, durability, ease of care, good price, comfort, quality, choice of color, attractiveness, fashionableness, brand name, appropriateness for occasion, and choice of styles.

Brand image of the clothing store is particularly critical. Previous studies found that some attributes like fashion and style of clothing, store design and layout, price, quality of the clothes, refund and exchange policy, company reputation, selection of clothes, knowledge and friendliness of staff were particularly important to consumers (Birtwistle and Freathy 1998; Partolese and Dias2003).

When we are talking about fashion clothing consumption we should take some dimensions in consideration: fashion consciousness, individual orientation, status orientation, style opinion leadership, price orientation and shopping habit (Seo, Hathcote and Sweaney 2001, p.210).

Therefore, shopping involves many dimensions, and it is an important function of the consumers’ choice of clothes (Seo, Hathcote and Sweaney 2001). Informational sources, such as print media, commercial broadcast, world of mouth, and store displays,  are generally used to ascertain information about clothing. Mass media has been found to be the dominant information source for the younger age group (Lumpkin 1985; Shim and Kotsiopoulos 1992).