The recent international »Fashion« study by the GfK Custom Research market research institute analyses the fashion-consciousness of European and US citizens. It provides interesting facts to companies and merchants from the fashion industry. According to the study, in particular people from Paris dress according to the latest rage. One third of Europeans and Americans take into account current fashion trends when it comes to clothing while footwear is an important fashion accessory.
As had been expected Paris was chosen to be the city where the most fashion-conscious people live. One third of all Europeans and US citizens as well as more than fifty percent of all the French people but also almost fifty percents of Poles, Czechs and Hungarians thought so. Among Italians just one quarter considers Paris to be the most fashionable city whereas one third prefer Milan in this respect. Among West Europeans Milan ranks second, while Russians, Swedes, Poles and Turks believe that people in their respective capitals are better dressed than in the Italian fashion metropolis.
In all countries it is in particular women who dress according to the latest fashion trends. On average 40 percent of women say that they take into account current fashion trends while this percentage is just 30 percent among men. In countries such as Sweden, Austria, Russia and Germany this gender difference is bigger and amounts to 15%.
Fashion-consciousness also differs among different age brackets. While in the age bracket of 15 to 29 years about fifty percent of people are fashion-conscious, this percentage falls to 36 percent and 23 percent in the age brackets 30-49 and above 50 respectively.
The majority (28%) of those questioned said that television inspires them in terms of fashion trends. On fifth is inspired by fashion magazines or by how people dress in public places such as on the street or in clubs. Ten percent are inspired by the way celebrities dress. Just five percent mentioned the internet in this respect.
These are some of the findings of the study in question which was carried out by the GfK Custom Research market research institute on behalf of the Wall Street Journal Europe in 19 countries. It is available from GfK Custom Research. 