A Study on Consumers' Characteristics according to their Fashion Leadership - Focused on Body Cathexis, Self-Efficacy and Shopping Orientation -

The purposes of this study were to determine consumers' characteristics that were shown according to their fashion leadership through examining the differences found with consumers' self-conception like the body cathexis and self-efficacy and clothing shopping orientation. The data were collected from 263 female college students using questionnaire. The results could be summarized as follows: First, the household income, subjective social class and clothing expenditure of the fashion leader group was larger than those of the fashion follower and laggard groups. Second, the fashion leader group showed higher body cathexis than the fashion follower and laggard groups in the lower body, the abdominal region, the bust shape, and the whole body shape. Thirdly, the higher was the fashion leadership, the higher was the self-efficacy. Forth, it was proved that the higher was the fashion leadership, the higher were the clothing shopping orientation such as home-shopping preference, hedonic shopping, impulsive purchasing, and brand loyalty.