The purpose of this research is to enhance sustainable outcomes as well as to understand the Chinese consumers’ needs by focusing on transformable design. In this study, mass customization and co-design were discussed. One-on-one interviews and online surveys were employed to capture both fashion experts’ and consumers’ opinions toward transformable design through customization.

The purpose of this paper is to examine affluent consumers’ emotions and loyalty toward luxury fashion brands’ flagship stores. A total of 138 participants were recruited. The results show product quality and other customers’ behaviors are the two factors that can affect affluent customers’ positive and negative emotions.

The global luxury goods sector is particularly buoyant and showing steady growth, it was worth an estimated €122.2 billion in 2012 (Mintel, 2013), and generated more than 230 billion Euros in worldwide sales in 2014 (Bain 2014). These factors signify that the luxury sector is experiencing a boom with strong annual growth in terms of both value and volume. Practitioners and researchers are increasingly interested in the complexities associated with the consumption of luxury products, a focus that has led to the need of contribution to the understanding in the field and as a result, new concepts and research frameworks are emerging. Strong competition from an over-subscribed luxury market is further challenged by the practice of counterfeiting, which can damage brand image and profitability of luxury brands, but serves to further reinforce the importance and aspirational attributes of luxury goods. Similarly, e-commerce is growing rapidly and the fashion industry has become the fastest growing product category in the UK (Mintel, 2012). As Internet penetration is increasing rapidly, e-commerce becoming an indispensable complimentary distribution channel for offline retailers. In particular, the demand for luxury online sales is growing as the luxury consumer is reported to be more tech savvy and willing to purchase online in comparison to the offline purchases preferred by the average consumer (Google, 2013, Brandchannel, 2014) Luxury fashion brands have been slow to adopt digital and online channels, as the internet challenges a number of characteristics that have been intrinsic to luxury fashion brands (Okonkwo, 2010). Kapferer and Bastien (2012) proclaim that digital is in strong contradiction with luxury in most aspects. The main question this poses for luxury brands is how to be exclusive in an inherent democratic medium that can be accessed by anyone at anytime (Okonkwo, 2017, Kontu and Vecchi, 2014, Jin 2012). Whereas the digital world is about being instant, available and accessible, luxury fashion brands are very careful to exude timeless style, heritage, rarity and service (Kapferer and Bastien 2012, Pucci-Sisti Maisonrouge, 2013). Luxury brands have been keen to maintain full control over their distribution channels and marketing messages whereas the internet and in particular social media empowers the consumer, allowing them to co-create the brand message (Christodoulides et al., 2012). Further distribution is essential in luxury management (Kapferer and Bastien, 2012) and direct operated points of sale of luxury fashion brands are often based on their flagship stores and act as a marketing communication tool as much as a sales channel (Manlow and Knobbs, 2013; Moore and Doherty, 2007). As such, luxury retail brands have been careful to create exclusive and sensory rich experiences with particular attention to the materials of the product and the environment they are being displayed and sold in (Okonkwo, 2007, Fionda and Moore, 2009, Kapferer, 1998, Kapferer and Bastien, 2012). This points to another difficulty for luxury fashion brands who seek to communicate and distribute their goods online; the sensory appeal of websites is limited to visual and audio stimulation which does not satisfy the requirement for multisensory experiences deemed necessary for promoting luxury products. Due to these challenges scholars are in disagreement whether online fashion brands should distribute their products online or purely use the online channels to engage their consumers, but keep sales to their physical stores. Kapferer and Bastien (2012) consider selling a luxury product online as “extremely dangerous” as it reduces the “dream value”, Okonkwo (2007, p179) argues that the “adoption of the internet as a sales channel is now essential for luxury brands that aim to maintain a competitive edge.” This is supported by the prediction that by 2018 the online channel will account for 14% of worldwide luxury expenditure (Verdict, 2013), and that the luxury consumers in all markets are more tech-savvy than the general population with over 97% of luxury buyer using the internet (Google, 2013). This study adopts Okonkwo’s (2007) point of view that most luxury fashion brands will have to adapt and distribute their products across multiple channels to satisfy the consumer’s expectations. It is theorised that the digital revolution has empowered consumers, raising expectations for different experiences and changing behaviour (Deloitte, 2011; Pine and Gilmore, 2011; Rosenblum and Rowen, 2012): The consumer experiences their shopping experience as a whole (Interbrand, 2012) and looks for an integrated and consistent experience between channels (Roy et al., 2005; Zhang et al. 2010). These new shopping behaviours have exposed retailers’ vulnerabilities in brand and process and the challenge for fashion retailers is to provide a consistent experience and tone of voice across each of these channels. This difficulty is even more prominent for luxury fashion brands. Despite the difficulties and risks for luxury fashion brands to adapt to the multichannel retail environment several advantages in serving the multichannel consumer are identified: the multichannel consumer is considered to spend on average more money (Schoenbachler and Gordon, 2002; Lu and Rucker, 2006, Weinberg et al., 2007), buy more frequently (Kumar and Venkatesan, 2005) and has a longer customer lifetime value (Neslin et al., 2006, Schramm-Klein et al., 2011). An alterative interpretation of the luxury brand paradox could be viewed as the contradiction between the need for luxury brands to increase sales and explore new consumer segments, whilst also retaining their aura of mystery and exclusivity.. Consequently luxury fashion brands have to develop strategies to sustain their luxurious image in the online channels and even though there are an increasing number of luxury fashion houses to do so successfully like Burberry (Kapferer and Bastien, 2012) there remains a need to gain insight into how luxury fashion brands can utilise the online channel efficiently to communicate and engage with its customers. (Tungate, 2009; Okonkwo, 2010; Hanna, Rohm and Crittenden, 2011; Geerts, 2013; Heine and Berghaus, 2014; Kontu and Vecchi, 2014). This working paper seeks to address questions relating to the online consumption experiences and explores online atmospherics and their role in providing a luxury experience. This robust, inclusive approach aspires to contribute to current understanding of online luxury fashion consumption with the aim of identifying meaningful, workable recommendations for both future research and current practice within these sectors. The study will integrate the research findings with current literature in the experiential marketing and atmospherics debate positioning the research in an area where experience and atmospherics are found to be of crucial importance to the brand: luxury fashion retail. We propose a new phrase called ‘e-luxury’ to denote our conceptual framework, which has been developed to address the current gap in knowledge surrounding online experiences in the luxury retail sector. Research that employs experiential e-luxury as the conceptual framework has not been used in the context of understanding online luxury brand consumption, as it is a recent area of growth. As such, more research is required that interrogates the complexities associated with this sector, so it is hoped that by doing so, we may better understand what is driving luxury brands to co-exist online alongside fast fashion and how they can retain their brand equity and position whilst doing so. This notable rise in interest in online behaviour in the luxury good sector is receiving increasing attention from both practitioners and researchers as an area of growth, as such, there are many gaps in our understanding of e-luxury and the experiences of consumers online, that a study of this kind hopes to address. Thus, the aim of this working paper is to explore how to translate the crucial experiential value from the physical luxury retail environment to an omni-channel brand experience to engage a luxury consumers senses and emotions across all channels.

Past research has shown that the self-congruity effect (Sirgy, 1982) is an important key predictor for consumers’ responses (e.g., attitude, purchase intention, choice, satisfaction, and loyalty) toward various marketing stimuli such as brand, store, and product (Barone, Shimp, and Sprott, 1999; Sirgy, Grewal, & Mangleburg, 2000). The self-congruity effect refers to the match between consumers’ actual self-concept and the image of objects compared, such as brand image, product image, store image, and advertising materials (Choi & Rifon, 2012; Sirgy, Grewal, & Mangleburg, 2000). These relationships, however, have not been tested in the context of luxury brand products (Sirgy, 1982). Our purpose is to address this knowledge gap by investigating the relevancy of self-congruity theory to the purchase of luxury brands. In contrast to the long-standing self-congruity effect, we propose that actual self-incongruity and ideal self-congruity effects will work when consumers evaluate luxury fashion brands. A survey method was used to gather data. Data were collected through an online panel provided by E-rewards, a marketing research company located in the United States. A stratified sampling method was employed to obtain an evenly distributed number of participants from different income classes. The strata was identified by income. Three strata were developed: (1) more than $100,000; (2) $55,000 to less than $100,000; and (3) less than $55,000. The sample (n = 502, average age = 41) represented most demographic categories. We tested the influence of actual self-incongruity and ideal self-congruity on brand attitude, purchase intention, and perceived quality for 3 brands. Actual self-incongruity had a significant positive effect on brand attitude, whereas ideal self-congruity had a significant positive effect on brand attitude, purchase intention, perceived quality. Overall, the results supported our main hypothesis. We conducted an additional analysis to examine the moderating role of income. Specifically, for brand attitude, the influence of actual self-incongruity was significantly positive only for the low-income group. The influence of ideal self-congruity was significantly positive only for the low- and middle-income groups. For purchase intention, the influence of ideal self-incongruity was significantly negative only for the low-income group, whereas the influence of ideal self-congruity was not significant for the middle- or high-income groups. Finally, for perceived quality, the influence of actual self- and ideal self-incongruity was significant only for the middle-income group, whereas that influence was not significant for the high-income group. This research contributes to the self-congruity effect in the context of luxury brands. Our results show the positive influence of ideal self-congruity and actual self-incongruity on the evaluation of luxury brand products. This is the first study identifying that actual self-congruity has a negative influence on the evaluation of brands in a luxury market context, as opposed to previous findings. Our results provide important implications to practitioners in planning their marketing communication strategies or consumer relationship management for luxury brand consumers.

This paper utilizes a categorical approach, proposing and validating a comprehensive model that facilitates the understanding of the structure of the luxury fashion industry through the lens of the consumer. It explores the value dimensions of luxury fashion products and clarifies the confusion that is evident in the earlier luxury literature.

The purpose of this study is to investigate which of the main social and personality factors affect the attitudes of consumers towards counterfeit products and their purchase intentions in one of largest counterfeit product market as much as the attractive one for the Global Luxury goods ,namely Turkey.

China has become a key market for the luxury fashion industry. Yet the relationship with the role of digital marketing is still mostly unexplored. The increase of Internet in China has been Impressive. A report from CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Center) indicated that Chinese netizens increased to around 0.632 billion. Internet has a deep impact on people’s life, changing their lifestyles and consuming behaviours. For luxury brands entering Chinese market, the competition becomes fiercer. Despite the traditional marketing model, an increasing number of luxury companies are orienting their strategy towards the blue ocean—on-line market. On-line luxury fashion commerce has become a creative joint of Internet technology and business operations. Despite the fact that the Chinese market is regarded as potentially the fastest growing market for the luxury industry, many challenges exist nowadays since China is a young player in both luxury industry and e-commerce field. Some experts in the field believe that the limitation of customers’ experience is the most essential problem, and some others assert it would be difficult to do on-line marketing for luxury products. Besides, there is still an ongoing debate on the key factors that determine the success of on-line sales in luxury industry. Luxury Fashion customers are mainly composed by elder segment, while luxury consumers are increasingly becoming a younger segment (about under 40 years old) in China. In particular, their consumption concept is very different from that of traditional customers. A survey from McKinsey & Company indicates that there are almost 90% of Chinese Internet users living in tier1, tier2 and tier 3 cities have enrolled in a social-media site. Moreover, Chinese people are regarded as the world’s most active social-media population, around 91% of respondents telling they visited a social-media site in the previous six months, followed by 70% in South Korea, 67% in the United States and 30% in Japan (Chiu, Lin, & Silverman, 2012). This article is based on an exploratory study analysing the current situation of Chinese online market and the online shopping websites. Through interviews with customers who already had online luxury shopping experience and a questionnaire to about 150 potential customers of online luxury shopping websites, this paper tries to identify some of the key factors affecting the purchasing behaviour of Chinese customers of luxury fashion products. Based on the understanding of the current situation and the innovative role played by the digital orientation of purchasing behaviours in luxury, this article will introduce some hypotheses in order to verify the assumptions associated to key challenges and success factors in the Chinese market which can be the reference for luxury companies to fix their on-line marketing – pricing, distribution network, fashion brands variety. The exploratory study in the field has already showed specific results. With respect to pricing strategy for online purchasing, results showed clearly that besides the fact that traditional luxury purchasers are not price-sensitive also in relation to the fact that luxury products high price is a symbol of exclusivity; the modern luxury fashion Chinese customers, mainly composed by people younger than 30-years old, enjoying the wealth accumulated by their parents and other family members, have better education backgrounds which makes them have little conceptions about the purchasing power of currency. Logistics, which contain the products’ packaging, delivery mode and time and comprehensive quality of it appeared to be the one of the most important way to present the e-retailers’ services for online luxury customers. Through customers purchase luxury products online, the majority of them are still expected to enjoy the luxury experience and services just like in the traditional luxury boutiques. Based on the knowledge and the previous studies of luxury consumers and Chinese e-commerce two hypotheses will be proposed and verified in the empirical study. Furthermore, Supply channel for online luxury shopping websites have also shown to be also particularly relevant as the product quality and the modes are the most attractive factor for customers. A qualified supply channel will guarantee the products’ quality and variety for customers. Chinese market has its own characters and Chinese citizen shopping habits are also distinct, obviously, the current situation in China has indicated that luxury brands and e-commerce still in the run-in period. Through there are some successful cases in western countries which can partly provide some key factors for Chinese market, it is impracticable for luxury brands and some retailing websites copy their experience and follow those “rules” in China. It is quite critical for both luxury brands and e-commerce companies recognize the difference existed in this market, understand the real situation and then modify their marketing policies. This study has only analysed some of the key issues affecting the purchasing patterns of luxury fashion customers. Consequently more quantitative and qualitative research in the field that analyses it from different perspectives it is suggested.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the meaning of soul fashion in American pop culture. This study was conducted using a literature research method based on the prior theses, journals and relevant books. Soul as a concept, originated in African-American communities and evolved from the ideology of Black Power, which prompted Black Nationalism. Soul fashion, which took on two styles in African American culture began to embody black resistance and community pride in the late 20th century. One of these, hip-hop style represented the message of resistance and a sense of beauty outside the mainstream. The other, African–inspired fashion, which utilized a look inspired by African tradition, rejected white supremacy by expressing a proud dignity. As a result, the meaning of “soul” in soul fashion represented by American pop culture resulted in contrasting appearance due to different elements. First, one of its meanings is ironic and sarcastic, and it expressed historical trauma, cultural stereotypes, self-hatred, and self-degradation and, the self-mutilation of African-American by cynically distorting their silhouettes and, using modified materials and patterns, fantastic colors, and extraordinary accessories. Second, the other meanings is the pride and dignity of Black Power, which visualized the concentration of ideas implied by the tradition of African-American, through soul fashion by using fierce traditional of African costumes, unique patterns and accessories.

The paper examines the impact of international expansion of retail operations on the choice of performing internally or outsourcing some strategic activities in order to cope with the demands of retail outlets in domestic and foreign markets, providing a case analysis of Italian luxury fashion companies.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine factors affecting customers’ intention to buy apparels through mobile apps. The proposed model was evaluated using survey data collected from 304 mobile app users and assessed by structural equation modeling. Our study contributes to a theoretical understanding of mobile apps usage.

In the international literature, there is an increasing attention on the analysis of the fashion city (Breward & Gilbert, 2006) and its implication on city branding and competitiveness (Jensen, 2005; Power & Hauge, 2008; Pasquinelli, 2010) and local identity (Bovone, 2006). Some examples are the study of Weller (2013) who examines the success of New Zealand’s designer fashion industry in the first years of the twenty-first century. Hauge, Malmberg & Power (2009) analyse the Swedish fashion cluster underlining that it is benefit from localisation economies, but it also follow rules of globalised industries. Rantisi (2004) examines how New York City was able to reinvent itself as a fashion capital. By tracing the origins of women's ready-to-wear in New York in the late nineteenth century and its consolidation in the Garment District by the early twentieth century. Jansson & Power (2010) approaches the ways in which fashion and design-based industrial actors contribute to creating images and myths that support global-city status. The Italian city of Milan is used as a case study to show how the city is an arena where different brand channels are negotiated and formed to service fashion and design branding. Fashion capitals usually have a broad mix of business, financial, entertainment, cultural and leisure activities and are internationally recognised for having a unique and strong identity (Gemperli, 2010) In this chart of fashion capital city, Italy ranked in a good position with Milan as capital fashion city. Milan emerged as a fashion capital city in 1970s, while Florence and Rome stayed in the following positions (Merlo & Polese, 2006). Florence is usually ranked in the third position in Italy thanks to the luxury pole around the metropolitan area with global brand as Gucci, Ferragamo and Prada. The Global Fashion Monitor (2012) scored Florence at the thirteen position at global level in the ‘World's Leading Cities for Fashion’, with a gain of three position from previous chart and indicating as motivation “Florence: Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli — A proud heritage to a thriving fashion industry”. This situation anyways is not guaranteed in the future. In fact some authors also underlined that this chart of global city will not be maintained in the future as city from developing countries are increasingly enter in the competition (McKinsey, 2013; Gilbert, 2006). In particular, McKinsey (2013) ranks Paris, London, Milan and Seoul in the mature growing fashion industry in the Luxury segment, while Moscow, Singapore, San Peterbrurg, Beijing, Shangai, San Paolo etc as emerging city in the global fashion industry. FASHION AND CITY BRANDING Crewe & Beaverstock (1998) underlined the contemporary fashion industry and the role it plays in identity formation has created a situation where fashion can be taken seriously as a cultural industry supplying symbolic content in sold goods. In this context fashion is identified as a powerful stylistic marker, not a simply part of a trivial consumer culture. Jansson & Power (2010) underlined that the value of global fashion city-based brands lies partly in their ability to persuade consumers of products’excellence, quality, and innovation. Also, the brand infuses products (and firms) with the ‘feel’ of the city: cool clothes come from cool cities. Labels of origin such as ‘Made in Italy’ or Rive Gauche are used as strategic tools in the fashion industry (Hauge et al., 2009). Positive connections between product images and place may create a kind of monopoly rent and therein can create barriers to entry for products from competing places; and give firms an incentive for being in the ‘right’ place. Jansson & Power (2010) underline also that clustering in few fashion city produce also some other benefits as agglomerations of firms and consumers play a central role in the gathering, creation, and transfer of industry-relevant knowledge and cluster of creative industries (Lazzeretti & Capone, 2015). There is in fact an increasing effort in the research on the city branding with the help of local industry and local cultural production (Jensen, 2005). Breward & Gilber (2006) have underlined that city branding is more a focus from city authorities in order to appear in the global hierarchy of fashion capital. Niedamysl (2004) besides points out that city branding has the main aim of attracting visitors, investors or inhabitants. Power & Hauge (2008) discuss the role of the branding for territories, places and cities, underlining that has been a topic deeply undervalued for territorial competitiveness and they analyse the fashion industry as an example. City branding is a recent strand of research with a growing trend (Merrilees, Miller & Herington, 2009) and it results a complex research theme, due to its multidisciplinary approach (Pike, 2011). Born at the beginning for the analysis of the image of the city, it deals increasingly with analysis of marketing strategies and policy for urban context (Merrilees, Miller & Herington, 2012). At the moment, it is a theme that rise interest from different subjects as marketing, management, but also urban studies, economic geography and urban and regional development. If an analysis on ISI Web of Science is developed on ‘city branding’, over 100 articles are collected on these themes with article from the following Journal as Cities, International Journal of Tourism Science, Journal of Business Research, Urban Studies, Applied Geography, Current Issues in Tourism, European Journal of Marketing, etc. These Journals confirm the multidisciplinary approach and the interest on city branding from several stakeholders: policy-makers, urban planners, marketing strategist, urban developer, etc. Within the theme, several studies have focused on how city branding is particularly attached to some local industries and activities, that denote the area and the city. In this context, one of the most interesting aspect is interactions between branding and fashion (Jansson & Power, 2010; Hauge et al .. 2009; Martinez, 2007). The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of fashion and fashion design for the city of Florence, in the formation of a new image of the city, also in a perspective of new branding strategies for the future. The analysis is based on a multi-level approach. First, an initial analysis is developed on publications on ‘city branding’ on ISI Web of Science to identify the relevance of the theme and the most used methodologies in these studies. The second part of the work is instead based on analysis of reviews of online communities (TripAdvisor, Twitter, etc.) of the attractions of the city and a questionnaire is administrated to visitors of the main fashion outlets in Florence (The Mall, Barberino Desegner Outlet, etc.), in order to emphasize the perception of visitors and consumers of fashion in the city and how it contributes to the fashion city branding of the city of Florence. From the point of view of marketing, several authors have tried to analyse the brand association in fashion (Ranfagni, Guercini & Crawford, 2014), but mainly from the point of view of products. In this work, we try to contribute to this debate through the analysis of online communities and city branding of Florence. Merrilees et al. (2009) investigate what are the city attributes influencing city brand attitudes with a quantitative survey of a sample of 878 residents of the Gold Coast City. Hankinson's (2001) study of twelve English cities shows the diversity of approaches in how city organizations market and brand themselves. Vanolo (2008) analysed the city of Turin and its transition from post-industrial to a cultural and creative city. This work develop a single stake-holder perspective as most studies avoid to considers multiple stakeholders perception on city branding (Merrilees et al., 2012). Results confirm the importance of the fashion industry in the perceived image of Florence from the visitors and for the future city branding policies are even more strategic to continue to exploit the competitive advantage that Florence has in the fashion industry globally.

New communication challenges for companies that use social media are: 1) the knowledge and control of the degree of alignment between communicated and perceived brand personality in order to measure the effectiveness of competitive positioning, and 2) the measurement of engagement among consumers who share comments about brands in online communities. Our research proposes research tools that can help fashion companies meet these challenges. In particular, we present an innovative methodological approach that combines netnography and text-mining to extract and analyze data from online communities of fashion brands.

The research examines the role of social media as a part of marketing communications strategy in the fashion industry. The aim is to develop a conceptual framework for marketing communications in the digital age, given the rise in importance of social media and the decline of traditional print media in terms of fashion influence.

We are in the midst of a digital revolution, in which real-time technologies have become disruptive forces shaping the fashion industry, necessitating for a revision and re-conceptualizing of extant fashion theories about diffusion of innovations and dissemination of fashion trends.

The aim of this paper is to understand which are the most effective social media strategies for gaining customer engagement for fashion companies. The study has been conducted using the empirical research methodology and the information has been collected with the use of an online survey distributed among companies belonging to the fashion industry. 42 questionnaires have been collected and therefore discussed. The analysis led to the definition of a list of strategies used by fashion companies on the adoption of social media tools. Subsequently, activities and the social tools able to improve customer engagement have been analysed. Finally, according to the size of the companies and to their positioning on the market, a descriptive analysis of the results have been carried out, comparing companies with similar characteristics. The research shows that companies of the same segment adopt the same approach to social media as well as a similar set of social media marketing strategies. The findings of this paper confirm the growing interest both from academics and practitioners for Social Media Marketing tools and they will suggest implications to fashion brands to manage their customer engagement and their social media activity.

Fashion is primarily based on adoption of trends by consumers in textiles, clothing, footwear, jewelry and art, inter alia. As fashion is based on human preferences, it is characterized by dynamic changes throughout seasons and years, short life cycles, low predictability and high volatility of demand and impulse purchases. In the dynamic environment of apparel markets, fashion firms aim at successfully forecasting both the desirability of new collections and the volumes of each item produced and released to the market under terms of substantial levels of uncertainty. When demand for an item exceeds its supply, the firm is likely to lose additional profits that could have been collected had a sufficient volume of this item been present in the market. Alternatively, if the supply of an item surpassed its demand, it would remain unsold, thereby generating loss equal to its marginal production and distribution costs. The paper proposes a forecasting model that enhances the accuracy of fashion trend forecasting in the context of multiple variants of colour clothing. The model aims at maximizing profits of the firms, while minimizing the forecasting error and reducing the costs that result from excess capacity of production or, alternatively, from loss of potential revenues due to low demand.

Conviviality is an interdisciplinary concept and a key phenomenon in the entrepreneurial communities. Entrepreneurial communities are social units that share values, experiences, emotions, rituals and traditions. They give rise to personal contact networks that are sets of formal or informal individual relationships. Conviviality means sharing, openness and participation; in this sense, it can be a tool to foster, animate and amalgamate a community. Thus, it can increase social relations that stably bind individuals and thus, becomes a source of business relations. Drawing from literature analysis and a case of a fashion entrepreneurial community, we propose to investigate how conviviality create an integration between social and business networks.