The Luxury Fashion Consumer & Their Favorite Fashion Brands

Unity Marketing has just released a new trend report that examines fashion shopping behavior and the top fashion brands among luxury consumers. The survey included questions about fashion shopping and purchases in the past year. Each fashion customer was then asked to rate their favorite brand out of the 11 most widely purchased fashion brands among all affluents in Unity Marketing's 2009 luxury tracking surveys. The fashion brands included in the study were:

• Ann Taylor
• Anne Klein
• Armani
• Brooks Brothers
• Calvin Klein
• Coach
• Gucci
• Liz Claiborne
• Michael Kors
• Ralph Lauren
• Talbots

This trend report reflects a survey among 1,245 affluent luxury consumers (avg. income $331,500; age 45.6 years; 42 percent male/58 percent female), conducted in association with Unity Marketing's Luxury Tracking Survey 1Q2010 fielded April 6-10, 2010.

Each respondent was asked about how much they spent on fashion, including women's and men's clothing and women's and men's fashion accessories.

They were asked to rate 13 different fashion shopping destinations for fashion items as to whether each is a 'go-to' source and the first place they shop for fashion; only appropriate occasionally for fashion shopping; or a place where they rarely or never shop for fashion.

Three different types of fashion shoppers were profiled depending upon their patterns of shopping:

• A shopper always on the lookout for new fashion items
• A shopper that shops for fashion when the seasons change, then pick up other items on impulse or as needed
• A shopper who only shops for fashion when they have to.
• In another surprise finding, the 'as the seasons change' shopper spends 31 percent more than the shopper who is always on the lookout for new fashion.

Finally the report includes detail rankings of 11 fashion brands by how strongly they connect with their core customers and which of the 38 brand attributes and values best reflect their feelings about the brand.