Fashion, Style & Popular Culture - Volume 11, Issue 3-4, 2024

Maternity swimwear is one of the least researched garment types despite its ability to create a unique affective experience for women during gestation. It contains as well as exposes and liberates the changing female form during pregnancy. The study explores the history of this ‘second skin’ and illuminates how it relates to sociocultural ideals and human agency. It also investigates the changing perceptions of pregnancy and how maternity wear evolved into maternity fashion. It briefly reviews American women’s attitudes towards sports, primarily swimming, and discusses some of the controversies surrounding the most famous swimwear type, the bikini, before refocusing on maternity swimwear. The authors examine the role of maternity swimwear in helping the historically secluded private female body transition into a visible and public body and postulate the harmony created between swimsuit, mother and child, particularly whilst submerged in water. They suggest that the bathing suit enables women to take charge of their pregnant bodies and new identities and conclude that maternity swimwear is a significant tool of female agency.

The JW Anderson patchwork cardigan from the spring/summer 2020 menswear collection has become an iconic fashion item during the COVID-19 pandemic. Worn by Harry Styles, the cardigan inspired a worldwide TikTok trend of crafting and DIY-ing a replica at home with over 90 million views to date. In response, JW Anderson published the pattern online and the V&A museum acquired the knitwear for its permanent collection. One year later, Olympic gold medallist Tom Daley was pictured knitting in the stands at the 2020 Olympic games – a craft he had picked up during the lockdowns. Both instances are challenging the notion of knitting and needlework as a feminine craft. In the past, men who embroidered, knitted or sewed their clothes were designated as infantile, effeminate and deviant from the hetero masculine norm. In today’s post-pandemic climate, these associations are being challenged. Taking the cardigan and the resurgence of needlework as a case study, this article investigates the ways the COVID-19 pandemic influenced contemporary fashion consumption and re-stitched the meaning of male knitting. Focusing on the transformative aspects of slow fashion and gender fluidity in contemporary society, this article draws on a theoretical framework deriving from queer theory and sustainable fashion. Coined by Kate Fletcher, slow fashion encompasses a recalibration towards a focus on high-quality items over quantity and a slower production that does not exploit natural and human resources. Judith Butler’s notion of gender performativity exposes gender as a social construct produced and maintained by a stylized repetition of acts, such as commonplace speech or nonverbal communication. Analysing the resurgence of male needlework through this critical lens, this article argues that it is the result of seismographic shifts within the contemporary fashion and popular culture that have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Disrupting the fashion industry profoundly on a global scale, this article discusses how the pandemic can be seen as a catalyst for fashion in renegotiating masculinities.

The Indonesian textile industry grew by 15.35 per cent in 2019, whereas previously, it had only seen a growth of around 8.73 per cent. As a result, it occurred to the textile and apparel manufacturers that they needed to enlarge their business lines swiftly. Naisha Hijrah, a designer, producer and textile retailer, sells clothes based on Islamic styles with a post-modernist concept. This study elaborates on how Naisha Hijrah has met its customers’ needs. It also analyses why Naisha Hijrah could become the leading producer and retailer. Naisha Hijrah initially captured the Arabian clothes. This research shows that Naisha’s products have attributes that include crease-free fabric, strong seams, unnoticed fabric fibres, cut patterns, delicate stitching and a design that permits the wearer to perform their ablutions without removing the garment. On the other hand, the technical qualities include many of Naisha’s prioritized fabrics, such as Balotelli and Toyobo, accompanied by zippers designs. Therefore, Naisha develops its product that focuses on technical attributes that Indonesian women prioritize to fulfil their future desires. Finally, this study suggests that Naisha’s robes should combine several kinds of materials in each garment, improve the tailors’ skills, ensure no defects in its production and continuously push the workers to make firmer and smoother stitches. Therefore, Naisha Hijrah should increase sales because it sells what Indonesian women need and love. All this implies that it could be the leading retailer of Islamic fashion items.

The purpose of this article is to examine male consumers’ functional expectations, aesthetic expectations and socio-psychological expectations of the fit of ready-to-wear business apparel as potential antecedents of the purchase decision among a sample of male consumers in the Gauteng province of South Africa. Data were collected from 216 respondents using anonymously completed online questionnaires. Research scales were operationalized based on previous work, and modifications were made to match the current research context and purpose. ‘Functional expectations’, ‘aesthetic expectations’ and ‘socio-psychological expectations’ all used eight-item scale measures. All the measurement items were on a five-point Likert scale anchored by 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = undecided, 4 = agree and 5 = strongly agree to express the degree of agreement. The three posited hypotheses were empirically tested. The results significantly supported all the hypotheses, except for H1. The study findings indicate that a robust relationship exists between socio-psychological expectations and purchase decisions, suggesting that socio-psychological expectations can have a strong, direct influence on male consumers’ decision to purchase business apparel. This could be indicative that when consumers evaluate garments, they do not only consider styles that fit comfortably, but also its aesthetic and cognitive impact. Both practitioners and academics may benefit from the implications of this study. A significant contribution is made to the fashion apparel marketing literature by systematically exploring South African male consumers’ functional expectations, aesthetic expectations and socio-psychological expectations of ready-to-wear business apparel, and its effect on their purchase decision. Empirically, an understanding of consumers’ motivation to purchase ready-to-wear business apparel can assist retailers in developing more effective marketing strategies. While existing literature claims male consumers focus on the functional expectations of apparel, this study found that socio-psychological and aesthetic expectations have a significantly greater impact on South African male consumers’ business apparel purchase decisions. Overall, the current study’s findings support the proposition that there is a need to acknowledge aesthetic and socio-psychological expectations of business apparel as significant antecedents of male consumers’ purchase decisions in South Africa. This study, therefore, stands to contribute new knowledge to the existing body of consumer decision-making literature and male apparel shopping behaviour.

The fashion industry’s heightened focus on sustainable production has enhanced the emergence of varied eco-conscious procedures such as re-upcycling. Nonetheless, the multiple steps required for such procedures often lead to more expensive products, consequently lowering consumers’ motivation to purchase such products. Do-it-yourself (DIY) fashion videos can motivate individuals to try DIY fashion, while promoting sustainable production and consumption of clothing. This study tested if DIY fashion videos could be used to change the perception among Thai youth on the DIY sustainable fashion. An Instagram profile named ‘Broke Vogue’ was created and it shared a variety of DIY fashion-related contents and activities. The page gained 300 followers during the six weeks it was active. The profile also invited participants to take a survey to evaluate their attitudes towards DIY fashion. This served as the data source of this study. The majority of participants in the survey were university students (N = 102, 73.5 per cent women). The results confirmed that participants developed a positive opinion concerning DIY fashion after visiting the page. However, it also strengthened some negative stereotypes as participants were more confident that DIY fashion was not appropriate for senior citizens or citizens with financial issues.

The purpose of this study is to bridge the gap between sustainable fashion and customer purchase intentions by analysing the current trends and offering techniques to increase sustainable fashion awareness and overcome price consumption issues among Generation Z (Gen Z) consumers. A mixed methods approach was employed in this study consisting of online surveys and focus groups surrounding the topic of sustainable apparel consumption among the Gen Z age group. Focus groups served to lead to an online survey of questions to help better understand the phenomena on an exploratory scale. Three focus groups of eight to ten volunteers each aged 18–25 from a large Midwestern university took part in 60-minute discussions regarding their understanding of fast fashion and their purchase intentions/awareness of ethical issues within the apparel industry. Online surveys were conducted through the online platform Qualtrics consisting of 29 questions with a total of 445 participants ranging from 18 to 23 years old taking part in the online survey. Main themes found in the focus groups are the idea of shopping second hand, laziness among consumers and the quality of garments. Surveys found that this age group was willing to pay up to 25 per cent more for a sustainable apparel item and that uniqueness of the item was of utmost importance. Implications for brands and retailers as well as academics are presented.

In order to create their social identity, humans have a tendency to express their feelings and self in the form of views and opinions that they expect from their immediate society. In today’s tech-savvy world, social media has become the most important platform for expressing one’s feelings, experiences and creating self-identity. Subcultures based on these online identities have a direct or indirect effect on fashion, subculture, intercommunity (individuals within the subculture community) and intracommunity (individuals outside the subculture community) individuals. The rise in popularity of social media platforms has led to the recreation of such subculture communities as an online trend. The current article talks about the relation between fashion, social media and these online identities. Multiple identities that are shaped and expressed through fashion and style are created and enacted through social media. Multiple case studies were analysed for qualitative secondary research to understand the effects of recreation of multiple online subcultures, which was filtered down to the Cottagecore, E-girls and Dark Academia subcultures while keeping in mind the relevance on social media and availability of resources. These were taken as interviews from articles and blogs as secondary research pertaining to each subculture. The objective of the article is to understand the effects of recreation of online subcultures on the particular subcultures, its intercommunity, intracommunity individuals, as well as the fashion industry. Mixing and recreation of subcultures create different styles and aesthetics; thus, fashion keeps changing according to that, and trends keep coming up in the fashion industry.

With the popularity of Instagram, the hashtag (#) symbol has emerged as an important marketing tool. By using hashtags, brands can increase their visibility and reach among Instagrammers. The purpose of this research is to examine how fashion brands utilize hashtags and captions on Instagram and how Instagrammers respond to different hashtag and caption patterns. A computational analysis of a large collection of hashtags and captions posted with fashion images was conducted to identify patterns of utilizing hashtags and captions in terms of frequency, form and content. Specifically, 65,107 hashtags attached to 29,557 fashion images posted on Instagram by ten global fashion brands were analysed. This study also examined how customer engagement levels vary for each variable. Several important findings emerged from this study: (1) while most fashion images were posted with hashtags and captions, indiscriminate use of hashtags (i.e. hashtags that are too frequent or too long) were likely to lower the number of likes and comments; (2) using a hashtag in combination with a caption or only using a caption could be more effective than using a hashtag alone in increasing customer engagement levels; and (3) hashtags containing promotional messages, in general, were less effective in promoting likes and comments.

Increasingly many studies have provided practical suggestions for fashion YouTubers as fashion information sources, but no research has yet investigated the resources exchanged in the relationships between fashion YouTubers and viewers. Based on interviews with three Korean fashion YouTubers and ten of their viewers, this study examined social support in their relationships. Viewers acquired information from fashion YouTubers and, therefore, experienced informational support. Subsequently, as a sense of belonging to fandom emerged, established mainly by viewers subscribing to a fashion YouTube channel, network support was experienced by both fashion YouTubers and viewers. Along with constant communication, they shared their values and experienced emotional support through mutual empathy. Therefore, this study verified previous theories according to which both informational and emotional exchanges are possible in online relationships. Furthermore, network support was an important process, which may be connected to emotional support, since these relationships were autonomously established by online users.

The goal of the study is to understand the effect of retail therapy (RT) based on individuals’ body shame, body mass index (BMI) and weight preoccupation. A total of 285 female college students, with an average age of 20.55 years, were collected. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to compare four types of RT (i.e. therapeutic shopping motivation, positive mood reinforcement, negative mood reduction and therapeutic shopping outcomes) based on the degree of body shame, BMI and weight preoccupation. The effect of RT was significantly stronger for individuals who experience body shame. However, based on the individuals’ BMI, the effect of RT did not show statistical differences for any of the subcategories. Only negative mood reduction was significantly stronger for individuals who were highly preoccupied with their weight. Individuals who shop to compensate for personal features may do so to rectify negative perceptions of their weight. Retailers should focus on creating a shopping environment for plus-size consumers and provide a shopping environment that will change their weight perceptions by carrying a broader range of sizes in their stores. Mental health professionals should investigate RT as a modality to treat the symptoms of body image issues.

Many companies such as Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors have had success selling both high-end luxury and middle-end ‘masstige’ brands, as consumers seek luxury labels at affordable prices. There have been studies into consumption of both luxury and masstige products, however, few inquiries have attempted to understand this phenomenon through interviews with luxury company executives. This study aimed to understand luxury executives’ perceptions of ‘pure luxury’ versus masstige in order to update current literature and theoretical frameworks. Interviews were conducted with nine (n = 9) luxury executives. Major themes of balance and cohesion and value emerged; sub-themes and minor themes are outlined.

Review of: Fashion Brand Stories, 3rd ed., Joseph H. Hancock II (2022)

London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 216 pp.,

ISBN 978-1-35013-554-3, h/bk, $50.35