The Rise of Social Media: Challenging Fashion Capital’s Influence on Fashion Consciousness

The ever-increasing rise of social media has sparked a debate about whether fashion capitals are facing a decreasing impact on the fashion industry and the fashion consciousness of individuals due to social media exposure. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore and compare the individual effects of social media exposure through online exposure to fashion, and fashion cities, with fashion being embedded in the assets of a city, on an individual’s fashion consciousness. This investigation focuses on two dimensions of social media exposure, namely the amount of exposure (i.e., how much time people spend on social media) and social media platform frequency (i.e., how often people use social networking sites). Through the incorporation of existing theories on fashion capitals and social media exposure and conducting a survey with participants from Paris and Rotterdam (N = 156), this study has contributed to the debate. The findings indicate that both online exposure to fashion content and exposure to fashion in one’s city of residence have an impact on fashion consciousness, with the influence of online fashion content surpassing the offline impact of fashion in cities. Fashion capitals appear to be losing their hand in the rules of fashionability and influencing consumers, as individuals from Rotterdam in this study were more fashion-conscious than those from Paris. Moreover, the relationship between one’s place of residence and the extent to which they are exposed to fashion in the city was proven to be insignificant. Noticeable is that this study contradicted the assumption of recent studies that fashion cities are unlikely to lose their oligarchical power as an essential part of the concept and fundamental structure of fashion. Additionally, this study found that fashion expenditure holds a relationship with fashion consciousness, a reasonable yet new finding. This study has contributed to the existing body of literature by providing numerous significant and useful observations in its investigation of the subject. Using this present study as a foundation, future researchers can examine additional elements that may affect the current debate.