Fast Fashion Consumer Analysis

AN INVESTIGATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS OF

FAST VERSUS SLOW FASHION CONSUMERS

Introduction

Fast fashion can be defined as a business strategy that creates an efficient supply chain for the sake of manufacturing fashionable merchandise quickly hence consumer demand can be met immediately(Levy & Weitz, 2008). In contrast, slow fashion is the concept of retailers who produce durable apparel with more simple silhouettes and neutral colors. These two concepts have been minimally discussed from a consumer perspective and there are no standard definition of fast and slow fashion consumers. From a theoretical standpoint, consumers can be separated into fast and slow fashion consumers by market segmentation. The following review will focus

Watson & Yan (2013) argues that fast fashion consumers avoided repentance by purchasing at a low-price with large amount in order to minimize post-consumption gilt. They also explain that fast fashion consumers have impulsive buying tendencies and consider fast fashion as an excitement. Kim (2006) is more concern with instant satisfaction. He believes that fast fashion consumers enjoy the prompt contentment during consumption and achieve hedonism through shopping experience. On the contrary, slow fashion consumers are being outside of the contemporary fashion trends. Watson & Yan (2013) indicates that consumers prescribe to slow fashion clothing due to its high quality, long-lasting and versatile nature. They expand on this argument stating that slow fashion could be appeared to be a hobby of collecting art. Similarly, Matei (2009) maintains that consumers of slow fashion aspire to naturalness and emphasize on workmanship. These arguments all have their certain value as they provide an important insight for understanding the perception of fast and slow fashion consumers, however, under the circumstance of individual personality’ there are other important values missing to give a complete definition on difference of consumers, including conspicuous consumption and

They can be differentiated by market segmentation and separated into fast fashion consumers who pursue quantity and slow fashion consumers who concern quality. This classification seems to be useful in terms of constructing a conceptual framework for the research, the related attitudes of the two types of consumers appear to be the key and the most relevant interpretation in the context of this project. Despite extensive body of research, no scholars illustrate how fast versus slow fashion consumers are possibly different in regards to their individual characteristic. Therefore, this project will aim to address the knowledge gap by providing definitions for fast fashion and slow fashion consumers and attempt to understand how consumers may be differentiated by their psychological characteristic.

References:

Bhardwaj, V. & Fairhurst, A. (2010). Fast fashion: response to changes in the fashion industry. The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 20(1), 165‐173.

Bond, J. & Morris, L. (2003). A class of its own: latent class segmentation and