Understanding luxury fashion through consumer psychology
With luxury fashion profits skyrocketing and opportunity knocking, using consumer psychology to understand the evolution of luxury fashion gives new insight to changing fashion trends.
With greater awareness and social comparison through social media, traditional “luxury fashion” has lost its extrinsic value as a differentiator. It has become less exclusive, more common and so has been forced to evolve. Here, we use a psychological lens to understand this evolution and highlight a risk to brands during this transition.
Psychologically speaking, luxury fashion has traditionally been used to meet evolutionary needs and mating goals. Consumer motives for luxury consumption can be categorized as either intrinsic ( reflecting internal self-fulfillment goals) or extrinsic ( reflecting goals around the perception by others).
Intrinsic drivers of luxury fashion consumption include improved perception of one's own self competence and psychological protection against criticisms or self-uncertainty. While extrinsic drivers focus on the consumer's desire to convey high social status, indicating a person's wealth, and taste - this is known as conspicuous consumption.
Frequently, the aim of the conspicuous consumer is to identify as a member of a high status group or move themselves up the social hierarchy of society by bringing their image of self closer to those they idolize. This was traditionally done using ‘loud’ luxury products with more prominent brand identifiers (e.g., logos).
Think of the plaid pattern of Burberry - it is now so commonly seen that it no longer conveys exclusivity:
This change has driven a new type of luxury fashion: Inconspicuous consumption (discreet fashion but recognised by those in the know - true ballers). Inconspicuous consumers leverage cultural capital - think mannerisms, tastes and knowledge) to convey exclusivity to a small subset of in-the know people.
Crucially it differs from conspicuous consumption because generally, consumers are not trying to widely display/increase their social status, rather they are more concerned with signaling only to their social group peers.
When consumers e.g ‘traditional money’ feel that their social positioning above other groups is assured, they feel less need to provide broadly recognisable signals of superiority. Further when other groups do not recognise the brand/product, exclusivity and uniqueness exists helping the inconspicuous consumer re-establish their identity. Other drivers of inconspicuous consumption include risk aversion, where consumers bid to avoid negative comments on social media so remove explicit cues of wealth.
As an example - Kanye West’s plain white t-shirts going for £100 seems ridiculous to many of us but for those with enough cultural capital, it reflects an elite level of knowledge and sophistication.
Now the conspicuous and inconspicuous brands are not as easy to differentiate as they may seem. As more people become more aware of the fashion brands that appeal to inconspicuous consumers through social media, the discrete signals of status become overt and more widely recognised. Perceptions of these brands change - inconspicuous brands become conspicuous and the silence of small brand logos becomes increasingly deafening.
And because of these moving goals posts, it’s increasingly important for brands to know how they are being perceived to guide the framing of products - language, imagery and tone.
For consumers who are seeking inconspicuous brands, conspicuous brands can start to feel crass, loud and common - therein lies the risk.
What would happen if products were marketed/framed using ‘loud’ language and imagery when your customers wanted discrete luxury fashion ( inconspicuous consumers) ??
How devastating would that be on the perceptions and appeal of the product?
Why should I care about this?
How you frame your product with marketing materials can be just as important as the product itself.
Overly highlighting the social status and wealth benefits of a brand that is perceived as inconspicuous will damage perceptions of the brand, while discreetly marketing conspicuous fashion products will feel lackluster.
Bottega Veneta bags below on the face of it appeals to customers desire for inconspicuousness as it has no overt branding but as its products becomes more widely known 2 questions arise:
With greater public awareness, has it become a target for conspicuous consumers/what characteristics is it associated with?
How should marketing messages be framed accordingly?
Bottega Veneta has no obvious branding on its leather bag, appealing to the inconspicuous consumer
For businesses, knowing how your consumers non-consciously perceive your brand and products allows marketing to frame the benefits of the product to meet consumer needs.
As consumer psychologists, we know that just asking consumers what they want from a luxury fashion brand doesn’t cut the mustard. Humans are awful at both recognising and describing their emotional needs and drivers - hence why psychology methods start to add value.
Instead we use psychological tools to reveal the unconscious associations consumers have with different brands and products - and provide a psychological persuasion and communication playbook underpinned by the research that guides the framing and marketing of products.
If you’d like to find out more about how consumer psychology can guide the framing of luxury fashion in an evolving marketplace, get in touch with us here:
hello@weareib.co