Fashion and frequency of purchase: womenswear consumption in Britain, 1961‐2001

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to model the relationships between women's outerwear consumption, frequency of purchase and consumer profiles, and to analyse historical changes in particular, using repeated cross‐sectional data on household expenditure.Design/methodology/approachA sample of over 20,000 female spenders, aged between 16 and 54 were extracted from UK Family Expenditure Survey (FES). Tobit model, “two‐part” model and pseudo‐panel model were used to estimate consumer demand for women's outerwear, taking infrequency of purchase into account.FindingsThe importance of “fashion” in clothing consumption has risen by two‐fold since the 1960s, measured by purchase probability. Clothing have transformed from durable goods to consumables. Youth, class and women's employment are found to be significantly related to fashion consumption, controlling for the rise in income.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are limited to UK female consumers and to the demographic data that are available from FES. The effects of occasions, serendipity, emotions and weather remain to be assessed in future research.Originality/valueThis paper provides a unique measurement of “fashion” for a comparative social science research across time and space. It promotes the usefulness of the perspective of fashion as a powerful critique against the rationality assumption of neoclassical economics with complementary evidence.