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\"Indian textile designs express dazzling inventiveness and creativity, from the woven silks of royalty to the simple block-printed patterns. This authoritative sourcebook overflows with colour and patterns to inspire and inform. The introduction gives an overview of Indian textiles, including methods by which they were made and their intended uses. The book is divided into three chapters defined by pattern style: Florals, Figurative and Geometric. Each comprises an introduction to the style's history, and demonstrates the techniques of structure, surface and embellishment patterning. A wealth of cross-referencing by theme and process makes this a uniquely useful resource. Over 300 breathtaking and hugely varied designs are examined here in detail through close-up shots of the pattern and material alongside a thoughtful examination of the reverse of many fabrics, demonstrating different weaving techniques so that the reader can see precisely how the textile was made.\" -- V&A website.

Purpose This study aims to examine the conceptual distinction of two clothing orientations – style orientation and fashion orientation. Style and fashion orientations both express identity and individuality, but the fashion orientation may more strongly reflect materialistic values, which extensive evidence shows are detrimental to well-being. This study investigates how the clothing orientations are associated with materialism and subjective well-being. Design/methodology/approach The conceptual distinction between style and fashion orientations and their associations with materialism and subjective well-being were investigated via an online survey (N = 4,591) conducted in Germany, Poland, Sweden and the USA. Participants aged 18–65 were recruited based on national representative quotas for age, gender, education and region. Findings The regression results support a conceptual distinction between the style and fashion orientation. Style orientation was positively associated with subjective well-being compared to fashion orientation. Both the style and fashion orientations were positively correlated with materialism, but the association was much stronger for fashion orientation and materialism exhibited a strong negative association with subjective well-being. Interestingly, materialism moderated the association between fashion orientation and well-being but not between style orientation and well-being. Research limitations/implications The four examined countries were Western, and, thus, the findings cannot be generalized to other populations. In addition, this study specifically examined relationships in a clothing context. To enable wider generalization, the relationships tested must be explored in other countries, especially non-Western, and also across other product categories. Practical implications The findings of this study can help retailers develop their marketing programs, product and service offerings and specifically their communications more closely targeted to consumers’ clothing orientations. Originality/value This study contributes by conceptually distinguishing between clothing style and fashion orientations and investigating their divergent associations to materialism and subjective well-being. This research also raises the question of whether fashion orientation is independent or rather, an aspect of materialism, which has implications for other consumption domains as well.

Purpose The Muslim population is growing at twice the non-Muslim rate and forecast to represent over 25% of the global population by 2030. The Muslim fashion market is predicted to be worth $311bn globally by 2024. This market is currently not well understood or served. This study aims to present new insights into the fashion consumption opinions, attitudes and behaviours of female Muslim consumers through the lens of consumer culture focusing on Muslim identity. Design/methodology/approach An inductive qualitative method was adopted comprising 23 in-depth semi-structured interviews from respondents of seven ethnicities residing in the UK. Data were coded using a thematic approach. Findings Findings highlight the effect of Muslim identity on fashion consumption. Data demonstrates the importance of fashion for Muslim women despite the potential conflict between Islamic principles and public image. Respondents were conscious that their fashion behaviours were consistent with their identity; however, concerns were raised around limited choice and availability. Religiosity and family context/background were highlighted as key influences. Social implications Findings provide clear guidance, enabling fashion brands to most effectively serve this substantial and rapidly growing market. It is important that Muslim women are able to engage fully with fashion trends, satisfying their will to fit in with both their religion and their wider community. Originality/value This qualitative research provides depth of understanding of consumer motivations and attitudes and a multi-ethnic perspective which is lacking from previous studies that have adopted quantitative and single nationality approaches.

To improve the convenience and effect of fitting process, an online fitting system of user-personalized body type based on the virtual technology is put forward. Firstly, develop the fitting system with Java as the development language, and construct the human model, spinning motion model and virtual clothing model; then, divid the relevant model creation based on the body, generate the personalized body type, and design the slab model, represented by triangular patch, while all points in same one gender model keep the spatial position relation with each other to simplify the interpolation process; finally, verify the efficiency of developed system through the factor analysis and cluster fitting design.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the existence and profile consumer segments based on dissonance in Indian apparel fashion retail market.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on cognitive dissonance theory (CDT) and analyses data using cluster and discriminant analysis on a sample (n = 354) from India.FindingsThe findings revealed three dissonance segments among consumers based on the intensity of dissonance experienced. This study also validated the clusters and profiled each segment. In doing so, the three clusters exhibited unique differences with respect to purchase and socio-demographic characteristics. Moreover, high dissonance segments were found to inversely impact customer’s satisfaction, loyalty and overall perceived value and positively impact tendency to switch.Practical implicationsUnderstanding the existence of cognitive dissonance (CD) patterns among consumers is critical for fashion apparel retailers. This paper offers unique insights into the specialties of each dissonance segment that assists the marketers to frame appropriate strategies to target them.Originality/valueThis paper advances knowledge on consumer behavior by highlighting the significance of CD.

In addition to the fulfilment of a basic human need of protection and functionality, fashion clothing can also be used by individuals as a means of improving self-image and communicating one’s social class. However, fashion has a very short product life cycle and is dependent on changing trends. There is scant research into the impact of both psychological and marketing concepts on the intention to purchase fashion clothing. The purpose of the study was to use both the psychological antecedents of attitude and motivation and marketing concepts of product quality, advertisement and availability, to explain customer’s purchase intention. Data were collected from 178 participants aged between 18 and 60 and analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and structural equation modeling. The outcome of the investigation reveals a positive relationship between attitude, motivation, advertisement, availability, quality and customers’s purchase intention. The contribution and limitations of the study were also discussed.

This paper builds on a body of multi-disciplinary literature to analyze and compare the emergence of the prêt-à-porter industry in France and the ready-to-wear industry in Italy from their founding to their growth stages in the mid-twentieth century. The comparison demonstrates the significant impact that the French Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, des Confectionneurs et des Tailleurs pour Dame, and the National Chamber of Italian Fashion had on the trajectories of the fashion industry for each country. The article focuses on foundational entrepreneurs within the industry such as Giovanni Battista Giorgini, Jean Patou, Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, and others. It analyzes how these chambers supported the emergence of differentiated firms within the fashion industry, and how the industry responded to the business conditions in the international economy of the post-World War II period through the global recession of the 1970s.

The people of Taquile Island on the Peruvian side of beautiful Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the Americas, are renowned for the hand-woven textiles that they both wear and sell to outsiders. One thousand seven hundred Quechua-speaking peasant farmers, who depend on potatoes and the fish from the lake, host the forty thousand tourists who visit their island each year. Yet only twenty-five years ago, few tourists had even heard of Taquile. InWeaving a Future: Tourism, Cloth, and Culture on an Andean Island, Elayne Zorn documents the remarkable transformation of the isolated rocky island into a community-controlled enterprise that now provides a model for indigenous communities worldwide. Over the course of three decades and nearly two years living on Taquile Island, Zorn, who is trained in both the arts and anthropology, learned to weave from Taquilean women. She also learned how gender structures both the traditional lifestyles and the changes that tourism and transnationalism have brought. In her comprehensive and accessible study, she reveals how Taquileans used their isolation, landownership, and communal organizations to negotiate the pitfalls of globalization and modernization and even to benefit from tourism. This multi-sited ethnography set in Peru, Washington, D.C., and New York City shows why and how cloth remains central to Andean society and how the marketing of textiles provided the experience and money for Taquilean initiatives in controlling tourism. The first book about tourism in South America that centers on traditional arts as well as community control,Weaving a Futurewill be of great interest to anthropologists and scholars and practitioners of tourism, grassroots development, and the fiber arts.

Textile production was of greater value and importance to people in the past than any other social craft activity: everyone depended on cloth. As with other craft goods, such as pottery, metal objects, or ivory carving, the large-scale production and exchange of textiles required specialization and some degree of centralization. This book takes an explicitly economic approach to textile production, focusing on regional centers, most often referred to as palaces, to understand the means by which states in the Aegean and Anatolia financed themselves through cloth industries. From this we can look for evidence of social stratification, inter-regional exchange, and organized bureaucracies. Spanning multiple millennia and various sources of evidence, Burke illustrates the complex nature of cloth production, exchange, and consumption and what this tells us about individual societies and prehistoric economies, as well as how developments in cloth industries reflect larger aspects of social organization.