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.

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.

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.

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.

It is certainly not possible to analyse the evolution of the global luxury consumers orientations for the new luxury Chinese brands without considering the essence and the impact of the “brandscape”. In the last decade, China has assisted to the surge of the “luxury lifestyle” for a multiplicity of consumer segments living in those coastal areas – and not only - filled with luxury and fashion brands, that invaded every city area from streets to airports from clinics to hotels where concept stores, luxury flagship stores, sponsorships for events and urban artefacts “add value to the symbolic production of an urban lived space” (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2015). Luxury product brands are enriched by the synergy with the city brand and the diverse fashion and art city locations, activities and events. In the new luxury perspective that sees luxury in its experiential dimension and no longer only in desire of an exclusive object, the relation of luxury brands and city brand requires a specific focus, in particular in the new fast growing economies as China that sees the rise of the new experiential luxury lifestyle and new local luxury brands. In the fast growing luxury Chinese luxury market where new Chinese luxury brands are striving to acquire a brand identity and image first in the local market and then in the international one, city branding may be a conductive solutions for brand value and identity creation. Authentic luxury experiences in significant city contexts appear added value activities for luxury brands in particular for those with no consolidated heritage and identity as the new Chinese luxury brands. New retail formats such as pop-up stores, concept stores located in specific high value artistic or fashion related locations adds value (Bellaiche et al, 2012). For Chinese luxury brands with a very limited identity, a almost absent heritage and a ongoing value creation of the brand, in-store experience is increasingly important (Atsmon et al, 2012) and the shopping location certainly represent an important factor for the increasingly diverse and demanding luxury customers by being not only the instrument towards the desired subjects but also a value-adding experience on its own (Rintamaki et al, 2007, p. 628). The emergence of the Chinese luxury consumer did not mean the presence on a market where the consumers are gathered by the same tastes, desires and purchasing patterns. Reference to the global consumer culture and paradigm evidenced that consumers in diverse geographical contexts may have different and sometimes even conflicting opinions or shared desires and values expressed in similar behaviours or symbols towards a brand. Global brands sets the international standards and convey shared symbols (Holt, Quelch and Taylor 2004) and a myth of cosmopolitanism to which many consumers world-wide appreciate (Strizhacova, Coulter and Price 2008).Brands represent a form of culture and they relate to the way people live, think, eat and choose to wear as well, a form of seeing life and the world (Askegaard, Kjeldgaard and Arnould, 2009) . Luxury brands have become increasingly present in the Chinese consumer market and lifestyle and the role of purchasing luxury goods experiencing a luxury lifestyle has taken an unexpected importance and meaning in the Chinese social context. China has started to experience the consumer culture only after China's opening up to the market economy as a result of the economic reforms post-1979 that have given to "aspirational" consumers more freedom to develop a consumer culture partially away from political limitations but still permeated in the Chinese culture and its characteristics. Those reforms have also given rise to the private businesses and the birth of a consumer middle class, "the new rich", in China. The birth of the Chinese middle class has fuelled the emergence of a highly diversified consumer class with different purchasing attitudes (Latham, 2006) and a new way to express their taste, their motivation for purchasing (Gillette, 2000) and in particular an increasing brand awareness, mode of purchasing and conceptualisation of luxury (Rambourg, 2014; Rovai, 2016). Distinctive aspects of luxury consumer culture have started to emerge in the late years, evidencing new desires for Chinese luxury consumers with respect to luxury brands, accompanied by the entrance in the market of Chinese luxury brands aspiring the capitalise on the increasing "Chinese luxury desire" but limited by their lack of specific characteristics of authentic luxury brands - heritage, identity and prestige amongst others. As a result, this research focuses on the analysis of Chinese luxury brands presence in the local Chinese urban context; specifically, it focuses on how the Chinese urban fashion context can help to support the creation of a luxury brand value and also reinforce a luxury brand identity and image in a Chinese luxury consumer culture that does not possess a luxury heritage. An analysis of two luxury Chinese brands and a local luxury and fashion concept store has been initiated together with further evidence from the Shanghai urban context, its activities, events and cultural specifics together with the following a qualitative method and in particular Yin (1989) case study approach. A series of 15 interviews have been held in late 2016 in Shanghai with the two Chinese luxury brands creative designers, owners and staff during one month together with observation and consulting of documents. Literature review has focused on the role of individual brands that, being somehow associated with the city become a collective brand (Pasquinelli, 2014), framing "the complex network of associations, linking products, spaces, organizations and people (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2015). Initially, an important attention has been oriented towards the geographical associations to the country-of-origin effect (Bilkey and Nes, 1982; Johansson et al, 1985) later on evidencing that a defragmentation into of smaller geographical units may be appropriate at urban level (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2015) to highlight the relevance of the "origin" not simply in relation to a broad geographical context where the brand manufactures a product but also „the place, region or country where a brand is perceived to belong‟ (Thakor and Kohli, 1996, p. 26). The origin being not only a matter of product production but more of product conceptualisation, perception or consumption going towards the "brand product usage context" (Gerr et al, 1999). Brand product usage happen in those spatial circuits whose cities are part of and whose role may be conductive to the „local origination‟ of product brands, adding value to the birth and internationalisation of locally originated brands (Pike, 2011). Those local brands are developed from an ecosystem composed by relations and ownerships involving a multiplicity of stakeholders whose customers are an integral part (Power and Hauge, 2008). In the literature, Fashion capitals is a unique case of those ecosystems with a specific relationship between industry and spacial circuits is based on the urban context instrumental to fashion creation and also to consumption (Breward and Gilbert, 2006). The city as a part of the consumer culture and in particular as part of the brand product experience (Thrift, 2004). As a result of the literature review and the conceptualisation of fashion capitals as ecosystems conductive to the fashion creation and consumption, an exploratory study of: Which context related variables affect new Chinese luxury brands identity and value and how the China fashion capital ecosystem affects Chinese luxury consumers brand perception. The paper will show an insight of the instrumental relation of the "brandscape" Shanghai and the impact on the Chinese luxury brands value and identity acquisition with respect to Chinese consumers.

This study analyzed the effects of organizational culture on psychological empowerment and organization efficiency, and the effects of psychological empowerment on organization efficiency in fashion companies. In addition, this study analyzed the differences between organizational culture, psychological empowerment and organization efficiency across demographic characteristics. The survey was conducted among employees of fashion companies, and 320 responses were used in the data analysis. As a result, the group culture and innovative culture in fashion companies positively influenced the competence and meaning of psychological empowerment. An innovative culture and rational culture positively influenced the self-determination, and the group culture and rational culture positively influenced the impact of psychological empowerment. The group culture, innovative culture, and rational culture of fashion companies positively influenced job satisfaction, and the group culture, innovative culture, and hierarchical culture positively influenced job commitment. The group culture and innovative culture negatively influenced the turnover intention, but the hierarchical culture positively influenced the turnover intention. In addition, the psychological empowerment (competence, self-determination, impact, and meaning) positively influenced job satisfaction, and the competence, self-determination, and impact positively influenced job commitment. Competence negatively influenced the turnover intention, but the impact positively influenced the turnover intention. There was a difference in the group culture and turnover intention by ages, as well as a difference in the hierarchical culture and self-determination by work departments. The results of this study will be helpful for the establishment of the management and business strategies in fashion companies.

The purpose of this study is to assess whether the emotional leadership of the CEO of a fashion company has a significant influence on corporate performance. In this study, a survey was conducten on employees of fashion companies from August 1 to 30, 2015, and 350 copies of questionnaires were collected and used for analysis. Factor analysis, reliability analysis, and regression analysis were employed to analyze the data using SPSS software (ver. 21.0). According to the study results, if a fashion company CEO has higher emotional leadership, it leads to an increase in the job satisfaction and performance of the staff members, and an improvement in new product performance thanks to more investment and development and an expanded R&D staff. Additionally, the higher emotional leadership of the CEO contributes to an increase in operating profits, sales, and market share. Therefore, the importance of organizational culture was confirmed by its regulation effect on the emotional leadership and management performance of a fashion company. According to the results of this study, the emotional leadership of a CEO plays an important role in improving the performance of a fashion company, and future studies are needed to identify how to enhance the corporate performance of a fashion company from various perspectives.

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 areas of fashion research and fashion design aesthetics & fashion history have been studied under a common research heading as a Humanities subject in the UK and the USA, and as Clothing and Textiles Studies in Korea. The purpose of this paper was to analyze the 2004~2013 research tendencies in terms of reporting methods and contents from 181 world-renowned Fashion Theory research papers within the UK and USA fashion research corpus, and 359 Korean research papers from The Research Journal of Costume Culture related to fashion design aesthetics & costume history field. The subject areas, periods, methodologies, and differences in the topics of the studies were examined. The results of the research are as follows. Regarding the research authorship and length of the research papers, in Fashion Theory most papers were written by a single English-speaking or other foreign language-speaking author and were on average longer than 21 pages, while in The Research Journal of Costume Culture, many papers were jointly written by two Korean researchers and were between 11 and 20 pages. Regarding the content, Fashion Theory was connected to relatively wide and diverse periodical and regional boundaries including the body, clothing, the fashion media, and the overall fashion system, while The Research Journal of Costume Culture revolved around the body and clothing, textiles, the fashion media, and costumes. In addition, since the late 20th century, the studies appeared to be related to the current Western world overall or to the country of the author. Regarding the research methodology, Fashion Theory used diverse research subjects and methodologies, and research was conducted on topics relating to fashion culture or fashion aesthetics. On the other hand, The Research Journal of Costume Culture featured relatively more dynamic studies aimed at suggesting developments or solutions to problems. It was found that a large share of that research focused on detailed style analyses and suggestions for aspects such as design elements and design developments. Such differences are considered to be caused by the inherent differences between the academic departments for the Humanities, and the Human Ecology. The above research results are expected to provide fundamental information in setting a direction for future research to assist the globalization of domestic research.

The hot-wave of campaign for fashion brands has itself become a fashion trend now. In order to participate in this popular trend, every brand has launched a new campaign of developing T-shirts each season with a social issue as the design concept. Such a campaign plan is related to the brand’s image-making. Each brand has its own slogan based on various themes related to social issues. Since the environment is the hottest social issue these days, most campaigns’ T-shirts also focus on the image of environmental-friendliness. The purpose of this study is to elucidate environmentally-friendly fashion culture in daily life so that “environmental-friendliness” would be positively cognized by people in everyday life. For that, the design of these T-shirts following the environmental campaign will be developed and their utilization potential will be clarified. The detail contents of the study are as follow. First, the meaning of the environmental campaign and trends of environmental campaigns in Korea and overseas will be explored in order to identify their theoretical contents. Second, the environmental campaigns will be classified by case. Analysis of the expression and characteristic of each case will determine the utilization plan. Third, design directions will be suggested based on the characteristics produced from the case study. As the study conclusion, five environmental campaign T-shirts will be produced.