Fashion, Style & Popular Culture - Volume 6, Issue 2, 2019

Sneakerheads are individuals who collect and wear sneakers with great enthusiasm. Most of the sneakers that they covet are limited in quantity and worn by celebrities. Sneakerheads’ culture has not been scrutinized in academia, even though it is characterized by some unique behaviours (e.g., purchasing numerous pairs of sneakers, camping out to purchase newly released sneakers and violent incidents). This exploratory netnography research focuses on an online brand community of sneakerheads, Niketalk.com, and explores its members’ information-sharing behaviours and how these behaviours influence their purchase decision-making processes. Data from two Niketalk.com threads about retro sneaker were analysed. Three thematic categories pertinent to sneakerhead culture emerged from the qualitative data analysis. First, ‘release information’ delineates the key information that sneakerheads share online. Second, the heavy usage of ‘jargon and abbreviations’ reveals how sneakerheads interact with each other. Finally, ‘resemblance, rarity, and inequity’ explains what drives sneakerheads’ purchase decision-making, loyalty to their culture and withdrawal from it. The research suggests that sneakerheads need to be aware of the factors that can drive unnecessary impulse purchases, while sneaker brands need to diversify release channels and monitor brand communities to determine the optimal release amounts that can best benefit them. Furthermore, the brands are expected to control the spread of leaked and false information that can negatively impact anticipated product releases.

Many college millennials indulge in pampering themselves with their unique style of dress, hair grooming and painted nails. Nail styles can be unique among women and men of different age groups, social classes, cultures and ethnicities. The purpose of this study was to explore African American college millennials’ attitudes towards nail fashion and decorative art in relation to their appearance and self-expression. Study participants were African American millennials ages 18 to 34 years attending a historically Black higher education institution in the United States. A university campus ad was created to promote the study, and recruitment was conducted via snowball sampling. Data were compiled from in-depth, face-to-face interviews conducted with each participant. The research results show that the participants’ choice of nail fashion represented a form of expression as they negotiated their daily identities and that they were exhibiting creative and innovative ways to share their expressions.

This article explores the body in relation to theatricality, identity and appearance through the examination of an interview and photographs given by one of the founders of the group The House of Disappointments in Helsinki, Finland. Photographs of their gendered, costumed bodies are posted on social media and I propose, create new ways through which the gendered body becomes a symbolic costume when viewed through the lens of peep culture – a voyeuristic world where new configurations of space create new theatrical paradigms for performance. Indeed, this action enables the idea of the human body of the social media user to be interpreted as a costume that functions as a scenographic device in itself and to become a liaison between the new ways that theatrical performance integrates itself into the culture of cybervoyeurism within the scope of everyday life. The act of performing gender in virtual environments expands the rituals of traditional theatrical forms and the ways we see the body. In postmodern society, the act of performing the body in social media has become both a mundane gesture and a performative act. For the social media user, the act of peeping has become the norm and an intrinsic part of the process of ‘being online’. Social media users participate in deliberately voyeuristic activities such as looking at people’s postings, as well as sharing photos, videos, messages or comments online. Spaces like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, among others, are configured in a way that the user is socially allowed and encouraged to glimpse and participate in other people’s lives.

Researchers interested in tattoos and tattooing have investigated a range of topics. Since obtaining tattoos has increased in popularity with both men and women, our research purpose was to critically assess research focused on this form of body modification. Using a database search and the ancestry approach we identified 60 empirical refereed journal articles with human participants published between 2000 and 2018. Our analyses revealed five general research topics: (1) motivations for obtaining/removing tattoos, (2) others’ perceptions of, attitudes towards and behaviours directed towards tattooed individuals, (3) individual differences and tattoo status, (4) actual attitudes/perceptions and behaviours of tattooed individuals and (5) workplace outcomes and tattoo status. Overall, most of this research was conducted in western countries, researchers primarily utilized convenience samples and few researchers noted theory as an influence on their research. Recommendations for future research and theories to apply are provided.

One of the biggest challenges associated with breastfeeding is finding clothing that is conducive to this process. The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of breastfeeding mothers relative to clothing choice. New mothers who breastfeed their infants must consider the clothing they wear during this time, especially in terms of functionality, comfort and aesthetics, while simultaneously make clothing choices that help communicate their identities as new mothers. Little research exists which explores how women use clothing in the development of this identity or the role of breastfeeding within this process, therefore a qualitative research approach was employed to examine the experiences of breastfeeding mothers relative to clothing choice. Upon IRB approval from the researchers’ university, in-depth interviews were conducted with 24 women who were mothers for the first time within six months of recruitment. As a result of iterative analysis, three themes were identified and used to structure the interpretation. As this study reveals, women who breastfeed their infants face several challenges in terms of clothing choice, which impact how they use clothing to integrate breastfeeding into their identities as new mothers.

Physically attractive people in western cultures are perceived more positively in society, translating into tangible benefits for those considered to be attractive. For western women, part of being considered physically attractive is having a thin or slender body. Anorexia, a preoccupation with low weight via food restriction, has among the highest mortality rates of all psychiatric disorders. Despite this, a recent phenomenon called Pro-Anorexia, the advocacy of anorexic behaviour, has become increasingly popular online. Those who are a part of the pro-anorexia culture are likely to reject the classification of Anorexia as an illness and engage in anorexic behaviours as a lifestyle choice. In this research, the prominence and themes of Pro-Anorexic content were qualitatively investigated on three social media websites. Presence of the community was noted on all three websites; however, most content was removed during the observation. As long as the western beauty ideal emphasizes and rewards thinness, this community, which provides support and guidance in the pursuit of thinness, is likely to continue to exist in online spaces.

Today, with the influence of globalization, the diversity of consumer groups with different consumption habits has increased and producers have had to offer products to a much wider range of consumers. The changing consumption patterns of different groups have enabled identification of lifestyles, leading to products now being a status symbol and identity statement. Consumption, thus, emerges as a concept that is not only dependent on the basic needs of the individual but also on their social and cultural needs. While the concepts of culture and sub-culture, which are highly influential in individuals’ preferences, emerge as an important factor in purchasing behaviours, by reflecting its user’s social habits and cultural group to which they belong, furniture provides clues about the individual’s consumption habits. The individual transfers their message and messages of the group to which they belong with the help of the furniture that they use to others and does this in the most powerful way, in their living space, which is the window to the outside world. Two housing spaces belonging to two different culture groups in the province of Trabzon that host several different cultural layers were selected as the study area. One of these sites hosts users from local cultural groups, and the other hosts users from the global cultural group. Within the scope of the study, furniture consumption habits of the houses belonging to local and global culture groups were questioned. It was found that users showed consumption habits of the culture to which they belong while purchasing furniture like they did for other products, and therefore, consumption habits of the culture influenced furniture purchasing behaviours too.

Amazon Fashion Week Tokyo Spring/Summer 2019, 15–22 October 2018

Fashionable Childhood: Children in Advertising (trans. Eva Malkki), Annamari Vänskä (2017) London: Bloomsbury Academic, 244 pp., 62 illus, 978-1-4725-6844-1, p/bk, $26.95

Colors in Fashion, Jonathan Faiers and Mary Westerman Bulgarella (EDS) (2017) London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 227 pp., ISBN 978-1-47427-368-8, p/bk, £24.29 / $33.26

Acts of Undressing: Politics, Eroticism and Discarded Clothing, BARBARA Brownie (2017) London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 144 pp., ISBN 978-1-47259-618-5, p/bk, $29,95

Friends, Fashion and Fabulousness: The Making of an Australian Style, Sally Gray (2017) Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishers, 317 pp., 978-1-9255-8834-7, $39.95

Fashionability: Abraham Moon and the Creation of British Cloth for the Global Market, Regina Lee Blaszczyk (2017) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 368 pp., ISBN 978-1-52611-931-5, $34.95

Fan Phenomena: Game of Thrones, Kavita Mudan Finn (ed.) (2017) Bristol and Chicago: Intellect Books, 204 pp., ISBN:9781783207848, p/bk, Price £22