Chapter 6: What People Buy: Personal Luxuries

OVERVIEW

The business of looking good is a major contributor to the U.S. economy. The market for clothes, jewelry, and fashion accessories and fashion services, such as dry cleaning, totaled $405.5 billion in 2002, while consumer expenditure on personal care articles including cosmetics and spending on beauty parlors, barbershops, and health clubs reached $97.2 billion. While food, clothing, and shelter are thought to be basic necessities of life, the reality is most clothing purchases are driven by fashion (i.e., a luxury desire) not need. For most Americans today, our closets are full and we simply don't need to shop for clothes. Because we don't need any more new clothes, we tend to look for justifiers that give us permission to buy, such as needing a new outfit for a special occasion, or finding something really great on sale. Clothing is no longer part of the basic necessities of life. For most of us, clothes and fashion are luxuries that make our lives more pleasurable, more fulfilling, more exciting, more rewarding, and more fun.

While most consumers recognize the importance of dressing right for every occasion and presenting a good self-image when out in society and at work, many of us are simply not willing to devote the time, energy, and money that dressing more stylishly or fashionably requires. Just over 40 percent of personal luxury shoppers agree with the statement: I would like to dress more stylishly, but I don't have the time and/or money that it takes to achieve it. Dressing fashionably is sort of like taking vitamins. We all know it is good for you and we should do it, but only the most passionate minority makes it a point to take vitamins every day.

Clothes and fashion are luxuries that make our lives more pleasurable, more fulfilling, more exciting, more rewarding, and more fun.

So most Americans are satisfied with their fashion and style sense, even if they know it is not quite up to par. Being unwilling to invest the effort necessary to dress better, we tend to think that everybody else spends more time, money, and effort to look better than we do.