KEY CULTURAL INFLUENCES

SOCIAL-CULTURAL

Trends are strongly influenced by social-cultural changes such as modernization, technological innovation and artistic movements.

Trend analysis monitors shifts in fashion, consumer lifestyle and culture. It is important to understand that trends are created by people, who on different levels get involved with different artistic environments.

The three main sources of the development of trends are high culture, popular culture and subculture.

High culture refers to elite activities which one may take part in. These activities in terms of fashion, for example can further process and lead to inspiration and new concepts. This means that through observing contemporary art one may be able to gain valuable information about what influences designers and upcoming trends.

Popular culture is extremely influenced by celebrities. This type of culture is seen as a commercial one, mass-produced for mass consumption. In recent years, mass media has increased the exposure and power of celebrities in terms of fashion, as the industry understands that they have a huge following and an influential presence over these followers making them very interesting towards fashion designers who try to place their products on them. There is a huge trend currently in the media where models will be replaced by Hollywood stars in advertising campaigns for fashion brands. Through these advertising campaigns and partnerships, celebrity followers are being influenced to buy into these brands.

Subculture includes local movements such as graffiti and hip hop, they are often categorised as unique styles which usually diffuse into the mainstream. The influence of subculture is very prominent and can especially be seen in distinguished fashion trends such as ‘street wear’, ‘surf’ and ‘skateboard’ culture (Intothefashion, 2010).

An example of subculture is when unemployed young people in the United Kingdom started punk fashion in the mid-1970s. It was originally a sign of anti-establishment sentiment but has now since been commercialized and diffused into the mass market and high-end fashions (Kim, E., Fiore, A, M., Kim, H., 2011).

Economic

Trends are often influenced by the state of the current economy. FIT professor John Mincarelli states, “In rough economic times, people shop for replacement clothes,” adding “basics” prevail during an economic downturn, meaning that the consumers need changes and therefore so does the trend (Fuller, G., 2015).

Under pessimistic economic conditions, consumers tend to curb their consumption, especially of luxury goods. In the past, economic downturns have influenced the fashion industry through department stores cancelling their orders and designers cutting their prices, introducing in-expensive ready-to-wear lines (Kim, E., Fiore, A, M., Kim, H., 2011).

Furthermore, a robust economy correlates to an increase in consumer’s disposable income therefore, increasing sales and allowing retailers to sell more goods (Treadwell,L., Unknown) and the world economy has in fact rebounded and is growing.

However, even in the time of the recession, the retail industry maintained impressive sales for example in 2015 it achieved global sales of $20.8 trillion and based on the economic scenario worldwide, the retail industry is predicted to grow to $28 trillion by 2020 (Pratap, A., 2017).

These different cultural influences will impact different high street retailers in various ways. The RTT believes that those retailers that successfully understand and target the shifting cultural makeup of Britain will outperform those using antiquate research and customer stereotypes.

Being able to understand migration trends is of the utmost importance for high street retailers in capital cities as figures from the Office for National Statistics show that in 2012 a third of migrants entering the UK headed to capital cities, demonstrating the rapidly changing ethnic profile (retailthinktank, 2013).

“Traditional social and racial stereotyping still prevails in most marketing studies, but half of the babies born in London are now to non-indigenous UK mothers, so marketing and advertising campaigns need to adjust to the fact that the target market is changing.” – Nick Bubb.

However, David McCorquodale of KPMG warns that although there is a rise in ethnic communities, particularly in urban areas, and leading to increasing diversification, it will differ from region to region and retailers must consider their regional demographics before allocating products across their store networks. (use as quotation) “There is no one size fits all solution here”.