Editorial

Citation

Jones, R.M. (2004), "Editorial", Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 8 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/jfmm.2004.28408aaa.001

Editorial

As an economist so often accused of being a practitioner of “the dismal science” it is a particular pleasure to be able to comment on a piece of good news revealed in the latest statistics on consumer spending in the UK. In any analysis of the UK fashion market, two conventions have long been adhered to, namely:

1. 1.

   that the proportion of consumer expenditure devoted to apparel is in long term and irreversible decline; and

2. 2.

   that in a recession consumers desert apparel purchases first.

As can be seen from able I, the latest figures show that the proportion of expenditure devoted to apparel in the UK has – for the first time for many years – risen. In the period 1998 to 2002 it has risen from 6.5 per cent to 8.0 per cent – a rise in actual spending of 46 per cent in real terms. In addition, the year on year percentage change in consumer spending upon apparel has outstripped the change in total consumer spending consistently over the time period – often by an extremely large margin, as can be seen in Table II.

Table I Consumption in the UK (£ million at 1995 prices)

Table II Changes in consumption year on year (per cent)

This welcome change has, of course, taken place during a period of very strong growth in consumer spending in the UK. It is also important to recognise that the time period in question has also been characterised by very severe price deflation in the UK fashion market place – see Table III. Recent research published in this Journal (Jones and Hayes, 2002) suggested that almost all the variation in spending on apparel in the UK could be explained by two factors, viz changes in income and relative prices. It is, of course, still the case that good news in the domestic market place does not necessarily indicate good news for domestic producers who may – particularly in times of severe price deflation – find it increasingly hard to compete with imports. There is a significant body of research which points both to a relationship between import competition and price deflation (Conyan and Machin, 1991; Katics and Peterson, 1994) and to the role of imports in overall consumption (Abbott and Seddighi, 1996). A recent paper (Jones, 2003) has indicated how rapidly penetration of the domestic market has risen – between 1993 and 2001 imports (in value terms at current prices) rose by 85.5 per cent while import penetration rose from 57.2 per cent to 91.9 per cent. The negative trade balance more than doubled in the same period.

Table III Price trends (1995=100)

Nevertheless, the rise in the popularity of apparel purchases in the market place represents a significant break with long-term trends and might be taken as an indicator of a fundamental change in consumer attitudes to apparel purchases. There is obviously increased competition for the consumers’ purse over time, as new products come onto the market place and absorb consumer spending. It does seem clear that the relentless rise in spending (in real terms) on apparel has been driven both by the more or less uninterrupted rise in personal income which the UK has experienced over the last 30 years or so (Jones and Hayes, 2002). Consumption as a proportion of national wealth grew from 60 per cent in 1980 to 64 per cent in 1995 while, between 1971 and 1996 real consumption rose by 80 per cent (Curwen, 1997). At the present time there seems little doubt that the continued health of the UK economy depends heavily on the rise in consumer spending – fuelled by rising debt based largely on the strength of the UK housing market. The great unknown, of course, is what will be the effect upon consumption of the eventual (or lagged) impact of rising taxation and falling incomes. Trefgarne (2003a) reported that – for the first time in a decade – UK consumers have suffered an effective pay cut brought about by a rise in taxation (especially the rise in national insurance contributions in April 2003) and reduced pay increases especially in the private sector (Trefgarne, 2003b) at a time when inflation is running at just under 3 per cent. If, as has been suggested, a significant revision of attitudes to clothing expenditure has taken place, this would be an extremely opportune moment to examine the second convention noted above – that in times of recession apparel expenditure is reduced first. In order to – hopefully – initiate a debate in this area we include in this issue a first contribution to our new section, Current research developments (see announcement in Vol. 7 No. 4 and at the back of this issue), which focuses upon attitudes to spending and debt in a young (predominantly student) population. In line with the ethos of the new section it is not asserted that this research is any more than an initial contribution to the debate in this area of investigation, but this preliminary work does suggest that attitudes may be changing. This maybe owing to the fact that, at least in the UK, purchases of apparel represent such incredibly good value that the entire apparel market has become an affordable luxury, to the point at which cut-backs in expenditure seem less necessary than in the past. Maybe it is time to lay two myths to rest.

Richard M. JonesManchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK