Fashion Marketing: Contemporary Issues, Second edition - Pr School

12
Fashion retailer desired
and perceived identity
Tony Hines, Ranis Cheng and Ian Grime
Questions of identity are clearly central to fashion marketing. In the chapter on
segmentation identity is an important issue for targeting customers. However,
a theory of identity is difficult in the sense of certainty as was demonstrated
in that chapter. Most identities are socially constructed rather than possessing
clearly discernable characteristics that are universally observable. Even
when individuals consider themselves and others it is difficult to say with
any certainty what the identity of themselves and others might be. Consider
your own position sometimes you may observe others and draw conclusions
about others from their observable appearance. However, judgements are coloured
by who we are and how we interpret what we see. We collectively and
individually are products of our time, formed by our experiences of being in
the world. We have reference groups such as friends, colleagues, family and
we often characterize these relationships temporally. Time becomes a locator
an identifier for who we are and for who they are. The ‘I’ of this moment
is present in the ‘me’ of the next moment (Mead, 1934). Thus Mead locates
the self in two parts related temporally. ‘I’ is what you were and are in a
Heidegerrian sense ‘being’ whereas ‘me’ is what you are ‘becoming’. The key
point is that ‘I’ can alter through social interaction and ‘me’ is the result.
In fashion all human life is observable. We refer to lifestyle as a concept,
‘she is a minimalist, he is contemporary, they are so 1960s’ are representative