Fashion Trends Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Fashion Trends - Essay Example The essay "Fashion Trends" talks about the role of marketing in the popular fashion trends. Therefore in a way, one of the significant concepts of fashion is to develop a sense of personal importance or self to the consumer. This concept of self is further reinforced through marketing campaigns which tend to confirm consumers’ views and opinions on a fashionable product. Fashion can also be attributed with developing the notion of identity in certain communities. The creation of identities and concept of self is a necessity in the fashion industry, as the consumer has choice, and fashion outlets cannot really distinguish themselves on price. The only differentiation will therefore come from the personalities and identities they are aiming to attract. For example, a certain fashion chain may design clothing for consumers who like to emulate catwalk and celebrity fashion, and this message and product they are offering will need to be communicated to the consumer using the approp riate channels, so that they can attract the most in terms of consumer numbers. Marketing in fashion is therefore responsible for creating a relationship between the manufacturer, retailer and customer. The purpose of marketing in this instance is to influence the consumer and direct their purchasing pattern to the intended product. The need to influence purchasing decisions, and to align products to identities and personalities, has resulted in the new concept of fashion marketing, which is â€Å"the application of a range.... and to align products to identities and personalities, has resulted in the new concept of fashion marketing, which is "the application of a range of techniques and a business philosophy that centres upon the customer and potential customer of clothing and clothing-related products and services, in order to meet the long-term goals of the organization" (Okonkwo 2007, Zavrnik and Mumel 2007:p11). This relationship between fashion and marketing has created interdependence between the two, which has raised the bar in the way fashion design is promoted. This interdependence has changed the view of fashion design and marketing, which previously relied on consumers to define their preferences and choices. The current view of fashion design and marketing has meant that the onus is no longer on the consumer to define the style they want. The diagram below illustrates the relationship between fashion and marketing: Table 1. The fashion marketing concept. Source: M. Easey. Fashion Marketing. Blackwall Science. London 2002, p.7. Table 1.0 demonstrates that if the concern for fashion design, customers and profit is low, then it is likely that an organization will fail to fulfil its objectives, as this situation leaves the organization open to disregarding customers' preferences which will affect profits (Easey 2002). However, by having a high concern for fashion design, customers and profit, objectives will be driven by marketing which is designed to influence and persuade consumers to change certain behaviours, which puts the control back with the organizations, and not with consumer. By controlling demand, organizations will be able to control the trends and the nature of the market. This subject area is important for a number of reasons: marketing has been able to

Contemporary business issueSub Prime letting050808 Essay

Contemporary business issueSub Prime letting050808 - Essay Example The Fed comes out with the monetary policy in order to ensure a certain key objectives like, delivering price stability with a low inflation level coupled with an objective to support the Government's economic objectives of growth and employment. To have a look on how the Fed monitors the price related regulations to keep a check on inflation, we can consider a small example of the regulation on house and property prices. To take any decisions related to interest rates keeping in mind the ongoing inflation rate, the Fed must be thorough with the booming property prices and must take steps to ensure that the prices are not artificial. Government intervenes through its central bank to regulate the prices of many commodities, similarly it also regulates the prices of houses like any other important commodity. Fed has the responsibility to keep a check on asset prices including the prices of houses. There can be a number of reasons why the prices of houses may shoot up, like the simple rule of demand and supply has a definite impact. (Demand and Supply for Housing). Other reasons behind a... (Demand and Supply for Housing).Other reasons behind a change in property prices can be Mortgages. A mortgage is the money borrowed to buy a house, as for most people buying a house is not easy. Over the years mortgage market has picked up greatly and the current scenario is totally different from the one that existed in the beginning. (The UK Housing Market - Factors Influencing the Housing Market: Mortgages) The central bank of any country has a monetary policy and it uses the same to regulate mechanism of the economy and deal with such erratic swings in the prices of property. Like when it decides to change the interest rate, the government is trying to check the overall expenditure of the economy. A change in interest rates is mostly used to contain inflation, which is the result of lavish expenditure by the country. The Bank sets a fixed interest rate at which it lends money to financial institutions and depending on this interest rate, individual banks and other financial institutions set up their own interest rates, which apply to the whole economy. This interest rate also regulated the savings in an economy, which eventually results in capital formation and reinvestment. It is notable that when interest rates are high, people prefer to invest money in government deposits that are less risky in nature than the stock markets and similarly high interest rates boost up the savings. Lo wer interest rates make asset and real estate prices go up, as people start ignoring conventional saving instruments and make use of the high growth ventures like shares and houses, which pushes up their prices and this is where the problem of easy availability of finance crops up.The sub prime crisis started with the sub prime