Fashion is an approach and practice that is admired in the present. Itsa set of trends that have been accepted by a wide audience. Following fashionprovides a way for people to gain acceptance from others. It is a contestwithout any draft of rules and guidelines in which all of us are partakerswillfully or impulsively. These rules we learn by testing and errors and are harmonizationof replication and demarcation of others. The word fashion is frequentlyassociated with the world of glamour, beauty, style or apparels.


Latest fashions may be accepted instantaneously by eminent people,including sports person, film stars, and political figures. Then, other peoplemay go after these fashions so that they can make out with this privilegedgroup. A number of people consider that fashionable clothes and surroundings elevatetheir status in life. Fashion is a multifarious noticeable fact from psychosomatic,sociological, cultural, or commercial points of view. Many fashions are prevalent in manycultures at any given time but it changes more rapidly than the culture as awhole. Men and womenhave constantly enjoyed varying their materialization. Following new fashionsin clothes, hair styles, and makeup allows people to amend their appearance ina by and large acceptable approach.


Fashion is an all persistent power. It is present in inter-related lifestyle products like in the devise of newer automobiles and architecture, eatinghabits, the development of latest technology, fast moving consumer goods, and entertainmentindustry, or in formulating business management strategies. This espousal of fashion applies more to clothesand social behaviour than to cars, houses, and other items that most peoplecannot afford to swap frequently. Understanding fashion helps to explain howthese transformations happen in each and every sphere of life.



Fashion in India is very enlightening in representingthe reception and conversion of a product. Fashion awareness isincreasing as well. Fashion awareness is increasing as well.There seems to be profound western pleadwith on urban middle and upper class Indians. There is a positive attitude withregards to western trends. Increasing number of malls in the city, eateries,designer wear, watches, hi-tech products, beverages, canned food, footwear,toys are a few examples which reflect these changes. Now fashion is no morea monopoly of the starlets or just confined to rich people. Even common collegegoing boys and girls or men and women working in a corporate environment, followthe latest trends and wear designer attire as daily office wear or casual wear,unlike a decade ago.


Today, India has emerged as the thirdmost attractive market destination in the world for fashion apparel retailers. Now, the Indian consumers are much more supple andexperimental in their approaches. Change is most likely one of the few constituentsof passion, and is brought in the minds of the consumer due to sway of media, whichhas brought the western world in the Indian homes. Secondly, as more and moreIndians go out of the country for study, work and leisure, the Indian isexposed to and gets first hand experience of a world and life, which isdifferent from what we have in India. The Indian consumers are selecting andchoosing many new product offerings that have entered the market and productvariety has also increased to a great extend due to foreign competitors. Due toretail revolution drastic changes are observed, as upgraded service levels areuse to attract the consumer and they are more patronized and pampered. Now the consumersshow a higher level of fashion consciousness.

 

The conventional markets for fashion and clothing are changing to a more refined or organized market. There is plentiful launch of dissemination lines by designers in India. They are actively setting up more flagship stores and even license their names. With constructive events like end of multifiber agreement, the global elimination of quotas at the end of 2004, entry of foreign retailers and textile companies into the country and the escalation and appreciation of the Indian fashion industry throughout the world, apparel marketing has become one of the interesting and hard jobs in the arena of marketing. India ranks among the top target countries for any company sourcing textiles and apparel. Indeed, apart from China, no other country can match the size, spread, depth and competitiveness of the Indian textile and apparel industry. The malls are coming up away from the city centers.


Also, celebrities are being progressively more used in marketing communication by marketers to provide individuality to their products. Celebrities create headlines. With the visual media becoming more popular the use of celebrities in the TV media has increased. Consumers like advertisements more if they are adherent of the celebrities in the advertisements. Their behavior and associations are being closely watched and replicated. What they endorse sell like hot numbers. They also help to reposition products and in increasing the sales.




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The author is Senior Faculty, CRM Dept at FDDI (Footwear Design & Development Institute) Noida