Chapter Two
The Fashion Market and the
Marketing Environment

2.1 Introduction
A market is a place for buying and selling, for exchanging goods and services, usually for money. The fashion market is unusual because until early in the twentieth century it was almost solely the domain of kings, queens, aristocrats and other important people. As will be seen, great changes, mainly due to technology and increasing globalization, mean that we now have a fashion marketplace open to everyone. Fashion can be a reflection of the time, from the utilitarian clothing of the war years to the yuppie look of the buoyant 1980s. Fashion also can be a reflection of individuals. Clothes are often chosen to reflect among other factors our age, gender, lifestyle and personality.
Because fashion is both a reflective and yet creative discipline, it is necessary for fashion marketers to be aware of the factors surrounding the market and develop a broad understanding of the issues that can affect the garments that are seen in any high street store.

2.2 The development of the fashion market
2.2.1 Origins of the modern fashion market
Until relatively recently, fashion had always been élitist and was used by its adopters to show that they were above the common people.
Even the inventions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the spinning jenny, the water frame and the sewing machine have not had as great an effect on the market as have cultural changes and the explosion of the media during the twentieth century.

The Fashion Market and the Marketing Environment

The end of World War I, in 1918, really marked the start of mass fashion. Style began to be influenced by the fashion designers of Paris,
Milan, New York and London. In the 1930s film personalities and later pop stars all played their part in spreading or even starting fashion trends. Some fashion