This study analyzed and discussed the competition relation between various media platforms, particularly fashion magazine, the Internet portal, and social networking (SNS) that provide fashion contents. The following results were obtained through this study. First, the Internet portal ranks the highest in all factors, followed by SNS, and fashion magazine as the lowest. Second, the Internet portal was competing with fashion magazine and SNS because there is an overlap between the two platforms. By contrast, SNS has a relatively low degree of overlap with fashion magazines, and they are complementary to each other. Third, the Internet portal has a strong advantage over fashion magazine and SNS in all factors. On the basis of the results of this study, we can summarize remarkable points in strategy formulation as follows. First, the Internet portal, which is popularized by “usage accessibility,” is expected to continue to dominate the competition over other media platforms while providing greater gratification to users of fashion contents. Second, the competitiveness of fashion magazines, which has been shrinking dramatically, lies in the diversity and quality of fashion contents. Innovating ways to develop creative fashion content and improve the quality through more in-depth analysis of the reader is essential. Third, SNS is slightly behind the Internet portal as a whole; however, it is one of the emerging platforms in the fashion content market because of its competitive advantage in terms of gratification opportunities.

The purpose of this study is to classify and analyze the deconstruction phenomena expressed in contemporary knit fashion design, and to analyze the inner meaning of deconstruction based on certain characteristics. As a method of study, literature data for theoretical backgrounds, prior studies, and internet data were analyzed. The scope of this study was restricted to knitwear published in the world’s four major collections (Milan, Paris, New York and London) from 2014 F/W to 2018 S/S. Based on prior studies, four concepts of deconstruction were derived: “Différeance”, “Intertextuality”, “Intermeaning of Meaning”, “Dis․De Phenomenon”. The results of the study were as follows: first, “Différeance” refers to a transcendence of time and space. These expressions are discursive, unrealistic, and convey freedom through intent that deviates from rules and norms. Second, “Intertextuality” indicates a mixture of different texts, such as styles, materials, and items. These expressions deliver novelty with amusement, and can be entertaining depending on audience expectations. Third, “Intermeaning of Meaning” is accidental category - depending on how the wearer wears the clothing. -; accordingly, free and spontaneous creativity is an emerging trend in fashion. Fourth, the clothing was expressed in deformed and distorted form by the construction and destruction of the structure, a technique we describe as the “Dis․De Phenomenon”. In this concept, the sense of free design of young emotion appears along with the sense of purity and shock due to intentional inconsistency.

Nowadays, many innovative marketers can leverage the augmented reality (AR) technology to create special experiences, offer more interactive advertising, as well as provide new ways to online shopping, especially for mobile marketing. The beauty industry occupies a large proportion in the fashion market and has become its essential part. For the fashion and beauty industry, consumers are willing to have the same level of experience online as when they are shopping offline. Accordingly, many brands develop mobile applications with AR capabilities that provide mobile AR services offering special experience. This new approach to mobile shopping eliminates the risk of shopping when consumers choose products, while indirectly changing consumer purchase behavior and lifestyles. However, relevant evidence about the AR service provided by mobile applications in the fashion and beauty industry remains to be scarce. To fill this gap in the literature, the present study seeks to explore the impact of the mobile AR technology on the consumer perception of the beauty brands and the changes in consumer’s behavior. In terms of the methodology, a semi-structured interview approach is employed. The results of the present study demonstrate that the effect of using the mobile AR technology varies according to the differences in consumers’ cognition and attention to beauty products. The playfulness provided by the mobile AR technology is a key factor for consumers to better understand and experience the brand, and consumer ROI is an important factor for consumers to purchase using the mobile AR service. At the same time, the degree to which the AR technology is mature affects consumer experience of the product. Surprisingly, our results suggest that the use of the AR technology has a certain educational effect on consumers, especially on those who are not good at make-up or have a low level of understanding of beauty products.

The present study applies asymmetric analysis and models complex antecedent conditions to identify shoppers with high purchase intentions to sustainable fashion products’ (SFPs) and high eWOM intention. The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) method was used to assess the cause-and effect process. The examination was based on information process, and decision making of consumers in two countries (China and Korea) was found to vary by nationality. Specifically, consumers in the two countries provided different responses on sustainable fashion change configuration, suggesting differences in the characteristics of sustainable and non-sustainable fashion consumers and sustainable fashion intentions. The results show that various casual recipes on sustainable fashion change the configuration and sustainable fashion intention on corners 1 and 4. Both Chinese and Korean consumers do not have several unique demographic and fashion expenditure configurations that characterize consumers with high intention to buy and eWOM intention favorable toward sustainable fashion. In the Chinese consumers’ data, computing with words (CWW) showed that young•married•low-income•low-education•low-fashionexpenditure cases (consumers) were lower on negation purchase and eWOM intentions (i.e., an accurate screening configuration identifying consumers high io non-sustainable fashion intentions). The results also help identify consumer characteristics of sustainable fashion consumers and non-sustainable fashion consumers. Specifically, the results of the fsQCA suggest dissimilar confirmation to achieve purchase intention and eWOM intention of sustainable fashion and provide meaningful academic and managerial implications. The results of the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis also support and clarify the role of the theory of information process and the theory of reasoned action towards sustainable fashion.

In recent years, maintaining transparency has become a trend among brands, and a better level of supply chain transparency has been demonstrated to positively affect consumer environmental concern and conscious behavior. Consumers may accept transparency efforts as a signal of the brand goodwill and perceive it as a visibly sustainable effort that can convert brand trust. In the information transparency trend, eco-certification plays an important role as a tool to inform consumers about sustainability. However, facing large amounts of information, consumers spend much time filtering information, so the accuracy of the obtained information can be compromised. The Higg index is a sustainable verification platform that reveals the entire activities of supply chains. However, most consumers are facing an overload of information that could confuse their processing of any information. In this context, the present study seeks to examine the effect of business transparency to conscious consumer behavior and purchase intention. Second, this study deals with the moderating effects of sustainable knowledge on the relationship between business transparency, environmental concern, and brand trust. Third, we explore the effects of high and low level of consume knowledge of sustainability on the relationship between business transparency and brand trust. In terms of the methodology used in the present study, an off-line survey of Korean consumers was conducted. SPSS 21.0 was used for data analysis aiming to test the proposed model and research hypothesis. The mains results of this study are as follows. First, business transparency has a positive effect on environmental concern, brand trust, and consumer willingness to conscious behavior. Second, consumer sustainable knowledge has a moderating effect on business transparency for environmental concern and brand trust. Taken together, the findings of the present study provide meaningful implications for marketers by highlighting the importance of transparency and introduction of a transparent eco-certification for communication with consumers. To successfully influence consumer willingness to assume conscious behavior, brands are advised to provide standardized transparency labels, rather than complicated information.

Introduction The fashion business is known as one of the major industries that is suffering from rising concerns about the consumption of its product, which led to a reorganization of the fashion supply chain to become more sustainable three decades ago. The interest in the concept of sustainability and demand for sustainable marketing activities is gradually growing in the fashion industry due to the negative image and press it receives. Within the luxury fashion segment, the three main themes that are recognized to contribute to sustainability are exclusivity, craftmanship and limited production. However, luxury brands are increasingly shifting their attention and commitment towards environmental and social issues to be incorporated in the concept of sustainability. Yet, the majority of consumers has little understanding or misunderstands the concept of sustainable fashion and marketing, which leads to a gap between attitudes towards sustainability and actual behavior. As a result, fashion brands are trying to leverage their brand by making sustainability a key marketing strategy to raise awareness about social, environmental, economic and cultural issues. Extant research has not explored this recent trend to understand how consumers evaluate fashion brands with a sustainable marketing communication, especially in the context of luxury brands. This study investigates how luxury and mass fashion brands can utilize sustainable marketing contents in social media communication to reach their target group and enhance their equity with sustainability associations. Theoretical Development Associative network models of memory have served as a fundamental framework for a wide range of studies related to the formation and transfer of associations. According to associative network theory, brand knowledge is represented in form of an associative network of memory nodes connected to each other. Nodes are activated when cues, such as advertising, are presented. Mere exposure to cues was shown to be sufficient to active associations and facilitate association transfer. While brands are continuously attempting to make use of associative power to leverage brand equity, extant research has provided compelling reasons to accept that association transfer can also result in brand dilution when a retrieval of conflicting or negative associations occurs. Especially in the context of luxury brands consisting of very unique associations and being different from mass brands in many regards, managing the brand’s associative network is a crucial task in order to send the right signals to consumers and maintain exclusivity. This study investigates how social media communication of different sustainability dimensions affects brand attitude and how it ultimately impacts behavioral outcomes in an attempt to build brand equity for mass and luxury fashion brands. Method and Data The hypotheses are tested with 273 respondents who participated in an online experiment. They were first asked to state their involvement with the category fashion. Subsequently, subjects were presented with a brand post either for the mass or luxury brand including claims related to one of the four sustainability dimensions or no claims for the control group respectively. The experiment consisted of a 2 (brand: mass or luxury) x 5 (sustainability dimensions: none, cultural, economic, environmental, social) factorial design. The measures that followed included attitudinal as well as behavioral constructs related to the brand, sustainability as well as social media use. Analysis of covariance is applied to test for main effects and interaction effects. Summary of Findings This study provides evidence that social media communication of a sustainable brand affects the purchase intention of consumers. The findings indicate a significant difference between the mass and the luxury brand used for this study. The mass brand exhibits the potential to leverage associations with cultural, economic, and environmental sustainability. However, the results only reveal a marginally significant higher purchase intention when cultural sustainability is communicated compared to when the brand does not provide any sustainable associations. In contrast, the luxury brand suffers from significant brand dilution across all four sustainability dimensions resulting in a decline in purchase intention. Key Contributions The findings reveal that sustainability communication exerts a diverging influence depending on the type of brand that is involved. This study suggests that mass brands are able to benefit from sustainability communication in an attempt to leverage brand equity. However, for a luxury brand this type of associations rather presents a liability that might dilute the brand. The findings of this study provide important insights for brand managers. Since mass brands are currently increasing efforts into sustainable communication in the fashion industry, the results suggest that this might be a promising investment. However, luxury brands are advised to carefully manage the communication of salient content related to sustainability as it might harm the invaluable and unique associations inherent in a luxury brand.

In this paper, the authors theorize and investigate empirically how the emerging technological developments of virtual reality convey the potential to augment future experiences of fashion consumption. This study is informed by previous studies that have discussed the role of fashion discourses and technology consumption within consumer experiences. Using the ZMET technique, the authors conducted a field study that empirically explored how virtual reality augments consumer experiences of fashion shows, hereinafter referred to as virtual fashion shows (VFS). Three themes have merged from our analysis: VFS as an agent of democratization, VFS as embodied escapism, and VFS as posthuman liminality. The implications of these findings for fashion consumer research and practice are discussed at the end.

Despite the plethora of articles and research in marketing and retailing literatures focused on enhancing customer loyalty, the topic of how to best allocate resources to various loyalty-building efforts has always attracted interest from both academics and practitioners (Kamran-Disfani, et al., 2017). Much research has examined that satisfaction is a strong relative factor of loyalty. However, Kumar, et al. (2012) and Kamran-Disfani, et al. (2017) stressed that the satisfaction-loyalty link could depend on various moderators and mediators. And they pointed out the difference between two types of loyalty—attitudinal and behavioral, and the mediating effect of attitudinal loyalty within the satisfaction-behavioral loyalty link. Thus, there is a need for more studies empirically investigating the satisfaction-loyalty link and how satisfaction effects loyalty in different contexts. On the other hand, many companies have recently been building a greater variety of store formats and attempting to provide a superior shopping experience through their stores in order to increase the possibility of customer revisitation and customer loyalty. Also, consumers not only switch to different retailers in the same product categories but also change to different store formats for the same product purchasing (Anand and Sinha, 2009). The reasons can be considered as customers’ attitudes toward stores and preference of store atmosphere and environment (Wakefield and Baker, 1998). However, few research pays attention to the issue of how, and to what extent, the different store formats have on impacting customer satisfaction and loyalty building. This is especially true of retailers having entered a new overseas market, and how its loyalty building is effected by its store format choice during its developing stages. This study adopts a conceptual model from Kamran-Disfani, et al. (2017) and aims to examine the satisfaction-loyalty link and test if attitudinal loyalty could be a mediator between satisfaction and behavioral loyalty. And if so, do store formats matter to the satisfaction-loyalty link. In short, we develop hypotheses of how store atmosphere, customer satisfaction, attitudinal loyalty, behavioral loyalty are related, and how store format moderates these relationships. In order to improve the understanding of the satisfaction-loyalty link in the context of retail internationalization, we survey a Japanese fashion company — Nice Claup who segmented the Chinese market by operating multiple retail stores, and each retail store plays a discrete role of cultivating customer loyalty. In our analysis, we compare two store formats of Nice Claup, which are the single brand specialty store and the multi-brand store (defined as ―house brand store‖ in this paper). House brand stores aim to offer novel shopping experiences by gathering several Japanese fashion brands into one large store, with each brand having their own detached areas for keeping each brand’s identity separate and recognizable, but are connected to each other by an integrated store design. Both of these two types of stores are named ―Nice Claup‖, and operated by the same retailer. We choose a 388-customer survey data as our sample. All of these customers have purchased clothes at Nice Claup’s stores over 5 times per year and have been given special member’s card by Nice Claup in Shanghai, China. This 388-customer data obtains 180 consumers who always purchase at house brand stores, and 208 consumers who always purchase at single-brand specialty stores. Hypotheses are tested using an ordinary least squares regression model with a cross-store format comparative analysis. The results suggest that while attitudinal loyalty positively and directly influences behavioral loyalty, satisfaction indirectly drives behavioral loyalty through the mediating effects of attitudinal loyalty. This implies that we should focus on the process of building loyalty and there might be a potential stage before gaining customers’ behavioral loyalty. We also find that there are some important differences between the two store formats, i.e., (1) the effect of store atmosphere (ambience cue, design cue, social cue (Kumar and Kim, 2014)) on satisfaction; (2) the moderating effect of store formats on the relationship between attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty. The findings explore different perception of the two types of stores and influencing factor on building loyalty from an emerging market perspective. By extension, it also shows an application of implementing retail internationalization with adopting multiple store formats on different developing stages, and customer loyalty can be enhanced by offering store novelty in the Chinese market.

Introduction - Dubois (2002) said that luxury is identical with perception of comfort, beauty, and sumptuous lifestyle. There are five key factors of perceived luxury goods such as uniqueness, quality, hedonic, conspicuousness, and extended self (Vigneron and Johnson, 2004). So that, the definition of luxury fashion brand itself is goods (in terms of fashion) that has brand image and perceived as something that has uniqueness, quality, hedonic, conspicuousness, and extended self and could give comfort, beauty, and sumptuous lifestyle. Online visual display nowadays is one of maketer’s channel to promote the product. In terms of exclusivity, there is only few channels that has been used by marketer, such as website of the luxury brand itself, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and so on. This research of online luxury fashion brand is focused on one mobile app, named Instagram. Instagram is choosen because the usage of Instagram is increasing over time, especially in Indonesia. This research is focused on pre-loved luxury fahion brand on online shop at Instagram. There is one problem of this research, which is the percentage of middle to high income is increasing in 5 years (2010-2015) in Indonesia, but consumer is less likely to buy pre-loved luxury fashion brand. The tendency that consumer is less likely to buy because of decreasing sales of some pre-loved online shops in Indonesia. Exploratory research was taken and it can be concluded that the root cause of decreasing sales happens because visual display of pre-loved online luxury fashion brand is not too attractive. Method - The method that which is used is experiment design. The respondent of this research are choosen by non-probability sampling, which is judgemental sampling (we already know the priority characteristic of respondent, such as middle to high income) and female (because the online shop that will be observed is only offer luxury fashion for female). This research will use eye tracker, named Gaze Point. To get the quantitative experiment data, the minimum respondents that will be need is 39 people if we want to generate until get the heatmaps (Kara Pernice and Jakob Nielsen, 2009). Users will be given some oral question after they finished the experiment with eye tracking. There are some contents that will be measured in this reseach, such as caption, image clarity, and background of product. This research will be conducted only for consumer in Bandung. Respondents are female with middle to high income that has been bought pre-loved luxury fashion bag. The variables which are used in this research are the result of combination of construct from previous research about luxury brand perception and attractiveness of visual display. Sensory stimuli of sights will make automated perception actives and determine whether the information attractive or not. Findings – This research found that pre-loved online luxury fashion brand is currently growing rapidly. However, more respondents still prefer to buy online product if the visual display could be more attractive and the longer respondent saw the visual display, means that the respondents tend to be more interested of that posting. Author made proposed design improvements. Author then recommend them to the owner of pre-loved online luxury bag.

This paper investigates the adaptation of suppliers’ business models to the changing customers relationships, with a focus on the fashion industry. The analysis of business models represents an understudied topic in business to business marketing research (Ehret, Kashyap and Wirtz, 2013; La Rocca and Snehota, 2017). In this regard, the paper tries to propose an original contribution by addressing the issue of how suppliers adapt their business models to cope with the needs of their fast fashion customers. It is well known that the fast fashion formula has represented an innovative business model which has generated huge changes within the fashion industry (Barnes and Lea-Greenwood, 2006). While, the business models of global brands, such as those of Zara or H&M, have been deeply studied, minor attention has been given to the business models of the suppliers that interact with this kind of players. Consequently, the paper addresses a research gap that regards the suppliers' business model changes due to the interaction with fast fashion clients. The paper has an exploratory nature. Methodologically, it proposes two qualitative case studies of suppliers in interaction with fast fashion suppliers, pointing out the main features of the adaptation of their business models in the relationship with these clients. The paper contributes to theory and managerial practice pointing out some drivers of change for suppliers with respect to the most evident characteristics of the business model of the buyers. It describes these drivers and proposes some relevant evidences to support the study of business models in business markets.

Introduction In the last decade, the luxury industry has witnessed strategic changes in its concept, essence and operation modes resulting from different factors and, in particular, digitalisation and democratisation in luxury fruition. As a result of those changes, luxury consumption has started to be perceived not simply in a conspicuous purchase perspective of goods or services, but as a 360 degrees experience, where cities - in particular in the emerging fast growing economies - have started being filled with luxury and fashion brands, invading every city area from streets to airports, from clinics to hotels and with concept stores, luxury flagship stores, sponsorships for events and urban artefacts, adding value to the symbolic production of an urban lived space (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2016). In this new dimension of luxury, the underlying hypothesis of this paper is that luxury product brands are enriched by and, hence, draw value from the synergy with city brands and diverse fashion and art city locations, activities and events. This statement is based on that luxury perspective seeing luxury more in its experiential dimension than in the one of a pure desire for an exclusive object purchase and ownership. Accordingly, to what extent is the relation between the luxury brand and the city brand functional to the boosting of luxury brand experiential content? From our point of view, this deserves more specific focus. Based on these premises and with respect to the current evolution of fashion luxury cities and the retailing scenario, this paper will specifically focus on the evolution and different forms of concept stores with particular attention to their interaction with the urban context. The case of concept stores is particularly relevant due to the crisis of this retailing model caused by the rise of luxury e-shops which are becoming dominant brand channels also for luxury segments. In the case of the concept stores we can, in fact, see if and to what extent the value of ―offline stores‖ is rooted in their physical presence in an urban environment that is rich in history and cultural heritage. Two case studies will be carried out, XXX in Shanghai and Luisa Via Roma in Florence, Italy, thus including two different urban contexts characterised by a different relation with fashion and luxury industries, historically and nowadays. Authentic luxury experiences in relevant city contexts (that is in city contexts with which fashion brands succeed in establishing a meaningful, credible and so valuable relation) may add value to luxury brands, in particular to those brands with no consolidated heritage and identity, as in the case of the new Chinese luxury brands. In general, for those luxury brands with a very limited identity and an almost absent heritage, in-store experience is likely to be of special relevance and of increasing importance (Atsmon et al, 2012). Without neglecting the rise of online brand channels and the vibrancy of virtual fashion spaces, the shopping location certainly still represents a crucial factor for the increasingly diverse and demanding luxury customers, for whom the shopping location is not just an instrument of purchase but also a value-adding experience on its own (Rintamaki et al, 2007). Fashion City: An Evolutionary Perspective Historically luxury and fashion have been linked to some specific cities in western countries such as Paris, London, Milan and New York, the so called capitals of luxury and fashion (Breward and Gilbert, 2006); those capitals are considered to be the places where luxury fashion production and consumption cross each other providing economic value for the sector and a unique experience for the consumers. More recently, the scenario has been changing. The ‗fashion city‘ has strated being one of the ‗brands‘ of economic development, seen as capable of strategically boosting attractiveness for the repositioning of a diverse set of cities across the world (Breward and Gilbert, 2006). Urban authorities, policy-makers, and various academic approaches have devoted attention to this phenomenon. The concept of the fashion city has started being part of urban plans and municipal promotional activities trying to reposition cities as attractive destinations for firms, human capital and especially for the ―creatives‖, investors, consumers, and tourists. An increasing number of developing and fast growing countries have achieved the status of ‗second-tier‘ cities of fashion (Larner et al., 2007) such as Antwerp, Shanghai, Beijing, Istanbul, Melbourne, Moscow, Vienna, as centres of reference of a highly diversified fashion context of culture, design, manufacturing and consumption. Although these cities have very different economic and cultural background and history, they indicate the evolution and the interaction between fashion and fashion players - including concept stores - and the urban context. Academia has started clarifying what a fashion city was, what constitutes a traditional fashion city and the interaction between luxury fashion and the fashion city. However, the interaction and evolution of luxury fashion cities and some of the urban players, such as concept stores, is far from being fully clarified and understood. The same can be said regarding the characteristics of the emerging luxury fashion cities. In particular, with respect to the differences characterising those new luxury fashion cities, there is still a very limited research. This article is aimed to make a contribution in this field by discussing the relation between fashion players (i.e. concept stores) and the urban landscape. This will also lead to define a set of characteristics of the contemporary luxury fashion city, based on their functional role in supporting luxury brands‘ value creation processes. In fact, it is certainly not possible to analyse the impact of the global luxury capitals on luxury brands without considering the evolution in city branding, i.e. the way in which cities are represented in order to create an image of the place. Fashion and Luxury in the Urban Branscape As said, ‗fashion city‘ has evidently been considered as potential device to reposition ‗second tier‘ – either large or small - urban contexts. If on the one hand fashion design has been integrated into urban policies in order to boost local economies (Martinez 2007), on the other hand fashion marketing seems to have integrated its luxury fashion strategies into the ―urban brandscape‖ (Bellini and Pasquinelli 2016). Fashion branding has, then, gone clearly in the direction of actively pursuing an appropriation of the city image whose value is drawn by corporate brands (Tokatli 2013). This last aspect, however, has received rather limited attention in literature. In the last decade, the fashion city has enhanced its economic and cultural importance specifically thanks to the economic value generated by the creative process and cultural value of cities (DMCS, 2001; Scott, 2002; Power and Scott, 2004; Breward and Gilbert, 2006; Rantisi, 2011; Bellini and Rovai, 2018). Initially, fashion cities and their fashion design component had only been considered with respect to the creative industry in relation to the mix of physical and symbolic processes involved in the current fashion industry. This combined a highly globalised manufacturing chain with a designer fashion sector mostly concentrated in fashion‘s world cities, together with other image-producing activities that contribute to the creation of place-based symbolic narratives (Williams and Currid-Halkett, 2011). However, the evolution towards new luxury fashion cities has shown a diversification of their meaning and positioning (Martìnez 2007). The delocalisation of fashion manufacturing in offshore urban centres together with the digitalisation and IT component in the process have modified the fashion industry (Segre Reinach, 2005), in parallel with the changes in the economy of media, marketing and the symbols associated to them. Accordingly, it is important to stress how the geographical origin, connection or association of fashion brands to places is simply constructed and negotiated (Pike 2010, 2011), until becoming a pure matter of perception in some case (Thakor and Kohli 1996). Moreover, it is important to notice – and this paper is engaged with this issue – how the fashion brand connection to a city can be built through the creation and exploitation of ―a status market‖ in which the brand is located (Hauge et al. 2009): think, for instance, of how fashion brands capitalize on the presence of prestigious urban assets such as cultural heritage and fine arts (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2016). This is particularly relevant if thinking that fashion luxury‘s world cities also can count on valuable frameworks of cultural players such as museums, theatres, libraries, festivals, and academic institutions reinforcing their attractiveness (Volonté, 2012). Also relying on such mechanisms, a new wave of luxury and fashion capitals has emerged, i.e. the so called ‗not-so-global‘ cities of fashion, exemplifying new forms of symbolic economy and manufacturing that are not included in the usual classification of luxury fashion cities as New York, Milan, London and Paris (Rantisi and Leslie, 2006; Larner et al., 2007). Such ―not so global cities‖ largely contribute to reshaping the global geography of fashion capitals, which can be redefined as the result of the multiple and highly diverse typologies of links a city succeeds in establishing with products, firms, events and fashion stores, by drawing values and symbols from them (Jansson and Power 2010 ; Power and Jansson 2011). Research Design and Methodology The urban dimension of luxury and fashion brands characterising the emerging geography of fashion has not been extensively analysed. In this direction, this article will focus on the analysis of two international luxury fashion urban centres, i.e. Florence and Shanghai, which will be framed as brandscapes interacting with fashion players that are locally based. Particular attention will be drawn to concept stores by analysing their evolution and their changing relation with the surrounding urban contexts, notwithstanding a clear acknowledgement of the growing relevance of e-shops and digital platforms. A qualitative methodology, based on a review of internet sources, in-store visits and in-depth semi-structured interviews with store managers (to understand the concept store‘s strategy) and various local fashion players (to frame the urban brandscape and its relation with fashion), will be adopted to build a comparative framework. Reputable key players in the respective cities as concepts stores, i.e. Favotell in Shanghai and Luisaviaroma in Florence will be selected as case studies. That is, the study will highlight the synergies between fashion brands and city brands by focusing especially on concept stores, their interaction with the urban symbolic ecosystem and their evolution in the geography of contemporary emerging luxury fashion capitals. Expected Results Below the key propositions that we expect to discuss as a result of the presented study: ⦁ The urban brandscape is mirrored by the concept stores which tend to narrate the connection of their brand to the city ; ⦁ The concept store goes out into the city pushing its visible and distinctive presence in the urban symbolic ecosystem ; this mechanism is rich in symbolic content benefiting the fashion brands whose local, physical and tangile presence in specific urban settings has a strategic role in global value creation ; ⦁ The concept store has developed from a purely physical setting to including the online store ; also throughout such development, it maintains the physical location – its style, taste and connection to specific urban settings and local heritage – as reference and vividly alive ; ⦁ The global travelling of the concept store-city connection – also but not exclusively through digital platforms – make the city brand travel and evolve.

This paper investigates the (presently unexplored) relationship between a peculiar kind of performing art, i.e. opera (as in the Western musical tradition), and the fashion and luxury business within the context of fashion cities. In particular it investigates, on the one hand, how the relationship with opera production may benefit the marketing strategy of luxury companies and, on the other hand, how opera houses may profit from the relationship with the luxury industry. As a preliminary work, introducing a new research project, its aim is to provide a tentative systematization and clarification of the research questions and to stimulate an early discussion of their consistency and relevance. Three sets of research questions are proposed for discussion and further exploration, concerning: a) the audience segmentation of opera as experiential luxury (based on self-congruency theory) and its implications; b) the luxury industry as opera sponsor; c) integrating opera in luxury marketing strategy (brand heritage vs. opera heritage).

Introduction India consistently has been the largest movie producer worldwide for the last few years, releasing more than a thousand films each year selling 2.2 billion movie tickets in 2016 (Film Industry in India, n.d.). In a similar vein, the designer wear industry fueled with the growth of the organized retail in India is poised to reach about 1.7 per cent of the global designer wear industry by 2020 (Designer Wear, 2012). As Indian consumers are increasingly adopting a wardrobe more varied than the traditional Indian dress including western apparel styles, the Indian clothing consumer is emerging as a research demographic, with definition of the Indian clothing consumer still in early research stages. Research indicates that fashion industries strengthen a nation’s economy, and that movies and televisions are two of the important marketing channels for it. Thus, with the rapidly growing and increasingly more affluent Indian middle-class ready to spend money, it is important to investigate the relationship between viewing Bollywood movies and their impact on fashion consumption. There is minimal research on this topic and the purpose of this study is to address the gap in literature. Rationale of the Study Fashion is a business and the specifics don't matter much, anywhere in the world anymore. Historically, credit for new fashion was given to the fashion designer, but in more recent years’ celebrities dressed in designer wear have become a medium to reach audiences because of their huge fan following. Bollywood is an influential medium, impacting everything from haute couture fashion to music. Slowly, but surely, clothes worn by Bollywood have clothes become signed artifacts, and have Bollywood styles and fashions become themselves separately marketable (Rao, 2010). Bollywood’s influence on the fashion industry as well as consumers, it is important to gain a better understanding as to how to capitalize on the “media influences” more holistically. Gender, especially in Indian context, is an important construct with respect to men and women as they differ with respect to their involvement with fashion clothing and even more with regard to their involvement with the purchase of fashion clothing (Handa & Khare, 2013). This exploratory study examined the influence of movie and television engagement on fashion involvement and eventual purchase behavior. The study utilized MIMIC model and analyzed group difference in gender. Theoretical Framework Social cognitive theory as well as the theory of symbolic interaction forms the conceptual backbone of this current study. The theory examines psychosocial components which motivate human thought and action and has been used to examine gender differentiation as well as media Influence (Bandura, 2001). According to Solomon (1983), the theory of symbolic interaction has three facets: a consumer’s perception based on the response of others, the influence on a consumers’ behavior, and a consumer’s sense of self based on the actions and responses of others to various stimuli. The symbolism in the fashion products is the primary influence for their purchase and individuals attribute meaning to these products based on the social environment in which they are presented. For this study an adapted model has been created based on two theories to examine: (1) influence of TV and movie engagement on fashion involvement; (2) effect of fashion involvement on purchase intention related to clothing as well as purchase intention- accessories; (3) impact of purchase intention – clothing on purchase intention- accessories. Methodology Data was collected via convenience sample from students at a university in a major city in India resulting in 1058 participants. The survey instrument was created using items from previous studies.: Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and LISREL. Frequency statistics were obtained for the demographic variables. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to evaluate measurement properties, including reliability and validity of the measures. To test hypotheses and explore the causal relationships, a structural equation model (SEM) was used. The current analysis utilized “multi-group” analysis, to compare parameters between distinctive groups (i.e. Male and Female). Results and Conclusions An exploratory factor analysis using principal component with varimax rotation and a minimum eigen value of one was used to identify the latent variables in the model: Movie Engagement (α = 0.82); TV Engagement (α = 0.81); Fashion Involvement (α = 0.81); Purchase Intention Overall (α = .87); Purchase Intention – Accessories (α = 0.88). The main model was initially tested using measurement and structural model in SEM and then multi-group analysis using MIMIC was used to analyze group differences. The CFA supported the exploratory factor analysis, the fit of the measurement model was acceptable (χ2 = 525.21, CFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.053, and NNFI = 0.98). Therefore, the measurement model was retained without any modifications. Based on the parameter estimate t value which stated that value greater than 2.00 is considered an indicator of statistical significance, the hypothesis of influence of TV engagement on fashion involvement was not supported for Male respondents. Furthermore, fashion involvement did not influence purchase intention accessories for Females, conversely, it was supported for Males however, the relationship was negative. All the other hypotheses were supported for both the groups. The analysis of gender using the MIMIC model provides valuable information for the Indian fashion industry to understand target consumers which will help them to design effective marketing strategies. Indian men and women consume media differently and it affects their fashion involvement and eventual purchase behavior. Movies and TV influence fashion involvement for both the genders differently with TV only influencing women. This finding indicate that more Indian women watch more television (Singh, n.d.) and hence are more involved with programming available on TV. Movie engagement influence fashion involvement providing support to the previous research as well as media report. It is essential for Indian brands as well as international brands to engage in brand placements and celebrity endorsements to connect with the consumer base. Fashion involvement influenced intention to purchase clothing for both the genders but did not influence purchase of accessories for the female consumer. This could be attributed to the fact that women shop “looks” i.e., the entire outfit worn including make-up and accessories, whereas men generally shop for a “product”. It is suggested that retailers pay attention to this crucial difference between the genders while shopping and accordingly ensure that due diligence is made to visual merchandising strategies with the stores as well as online. Additionally, as the influence of involvement on purchase intention – accessories is negative, it can be inferred that the highly fashionable male consumer may be looking to buy clothing rather than accessories to make a “fashion statement”.

The study aims to analyze and compare how fashion brands of different categorization communicate in Instagram. Six global brands (Zara, H&M, Prada, Gucci, Nike, and Adidas) are chosen to be analyzed due to their different type/category of brands and their worldwide recognition. Netnography concept and method is used to conduct the data collection and data analyze during a period of time of six mouth. The results show that overall fast fashion brands (Zara and H&M) emerge to be more effective than other fashion categories in online communication. The Haute-de-couture brands (Prada and Gucci) reveal to be very similar in the way they communicate, demonstrating a good level of interactivity with consumers. The Sports brand (Nike and Adidas) have a low level of communication with the consumers and low number of photos and videos uploaded, which results in an average online communication of the brands in Instagram. This research highlights that to be successful in the online communication, fashion brands must be always updating photos and videos, they need to interact with consumers and make them feel a part of the brand, use celebrities to give more notoriety to the brand and be always present in the latest trends.

The millennials are an important generational group of consumers who purchase luxury online and therefore to know their attitude to luxury has become a significant subject for our study. This study explores whether materialism, need for uniqueness, susceptibility to normative influence, and social media usage affect millennials’ attitudes and purchase intentions toward luxury fashion brands online. In addition, this research examines moderating effect of each dimension of national culture on the relationship between factors and millennials’ attitudes toward luxury fashion brands online. Hofstede’s framework is considered to be the most reliable measure of national culture (Yeniyurt & Townsend, 2003). We used four dimensions of Hofstede’s model of national culture: masculinity, individualism, power distance and uncertainty avoidance. In study 1, we examine millennials’ attitudes toward luxury fashion brand through Q methodology. In study 2, we examine relationships between variables using the SPSS 20.0 program for descriptive statistical analysis and the AMOS 20.0 program for structural equation model (SEM) analysis. The findings will enable marketers of luxury fashion brands to understand millennials’ attitudes toward luxury fashion brands and increase the sales among this target group.

Creativity and innovation are crucial components of new product development (NPD) and incorporating environmental sustainability adds an extra dimension to the creative process, particularly for the fashion industry, which is a key sector in the UK creative industries that form a significant part of the national economy. Fashion designers’ creativity during NPD can be facilitated by effective collaboration with roles such as product technologists and buyers. This paper discusses ways in which creative knowledge and processes can be applied to innovative sustainable product development, exploring barriers and enablers involved in widening the availability and adoption of environmentally sustainable fashion. NPD is one of the more tangible aspects of creativity that can be managed, whereas creative design thinking is less tangible and logical, thus making it potentially incompatible with managers who are often more business-orientated and risk-averse in their approach than designers (Puryear, 2014). This can create tension for teams when selecting the most appropriate products for production and sustainable product features have traditionally not been a priority for fashion companies. Making products more sustainable is one of the challenging constraints that designers increasingly need to address within NPD, due to the high sustainability impacts of clothing in both environmental and social terms (Hjelmgrem et al., 2015). This research will adopt a qualitative approach, involving semi-structured interviews with a sample of 20 product development professionals from retailers, brands and manufacturers in the UK fashion business, during August to October 2018. In conclusion, the study will build on the primary research results to develop an original conceptual framework in the form of a model to facilitate product developers’ awareness and understanding of sustainability issues within creative processes and to adopt a new vocabulary to elicit more effectual communication regarding sustainability between NPD actors.

Introduction This paper investigates the implementation possibilities of the Industry 4.0 systems within the production of fashion luxury goods by collecting the opinion of the managers and the perception of the potential customers. The results indicate that technologies 4.0 can be implemented within luxury fashion production without affecting the quality of the finished product. However customers are negatively prevented against them. Therefore, giving the present situation of the fashion industry, now more demanding than ever, it would be appropriate to implement such systems without disclosing it to customers. Theoretical development With this research we aim to demonstrate that in the world of luxury fashion production there is room, if not the need, to implement the technologies of the Industry 4.0 without affecting the quality of the final product. We believe it is crucial that the luxury environment starts to seriously consider the Industry 4.0 as the former, in recent years, has become ever more challenging. Since luxury has become more accessible to masses, customers are no longer content just by getting the product, they often want it before the general public has it or fully customized to distinguish themselves. This implies a reduction of production times together with multiple rearrangements of the entire production process. Which is why we need to start thinking about Luxury and Industry 4.0. The concept of Industry 4.0 started developing with the exponential involvement of technological means during production processes of any kind. The term describes the model of the “smart” factory of the future where computer-driven systems “monitor physical processes, create a virtual copy of the physical world and make decentralized decisions” based on self-organization mechanisms (Smith, 2016). The goal of the industry 4.0 is to reach a deeper interconnection and cooperation between the available resources and the final customer; it’s a multiple layer engagement composed by complex machines, people, products, information within the production sight and all along the value chain (Tolio, 2016). The implementation of such systems allows achieving better levels of efficiency and contributes to increase the competitive advantage; it is a revolution that involves a company at all levels from the production centers to human resources. Although luxury fashion is a quite peculiar industry, all its processes are still very much cyclical and could benefit from the help of such implementations. The main technologies that are often quoted as being at the core of the Industry 4.0 are IoT (Internet of Things), big data, additive manufacturing, 3D printing, augmented reality and new generation robots. All this may seem too futuristic for an industry such as luxury that has always been associated with craftsmanship. When defining luxury in fact, one of the qualities attributed to this kind of products is the “strong connection with the past proven by the tradition handed down over time” (Dubois, 2001); a description that can be taken quite literally as the heritage of the brand is built upon the traditions passed on by the different artisans who crafted the product. But if we fraction the production process and analyze it in depth, we will see that it is cyclical, and that some of its parts may benefit from such technologies that would make it leaner without affecting the quality of the end product. An example of this can be seen in the laser cutting machines for leather. A robot can cut the elements required to compose a bag in a few minutes, while it would take up to half an hour to do it by hand. Even if mechanically cut though, the bag will still need to be assembled by a highly skilled artisan to become the exceptional quality product that customers expect to see in stores. Many are afraid that technological implementations will lead to the disappearance of the artisanal component failing to understand that the Industry 4.0 is not about complete automation but rather about human-machine interaction. Talking about production we will refer to the process in its integrity, from the sketches to the products in the stores. Research design The research was conducted using semi-structured interviews to questiont professionals who work in different stages of luxury fashion production for different companies. All the interviewees were chosen among the industry biggest players: LVMH, Kering, Richemont, Hermès, Chanel and others. To establish the sample of interviewees we divided the production process into four main phases and then identified at least one professional to question for each one of them. The subdivision we applied was the following: ⦁ Phase 1 - Creation & Design ⦁ Phase 2 - Production & Merchandising ⦁ Phase 3 - Retail & Marketing ⦁ Phase 4 - Supply Chain & Distribution Each interviewee was asked a set of specific questions related to the complexities of their job and the problems encountered while doing it (Appendix 1). Among the sample there were two professionals that did not belong to the production process but that we deemed necessary to involve to have a more complete outcome. One is a Professor of Fashion design at the Politecnico of Milan, the other is a Strategic Planning Analyst who works for Lectra, one of the biggest companies producing technologies for fashion. In order to investigate the perception of the customers we distributed a multiple choice survey to a heterogeneous sample of 200 people. Among the questions asked one was strictly related to the use of technology while the others regarded arguments, related to its utilization, that emerged while interviewing the professionals. Despite not being directly on the use of technology, we deemed the other queries important to evaluate if the problems emerged from the interviews were relevant also from a customer point of view. The questions submitted via survey were the followings: 1) On a scale of 1 to 4, (1= low interest, 4=high interest) how interested are you in luxury goods? 2) How much worth is being able to buy a luxury good before it is on sale in stores? (1= not worth, 4= very worth) 3) Would you think of higher quality a bag completely handcrafted rather than the very same bag produced also by using industrial processes? 4) Would you attribute a higher value to a luxury product conceived to be respectful for the environment? The survey ended up highlighting that customers have a negative bias towards the exploitation of such systems within the production of luxury goods. In fact they attribute a higher value to completely handcrafted products, without considering the possibility that the latters may have more defects. The methodology used was successful in helping us understanding the opinion of the management along with the perceptions of the customers. Moreover, through the interviews we were able to highlight practical daily problems encountered by people directly involved in the production process. Results and conclusion We used the problems that arose as bases to begin thinking what could be concretely implemented, in which phase and with what goal. We started by focusing our attention on five points that currently challenge production and could be exploited as opportunities for the implementation of specific technology. Nevertheless, we also highlighted three main limits that might prevent the application of said technology. The opportunities of implementation were the following: Production times - Representing one of the biggest problems in the industry, we believe that technology could come to the rescue especially in the first two stages of the process. For example, the use of 3D printing to produce some prototypes or certain components that could be useful for reducing time and costs. Another example is Modaris 3D, a new generation software that allows you to digitize the pattern allowing you to see it in 3D. Exploiting this software would allow to predict the potential problems of the prototype before even crafting it and would help save a lot of time and resources. Not to mention that digitized patterns can be archived and easily reused later. Moreover, the exploitation of the new generation robots to pre-cut certain components would once again allow a shorter production time and reduce costs. Couterfeiting - Another implementation opportunity is represented by counterfeiting. Now that online commerce is booming, the fake industry is at its peak and people find it difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is not. IoT technologies could help immensely with this problem. One of the interviewees working in the distribution phase told us that today when the products are shipped, in order to track them down and recognize them from counterfeits, companies install into their pockets RFID chips, small chips similar to those of credit cards. Their limitation though is that they can be traced or recognized only if scanned. The use of IoT technologies on this type of device (for example, providing the same type of support with a GPS) would allow them to be interactive and serve their purpose even better when the products are shipped all over the world. Sustainability - In recent years the problem of sustainability has become increasingly relevant, to the point that some luxury empires have been built on it, as in the case of Stella McCartney. To pay more attention to the environmental cause, fashion houses could start by wasting less resources. One way to do this could be to use software to optimize pattern placements on fabrics or on leather. Human supervision would still be required, as some pieces need to be cut from specific parts of the leather but it would certainly help in making some useful proposals. Internal communication – Internal communication is a problem at all levels of the production process. It can be an issue especially when it comes to communicating the intentions of the design team to the production and controlling the stock level in real time. In the first case, to solve the problem, we could consider the implementation of a software like PLM (Product Life Management). This type of program helps to follow the transformation from sketches to prototypes to products, providing detailed information on everything that is present on the garment, specifying consumption and costs of materials. With regard to the inventory control problem, we could again use the help of the IoT. Inventory control is a problem both in terms of raw materials (for all those houses that produce prototypes internally) and finished products. In the first case a potential solution could be to label the raw materials with magnetic labels that would allow to see immediately when the components leave the stock. In the second case, as previously mentioned, supplying the finished products with IoT chips would help to locate them and know how many are in stock. Demand forecast – Another major help that industry 4.0 could bring to fashion production is the exploitation of big data to forecast the demand. Nowadays in fact, the constant and hardly predictable changes in fashion heavily affect a demand that already has few reference standards. When it comes to forecast, several factors have an impact on it: trends, social medias, consumption habits etc. The most unpredictable of these factors is probably represented by the social media as clients may cause a peek in demand after seeing a celebrity or an influencer wearing a specific product. Giving all this, it's evident how the more variables we are able to consider when doing forecasts, the better the chances of predicting a scenario close to reality and Big Data would allow to do so. As previously mentioned we also highlighted some limits that could prevent implementation: Costs - The more significant limit when talking about this kind of technology is related to costs. It is important to consider both the ones needed to purchase the technology as well as the ones to train the employees in order to make the implementation possible. As we all know technology is extremely expensive, and in a certain way a form of luxury itself, often being just for few. The size of the brand would modulate of course the amount of the investment in it. Client perception & adverse attitude – The survey pointed out that clients are negatively biased towards technology and, if informed that the product has been realized with the help of technological means, may attribute to it a lower value. What it's necessary to keep in mind though, is that, when taking a survey, you are in front of a screen and not in front of the products. I believe in fact that if a "blind" test was conducted presenting two products of which one completely handcrafted and the other realized by artisans who exploited technological means as well, no one would be able to tell the difference. Training of employees - Another big challenge in the implementation of such systems is the training of the employees. Implementing these technologies for some employees may mean learning again how to do their job with the help of a computer. Being an environment where youngsters are outscored due to the lack of experience, this may represent a problem. In conclusion our research proved that there is indeed room to implement the 4.0 systems as the issues emerged can be partially, if not completely, solved by introducing these technologies making the process leaner and more efficient. Nevertheless, giving the fact that customers are negatively biased towards their use, it would be appropriate avoiding to disclose the information with them.

Western social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, etc are banned in China. In their places, Weibo, WeChat, Youku and more are the main social media channels in China and thus the main battlefields of social marketing for brands entering China Market. WeChat is the largest social network in China, with over 900 million users daily, for nearly all types of services, including booking flights, restaurant table reservation, shopping, paying bills, etc. To cater the needs of the new generation of Chinese digital natives, a mobile app eM++ was developed that creates new customer services and enables tailored fashion marketing. This new mobile app eM++ works well in China, will this be also well received in other countries? This research investigates consumers’ perception of this new fashion e-tailoring e-shopping concept in UK. Will this type of e-tailored services be welcome in UK? Will consumers welcome this type of e-shopping service in UK? Or they prefer the traditional way of tailoring and shopping? Which social media platforms should be used for promotion? The sample population of this research covers both male and females from China and UK aged 18 years old or above with experience of searching and/or buying clothing items online. Convenient sampling and snow-balling sampling methods are used. In UK, recruitment of volunteers for this project will be via emails to colleagues and previous students, as well as via posters of recruiting volunteers for this project posted on campus. Details of the project and experiment will be included in both emails and posters. Volunteered participants are asked to answer a pre-experiment online questionnaire. Based on their answers, suitable participants will be invited to participate the experimental part (which is trying a fashion app and then answer the post-experiment questionnaire). Participants successfully completed the experiment and post-experiment questionnaire will be given their own body measurements with a 3D model in user’s customised shape, as well as a discount coupon for future use when the app is officially launched. This research will have mainly quantitative data analysis, SPSS will be used to analyse the data. There will have a few open-ended questions that qualitative data analysis method will be employed. This research will explore the feasibility of this service in UK and formulate a cross-cultural comparison between China and UK.

Social media have altered the communication landscape and significantly impacted brand communications in the luxury fashion industry. Research suggests that with the rise of social media, brand communication has been democratised, and the power has shifted from those in marketing to the individuals and communities that create and consume content, redistributing it across a variety of channels (Kozinets, Valck, Wojnicki, & Wilner, 2010; Kumar & Sundaram, 2012). Yet the implications of social media are still largely unknown among practitioners and managers. Moreover, there is a lack of effective frameworks for developing, analysing and comparing social-media strategies (Effing & Spil, 2016). Scholars have just started giving their attention to the subject of ‘social-media strategy’ as such, highlighting a gap in our knowledge, which this study seeks to address. The aim of this research is to understand the role of social media as a strategic brand-communications tool in the luxury fashion industry. Firstly, the main theoretical contribution is the development of a conceptual framework that enables an understanding, explanation and description of the process of building a social-media strategy. There has been a call for this type of research from a managerial perspective, across multiple platforms and objectives, and this work provides much-needed insights. Secondly, the findings provide valuable managerial insights. The conceptual framework emerging from this research is a managerial tool that can be used to tackle the process of building a social-media strategy and to identify its key elements. In particular, the framework can be deployed to guide and evaluate the process of creating a social-media strategy. With the help of the framework, managers can harness their resources successfully and identify the factors that need to be considered. Moreover, the framework aims to guide managerial action towards a sustainable social-media approach that helps to build competitive advantage for global luxury fashion brands in the longer term.

This study aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of social media marketing as a tool in communicating a “populist” (Scott, 2015) luxury fashion brand’s good intentions toward ordinary people; it also seeks to identify whether luxury fashion brands frequently perceived as exclusive and “envied” could become approachable and “admired” brands, simply by expressing “warm” intentions on their social media sites. Ultimately, we aim to investigate whether positive relational outcomes can be derived from the brand repositioning process, from envy to admiration. This study builds on the brands as intentional agents framework (Kervyn, Fiske, & Malone, 2012), which categorizes brands in terms of their “intentions” and “ability”: “able/ill-intentioned” luxury brands are categorized as “envied brands,” while “able/well-intentioned” brands elicit the general public’s admiration. Our pre-test results confirmed that consumers can sense a brand’s good intentions and ability via its social media site. We then conducted an online selfreported survey among 488 US women aged 18–49 years who were following or “liking” at least one luxury fashion brand’s official social media site. Using structural equation modeling, we found that intentions have a negative impact on consumer envy, and that they have a positive impact on consumer admiration. Ability was found to have a positive impact on consumer admiration of the brands, while it has a negative impact on consumer envy. Although we confirmed negative directions, consumer envy of the brands had nonsignificant impacts on both emotional brand attachment and brand forgiveness. However, consumer admiration of the brands had a positive impact on both kinds of brand responses. In conclusion, while most luxury fashion brands have stuck to exclusivity, the findings of this study imply that by continually showing good intentions towards ordinary people, luxury fashion brands could reposition themselves as admired brands, which would in turn enhance emotional brand attachment. In this way, these brands could cultivate affectionate and passionate consumer–brand relationships making consumers feel more connected to them. In doing so, luxury fashion brands can acquire through social media powerful consumer allies (Phan, Thomas, & Heine, 2011), who are willing to forgive their failures.