The Influence of Western Fashion on People Across the Globe

Introduction

According to the oxford dictionary, fashion is the latest or most popular style of hair, clothing, behavior, or decoration. Today, many countries in the world have adopted the western way that is greatly influenced by western culture (a culture that everyone is free to express themselves or do anything in any manner). During the globalization era, western fashion has been portrayed as more superior than the local traditional styles. Men across the world have embraced wearing western suits; women attire are being developed to accommodate the western cultures. Additionally, the youths are being influenced to mimic the fashions donned by western celebrities and trend models. Today young females are wearing miniskirts, chokers, crop tops, and short jeans, while young males are wearing hip hop shirts, ripped jeans, and others, rather than the traditional attires that used to be worn in their society.

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Western fashion proponents argue that these fashions are more modern and not defined by local tradition, hence viewed as a universal standard. In the new era, global connection fostered by the social networks, western TV coverage, western movies, music, fashion shows, and magazines, have played an essential role in exposing and promoting the fashion of the west across the world. This paper focuses on how and why western culture has influenced people around the world. It also focuses on the positive and negative impacts of the culture of the west to the adopting community.

Auty, Susan, and Richard Elliott. "Being Like or Being Liked: Identity vs. Approval in a Social Context." Advances in Consumer Research: Association for Consumer Research, vol. 28, 2001, pp. 235-241, www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-proceedings.aspx?Id=8475.

The article explores the major driving factor that drives an adolescent consumer's choice towards a particular fashion brand. The authors explore the sociological approach that determines a consumer choice based on either an identity-seeking consumer or an approval-seeking consumer. In the postmodern times, approval-seeking consumer traits have overtaken the identity-seeking consumer traits. According to Susan and Richard, adolescent consumers seek to acquire the fashion styles that make them feel good in particular moments, thus will be more aligned towards an approval- exploring fashion styles than those of creating some social affiliation. They tend to adopt the fashion trends that make them likable, desirable, and marketable among their peers. Earlier, consumers purchased goods that used to portray their social affiliation, and that fostered their feeling of social belonging to a particular group. Today, western fashions are centered towards approval-seeking. Therefore, they are likely to be adopted by young people.

Bearden, William O., and Randall L. Rose. "Attention to Social Comparison Information: An Individual Difference Factor Affecting Consumer Conformity." Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 16, no. 4, 1990, pp. 461-471, doi:10.1086/209231. Accessed 1 Nov. 2019.

The article expounds that an individuals' product choices are dependent upon social comparison cues like beliefs, experiences, and thoughts of others. That is, the reaction of others influences an individual's fashion choices. The article tackles the problem that faces researchers who study and predict the behavior of consumers in the social context. A consumer's product choice or usage is explained as being influenced by what other people will perceive or act towards it. The article reviews the suitability of ATSCI (attention-to-social-comparison-information) in evaluating the two variables related to social anxiety-neuroticism and fear of negative evaluation. Persons scoring high in ATSCI know that there are reactions due to their behavior and fashions and look for behavior clues (the kind of clothing or makeup) that could be the reason for the response and try to adjust accordingly. The article discusses in detail the impacts of western culture on behavioral cues.

Darley, William K. "The relationship of antecedents of search and selfesteem to adolescent search effort and perceived product knowledge." Psychology and Marketing, vol. 16, no. 5, 26 July 1999, pp. 409-427, doi:10.1002/(SICI)1520-6793(199908)16:5<409::AID-MAR3>3.0.CO;2-8. Accessed 1 Nov. 2019.

The article reviews the extrinsic-intrinsic motivation model among teenagers (low-esteem teenagers and high-esteem teenagers) performing their shopping. For the low esteem group of teenagers, a hybrid intrinsic-extrinsic motivation model was predominant, whereas a purely intrinsic motivation model was existent for the high-esteemed teenagers. Intrinsic motivation mainly resulted in the enjoyment of shopping, and the extrinsic motivation led to increased benefits of search like perceived knowledge about the shopped product. Therefore, the low esteemed group got to know more about the product because of the hybrid intrinsic-extrinsic motivation model, as compared to the high esteemed teenagers. The article explains how low self-esteemed teenagers are more likely to be influenced by western fashion as opposed to the top esteemed group.

Mary, Boetiek M. "Adoption of Western Dress - Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations, and Footwear through the Ages." Fashion Encyclopedia, 2019, www.fashionencyclopedia.com/fashion_costume_culture/Early-Cultures-African/Adoption-of-Western-Dress.html. Accessed 1 Nov. 2019.

The online piece explains how the western style of fashion eroded traditional African fashion styles. Trade and colonization influenced the dressing style in modern African culture. Remodeling of traditional African attires has been done along with the western styles. Manufacturing of fashion styles across the continent has also promoted the manufacture of western fashion styles. With globalization, the traditional African fashion styles are only reserved for special conventional occasions, with most Africans adopting the fashion outfits of the west that are perceived to be more modern and standard.

Parker, R. S., et al. "An Investigation into Teens' Attitudes towards Fast-Food Brands in General." Journal of Foodservice Business Research, vol. 9, no. 4, 2006, pp. 25-40, www.freepatents online.com/article/JournalInternational-BusinessEconomics/190616942.html. Accessed 1 Nov. 2019.

The article discusses the global teenager hypothesis for a study done among three teen groups from different countries. The global teenager hypothesis illustrates that the new global connection attributed to communication technologies like the Internet and satellite television have integrated the fashion, values, attitudes, and preferences among the worldwide youth. The article compares the differences in attitudes towards various fashion brands among teenagers from three nations (the United States of America, Japan, and China). The results explain a significant difference in the fashion brand attitudes among teenagers from each of the three studied nations, which shows that the study does not support the global teenager hypothesis.

Roytman, Natalie. "How Celebrities Inspire Fashion Of The Youth." Uloop, 6 Feb. 2014, uiowa.uloop.com/news/view.php/112012/how-celebrities-inspire-fashion-of-the-youth. Accessed 1 Nov. 2019.

The source is an online piece done by Natalie Roytman for a University of Iowa news blog. The article is a personal view as to how and why celebrities influence the choice of fashion among global youth. Natalie argues that celebrities significantly impact fashion choices among the world's children because of their tendency to view and read about these celebrity fashion styles in the social networking forums like magazines, news, posters, blogs, and many more. Natalie explains that most young people copy celebrities' fashion choices because they usually signify absolute beauty. The effort of most youths to always keep up with the latest fashion styles prompts them to look to celebrities who, most of the time, happens to be up-to-date to the modern fashion trends. The fashion styles and hairstyles donned by these celebrities usually appeal as fun and spunky to the youth who are always looking to be more likable among their peers.

Venkatasamy, Nithyapraka. "Fashion trends and their impact on the society." International Journal of Researches in Biosciences and Agriculture Technology, vol. 1, Sept. 2015, pp. 1-11, www.researchgate.net/publication/282571020_Fashion_trends_and_their_impact_on_the_society. Accessed 1 Nov. 2019.

The article explains the various types of fashion trends in existence today and their effects on society. The author states that the global youth of modern era, choose their fashion style based on which method best fulfills their values and traits. The traditional social fulfillment agenda has been neglected with anonymous fashion styles with the basis of self-expression, which has been adopted. Modern fashion trends emphasize social conformation and the expression of uniqueness. The article expounds that these current fashion trends of the youth are a portrayal of the identity creation stage in the Erickson's psychosocial development theory.