Materialism, fashion consumers and gender: A cross-cultural study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among materialism, gender and fashion consumer groups from two countries - one representative of an individualistic culture (US) and one representative of a collectivistic culture (Korea). Participants were 397 students from a university in Korea (n=221) and a university in the US (n=176) who completed the questionnaire. The materialism construct showed adequate reliability for participants in both cultures. Fashion change agents scored higher on materialism (centrality and success) than fashion followers. Females scored higher on materialism than males which seemed to be based on higher scores on the centrality subscale. Participants from the US and Korea differed on all three subscales of materialism with US participants scoring higher on centrality but lower on success and happiness than Korean participants. The findings of this study provide valuable implications for fashion marketers and retailers in Korea and US. The findings are limited to Korean and US consumers and cannot be generalized to other cultures. This paper fills a gap in the literature by comparing materialistic values between genders and fashion consumer groups in an individualistic culture (US) and a collectivistic culture (Korea). © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.