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Chipo Mapondera Fashion
There is a lot of talk today about sociology in fashion.
The questions surround topics as broad as how and why certain trends prevail, as well as inquiry on the emotional connections that people feel to what they wear.
One hot topic is on fashion advertising and its power to captivate its audience.
Mostly focused on the female market, and bringing up discoveries both new and expected, there is little talk on how men react to fashion advertising and media, and how it drives them to purchase, if it does at all.
It is no longer a novel idea that men are into fashion. They also continue to be the higher earners in most households, generally speaking.
Therefore, I would say, it is more important than ever that advertisers and marketers pay more attention to the subtleties of communicating with them.
I decided to carry out a survey among a diverse group of men, to find out what power the media has on them when it comes to creating their image and a motivation to purchase.
What first impressed me about the group, all of whom are Zimbabaweans, was that they all believed they had an awareness of fashion. It turns out, most actually did have an acute understanding of fashion and its portrayal, which suggested that they are indeed sensitive to the media’s messages.
So, where are men receiving most fashion images from? With little or no patience for browsing stores to see what is trending, it makes sense that for most men, leafing through lifestyle magazines is very useful. GQ is the most popular title,and Men’s Health, Esquire, and Destiny Man all provide useful reference points.
Men are also surfing for style on the net where favourite sites and blogs include, thesartorialist.com, askmen.com, www.tumblr.com/tagged/men-with-class and themetro-man.com. Even social medias like Instagram and Pinterest are information mines for the connected modern man.
In the above titles, when men are presented with an ad or photo-shoot, the majority takes tips on how to style themselves and what to buy, stating that shoots can be “an eye-opener”, which translated means they offer an approach to dressing not previously conceived.
Another added to this saying that he picks up ideas on cut and colour in shirts and how to combine them with different ties.
However, this majority was just over half with the lesser half preferring to only scan the images to identify one or two key pieces to update their existing look with little concern to how to put them together or what trends are new.
Outside of fashion press, television was an obvious influence, probably in view that men also have key celebrities that they look up to for sartorial suggestions.
One participant replied that he views celebrities as the models of, and leading sources to the hottest trends, which made sense to him because even magazines feature fashion on the famous.
Another clarified that though this might be the case, authenticity is important in celebrity brand endorsements. He would buy soccer boots modelled by David Beckham but if the link between a celebrity and a brand is not believable, he will not be sold.
How men are portrayed is also of great importance, and as I found, all in the group felt that the man in the image had to reflect them rather than traditional stereotypes like “The Player”, “The Warrior” and “The Beer-drinker”.In the embodied form of celebrities the most relatable icons were Leonardo diCaprio, Justin Timberlake, and the fictional lead characters in popular television series, Mad Menand Suits, portraits of men who are reliable in their fashion choice and rarely overdo it.
Interestingly, among the survey group who are all, bar two, conservative dressers, names like Pharell Williams and fashion-industry favourite, NBA star Dwayne Wade came up more than once.
Both men are known internationally for an avant-garde approach to dressing. However, I suspect that although there would be no impetus to imitate them, what resonates for the average guy is their sense of, not only individuality but also ease. It also goes without saying that both can do suave like best of them.
The product where celebrity endorsement proved most important was fragrance, which has to be powerfully evoked in imagery to gain consumer attention. When done right, the men agreed that the right image would motivate them to find the fragrance and influence how much they liked it. And what qualities must the man in fragrance imagery possess? A calm, assertive, sophistication, as embodied by Matthew McConahey, Denzel Washington and Idris Elba. Which celebrity face turned them off? Chuck Norris holding a bottle of cologne would be off-putting.
With fashion’s ever- rapid nature,new trends are spat out on a monthly basis. Women thrive on keeping up, whilst most men, although saying they aim to look fashionable when dressing, could not care less about fast fads. Being the gender more attuned to function, there was an overwhelming response among those men for whom fashionable dressing is not part of their wardrobe’s vocabulary, in favour of practicality and a fool-proof, seasonless approach to dressing. This means that for this group, despite their awareness of fashion images and the seasonal information surrounding product release, reality rules and they will not be easily swayed.
This is of course a quick study in a conversation that runs deeper, but the subtle nuances that men attach to fashion are very interesting. I would say they are ignored at the brand’s peril as the market widens and more focus turns on the post-metrosexual man, a man who is determining his own taste and lifestyle, independently and on his terms.
Online Reporter