What is Fashion Psychology?
Fashion psychology is a relatively new subdiscipline of psychology. Read to find out what exactly the psychology of fashion is, what a fashion psychologist does and how can their expertise help your business.
The Psychology of Fashion
Psychology is the scientific study of human behaviour. Fashion psychology applies this scientific understanding to fashion businesses’ operations and practices in order to make them more ethical, sustainable, and inclusive, ultimately helping businesses perform better. Fashion psychologists aim to apply psychological theories and concepts in order to solve real-world problems in the fashion industry.
Why is fashion psychology useful?
Fashion psychology is useful due to the ubiquity of human behaviour throughout the fashion industry. From the design and production to the consumption of products and services and the environmental impact they have, psychology’s presence is inherent at all levels of the fashion industry. How we choose to design products, the conditions under which they are made, as well as how we market them to consumers and how sustainable they are, all involve humans and thus require an understanding of human behaviour.
The understanding of said behaviour that psychologists have allows them to use this knowledge to solve problems in ethical and socially responsible ways that benefit the community.
For example, by understanding how consumers think about sustainable garments; how they feel about them, and the social conditions that promote the purchasing of these garments, psychologists can advise companies on how best to market them to consumers.
How can fashion psychology help your business?
A psychological understanding can also be used to help your business grow and perform better. Psychology can be useful for your business as it can look at generalities by using quantitative research methods, or specificities by using qualitative methods.
Quantitative psychological research aims to make theories on human behaviour, attempting to apply them universally. These generalisations mean that the findings can help you understand consumers around the world, with different backgrounds, beliefs and preferences.
Thus, increasing the global appeal of your business.
In addition, qualitative psychological research can enable insights into the factors of a particular group or consumer segment that influences them to behave in a certain way, in turn helping you to better understand niches.
Ultimately, psychological research findings can therefore be used to help large, global organisations as well as smaller, more targeted businesses.
Understand your consumers better
Further, having analytical, data-competent fashion psychologists, who are well-versed in conducting research can also be beneficial for your fashion business. Fashion psychologists can use psychological theories and concepts to understand consumers, inform product design and improve business performance.
For example, a research study I conducted (unpublished) investigated how personality theory shapes consumers’ interactions with 3 emerging fashion technologies - Smart Fabrics, AR try-on and Digital Fashion.
I found that one’s personality traits and attitude towards technology predicted their fashion technology adoption.
Those most likely to use these technologies were Neurotic, Open, and Agreeable and had a positive attitude towards technology, characterised by enthusiasm about using technology and a lack of technology anxiety.
These findings could be used by fashion businesses to inform how fashion technologies are designed for customer use and in marketing to those most likely to use them.
Therefore, by having an understanding of human behaviour, brands can design products and services in ways that make them more attractive to consumers and foster a better user experience.
What is fashion psychology?
Fashion psychology applies a scientific understanding of human behaviour to enhance businesses, understand consumers better, solve current business problems and ultimately, improve performance in a modern, competitive market.
Recommended further reading
For more information on my research and how you can work with me, send me an email at: hellocandicewalker@gmail.com.
