ANALYSIS OF FAST FASHION CONSUMER BEHAVIOR FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CONSUMER SOCIETY RESEARCH

The advent of the consumer society and mass media era has reconstructed the way people produce and live. Based on this condition, fast fashion as a new clothing industry has been spawned and has become popular rapidly. First of all, this article analyzes the concepts of fast fashion and fast fashion consumption, in order to explore the attribution of the rise of fast fashion consumption, including the rapid development of society and economy, the urgency of stimulating people's domestic demand, the driving role of mass media and advertising, and the psychological needs of the public keep increasing and so on. In addition, Fast-food consumerism represented by fast fashion has become a symbol that distinguishes a certain class or group. This article uses the sociology of consumption as a research perspective to explore the symbolic value of fast fashion consumption. It includes four types of symbolic values, including the value of highlighting differences, the value of distinguishing social classes, the value of belonging to a social group, and the value of resolving identity crises. At last, as a summary part, this article summarizes the benefits of fast fashion consumption, and makes certain reflections and suggestions on the disadvantages of fast fashion consumption.

Features of innovative marketing in modern international chaordic business environment

The article examines new scientifi c and practical factors of modern innovative marketing, which must be taken into account by Russian companies working with innovative projects in international business. The main problem areas for the development and management of modern innovative activities, in terms of marketing operations, in the modern international chaordic business environment are described. The main provisions and principles of new eff ective innovative thinking (quantum thinking), which should be taken into account when solving the problems of creating new highly competitive innovative products, are stated.The peculiarities of the modern chaordic business environment, in which the creation and promotion of innovations to the market takes place, create the need for innovative marketers to use new tools (responses) to new challenges for innovative processes. Some of which are discussed in the article. Using the principle of polyprofessionalism in innovative marketing as a functional system that provides for the simultaneous use and interaction of subsystems of various, conditionally divided, professional areas of analytical activity (marketing research strategy, forecasting, psychology and sociology of consumption, systems engineering, commercialization, etc.). Therefore, in modern marketing of innovative products, it is necessary to develop polyprofessional competence among marketers, the productive development of which leads to the acquisition of polyprofessionalism, where not just professional competence is needed, but a multitude of competencies combined into a common space of professional competencies necessary for the implementation of an innovative idea. In a chaordic business environment, continuous (iterative) marketing is required at all stages of creating a future innovation or innovative project. Discrete presales marketing is cheaper in an operational sense, but disastrous in a strategic sense. This requires the use of "parallel business thinking", which simultaneously uses the forms of "Pareto", also the so-called "Newtonian" thinking, and "quantum" thinking. In a chaordic business environment (which is becoming dominant today), it is important to learn to operate simultaneously (in parallel) with two types of business thinking — "Pareto, Newtonian" and "quantum".

How the “formula” of success has changed: Slovenian bestsellers of the 2010s. “Čefurji raus!” by G. Vojnović and “Belo se pere na devetdeset” by B. Žakelj

In the article, in the context of the studing the problems of Slovenian book market and the sociology of “consumption” of book publications are presented two novels of the 2010s: “Čefurji raus!” (2008) by G. Vojnović and “Belo se pere na devetdeset” (2018) by B. Žakelj. Both have become sales leaders and received the status of national bestsellers. Their curriculum vitae are similar: both were the debut works of authors who were not professional writers, both received the Kresnik national literary prize for the best novel of the year and both caused a heated discussion on social networks. The commercial success of both books was not only related to effective marketing, advertising, place in the rating, taste stereotypes of literary critics and other extra-literary factors, but also to certain artistic references: this is the existential nature of the problematic, autobiographical discourse, the type of narration (“Ich”-form), the specificity of the chronotope. In the focus of Vojnović’s novel is the fate of national minorities in the post-Yugoslav space, told on behalf of a teenager. After the final collapse of Yugoslavia, the inhabitants of the poorest republics and regions of the former Tito empire began to seek refuge in Slovenia, by the mid-2000s there was in the republic an acute problem of interethnic contradictions associated with the younger generation of immigrants. Žakelj’s confession novel focuses on the tragic and dramatic twists and turns of her own life story and the author’s reflection on her experiences. A comparative analysis of the works gives an idea of how the system of values of ordinary Slovenian readers was transformed, how their interest in the resonant problems of modern life in the country was replaced by the need for empathy, the desire to find a psychological refuge in the book.

Lost Property and the Materiality of Absence

This article explores material loss and develops a new conceptual agenda. Synthesising and developing debates on the sociology of consumption and material culture in combination with those of the sociology of nothing, it argues that material loss is crucial to understanding people’s everyday relationships to the material world and to practices of consumption. Abstract notions of absence, nothingness and loss are becoming increasingly intriguing phenomena for sociologists interested in the everyday. However, whilst their theoretical connotations are being discussed more and more, empirical investigation into these phenomena remains somewhat (ironically) absent. This article draws on a recent project exploring lost property, based on qualitative interviews with lost property offices, households and museums. Developing previous work on material affinities and material culture, the authors argue that lost property reveals the enduring relationships people have with objects which are no longer in their possession. These relationships disrupt and develop contemporary debates on the sociology of consumption regarding how objects are devalued, divested and disposed of, as well as how they are acquired, appropriated and appreciated. In turn, we contend that the transformative potential of material loss and absence offers a way of thinking about alternative, non-material practices of accumulation.

Introduction to the Special Issue: Renewing Theories of Practice and Reappraising the Cultural

This short article introduces the Special Issue ‘Renewing Theories of Practice and Reappraising the Cultural’. We first discuss the ‘practice turn’ in the sociology of consumption. We introduce three lacunae that advocates have identified in contemporary theories of practice that animate the contributions of the Special Issue: around the theorisation of culture, economy and the reflexive individual. We go on to discuss the place of culture in the ‘practice turn’, and its relations to cultural sociology. We then appraise some recent attempts at resolution. Lastly, we summarise the individual contributions to the Special Issue.

Symbolic vibration: A meaning-based framework for the study of vibrator consumption

This article explores the creation process and the subsequent meaning development of vibrators within a framework consisting of various theories of material culture. The conceptual scheme is based on the view that four underlying junctures of meaning creation and vibrator consumption, namely (1) vibrators as a medical implement, (2) vibrators as a household appliance, (3) vibrators as a liberating political object and (4) vibrators as a post-feminist ‘toy’, interact to (re)produce and change the meaning of this sexually imbued product. First, existing research is reviewed on the history and consumption of vibrators, and findings are synthesized concerning product functions. Theories of material culture and product meaning are then incorporated as a means to gain ontological and epistemological insights into the nature of this sexual product. Finally, a framework is presented that builds on these foundational theories, including a discussion of its benefits for the sociology of consumption. The article concludes that the meaning of vibrators can be seen as being intricately bound up with processes of social movements, individual interpretation and identity politics as well as with historical, economic and cultural phenomena.

Ethical eating as experienced by consumers and producers: When good food meets good farmers

This article engages with two rich but largely disparate research traditions: one looks at ethical consumption, that is, constructions and contestations around good food, while the other interrogates the equally contested space of what it means to be a good farmer. The argument is informed by qualitative data collected from, on the one hand, those engaged in shaping urban food policy and institutional procurement plans in Denver, Colorado, and, on the other hand, rural Colorado farmers and ranchers who supply out-of-state markets. Given the growing appeal of locally sourced food from smaller scale producers utilizing certain so-called ethical management practices (resulting in, e.g. cage-free chickens, organic food, and grass-fed beef), the article asks, “how are particular markers of good food,” which I show to be commonly held in urban foodscapes, “understood by rural producers?,” and “how do these constructions play into their conceptions of what it means to be a good farmer?” Conceptually, the argument is situated within a moral economy framework, which reminds us that the market is always mediated by institutions, individuals, and communities and vice versa. This framework emphasizes the point that markets are moralizing – and demoralizing – entities. The article adds to the fields of sociology of consumption and critical agrifood studies by interrogating aspects of how the two “ends” of the supply chain are interconnected. Eaters’ constructions of good food and producers’ understandings of what it means to be a good farmer are shown to be intertwined.