The industry of fashion 1994

Handbag and Accessory Industry (Jessica)

1994 Fashion Innovators compared to now

Reflecting this youthful skew, most of the Fashion Innovator females are single (67%) and almost two-thirds have household incomes below $50,000. There is a large and increasing representation of non-Caucasian Fashion Innovators: 22% are African Americans (up 5 points since 1994), 9% are Hispanics (up 1 point), and 9% are ‘Other’ (up 4 points).

In 1994,when the Monitor first asked the Fashion Innovators if their office allowed corporate casual dress from time to time, 53% said ‘yes.’ Now 71% have casual days, although the average number of days per week where casual dress code is allowed has not increased significantly over the past two years (averages 1.7 days a week). The Innovators are more likely to say neat jeans are appropriate for office attire than they were in 1994 (92%) but less willing to find shorts appropriate (62%).

Away from work the trend is definitely toward dressier. Sixty-one percent now say they would dress nicely to go shopping at the mall rather than dressing comfortably (that’s an increase of 19 points).

Asked whether they would rather be on time and look okay or be ten minutes late and look great 68% said, look great, (up 11 points).

More than two-thirds of the Fashion Innovators would rather be slightly overdressed at a party rather than slight underdressed (up 3 points).

Asked to select clothes for an evening of dinner and dancing, 68% choose clothes that look better rather than clothes that are more comfortable (up 2 points).

And, given the choice of the type of restaurant for a birthday celebration, Fashion Innovator women are most likely to go for fancy and elegant (45%) instead of more casual, laid-back alternatives (the second most popular choice, cozy bistro garnered 29% of the votes).

In a dramatic shift from last year, almost half of Fashion Innovators now say that they would rather wear casual slacks than denim jeans. That’s an increase of 18 points in women favoring slacks.

Given the choice between regular cotton slacks and wrinkle-resistant cotton slacks, 70% said wrinkle-resistant (a gain of 16 points).

When asked what a good looking man looks sexiest in, 30% of women Fashion Innovators now say slacks and a nice sweater (up 9 points). The choice of denim jeans and a casual shirt is still the highest response, at 49%, but not by as large a margin as two years ago (down 6 points).

So are Fashion Innovators growing tired of denim or merely broadening their wardrobe selections to other areas? Happily for the denim industry, most indicators are still highly positive with the Fashion Innovator group. The Denim Barometer itself is at 65, up a point from last year. Eighty-one percent of Fashion Innovators say that jeans are in my future.

And, despite wardrobes already overflowing with denim items (22 garments each), 84% of Fashion Innovators indicate an interest in buying more denim items in the near future irrespective of whether they need any more denim or not (up 1 point).

Their major concern when purchasing denim is looking good (73%) rather than being practical. While that may seem obvious for the Fashion Innovator group the ‘looking good’ response has jumped by an astonishing 23 points in the past two years.

Despite perceptions that prices are up, they love shopping more than ever. We asked Fashion Innovators how much they would expect to pay for a man’s dress shirt and for a pair of dress shoes (men’s or women’s). The average price for the shirt is $32.42, up $6.10 from the price reported when the survey began two years ago. The average for dress shoes (men’s and women’s responses combined) is $53.36, up $10.05 from 1994.

In total, about half of the fashion innovators spend over $1,000 on clothes each year; 15% over $2,000. Given an extra $500 to spend on whatever they want, Fashion innovators today would spend $359.46 on clothing, up $4.94 from 1994.