CLOTHING VALUING: A STUDY OF THE DOLLAR VALUE OF AESTHETIC AND UTILITARIAN QUALITIES IN CLOTHING

The purpose of this study was to determine whether consumers value aesthetic qualities more than utilitarian qualities in clothing. It was hypothesized that consumers would be willing to pay significantly more for aesthetic qualities in clothing than utilitarian qualities.; Measures of aesthetic and utilitarian qualities were determined by having nine experts trained in design evaluate 20 clothing items on a scale from one to ten. Agreement among the experts was very high with an alpha reliability coefficient of .85 for aesthetics and .97 for utility.; One hundred two female shoppers at a regional mall in Champaign, Illinois were selected to respond to twenty items of clothing, representing five categories of clothing (gloves, shoes, aprons, sweaters and hats). Each consumer was shown one clothing category of items at a time (four gloves for example). Each clothing category of four clothing items was represented by one low aesthetic, low utility item; one low aesthetic, high utility item; one high aesthetic, low utility item and one high aesthetic, high utility item. Clothing items within a clothing category were similar in color, price and style. The consumer was then asked how much she would be willing to pay for each of the clothing items.; Analysis of variance and Tukey post hoc comparisons were the major forms of statistical analyses used to determine whether differences existed between the dollar amounts consumers were willing to spend for the clothing items.; The findings of this study indicated that consumers demonstrated an overall pattern of willingness to pay more for the higher aesthetic items than the lower aesthetic items. No clear pattern of willingness to pay more for the higher utility items than the lower utility items was demonstrated by the consumers. Demographic variables such as age, income level, marital status, number of children, race, occupation and educational level were not significantly related to dollar amounts that consumers said they would be willing to spend for the clothing items. These findings would tend to confirm the hypothesis that consumers value aesthetic qualities more than utilitarian qualities in clothing.