Journal of Global Fashion Marketing, 2013

Vol. 4, No. 2, 67–73, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/20932685.2013.763475

Fashion shopping from a VNA perspective: telling the untold story

从虚拟叙事艺术的角度来看时尚消费：讲述不为人知的故事
Galn Leea, Arch G. Woodsideb* and Mann Zhangc
a
TNS Korea; bCarroll School of Management, Department of Marketing, Boston College, USA;
c
College of Business Administration, Department of Marketing, University of Rhode Island, USA
(Received 20 July 2012; final version received 15 December 2012)

This study explores the fashion shopper’s conscious and unconscious motivations and
feelings by replicating and extending the virtual narrative art (VNA) research design of
Woodside and Megehee. Based on the evidences from the blog and the movie, in visual
forms such as text excerpts and pictures, this study creates two accounts of VNA that
link the fashion shopping experience in a series of contextual narratives. The study
sheds new light on fashion shopper’s shopping motivations and experience.
Keywords: blog; consumer motivation; leisure shopping; movie; VNA

本文通过对 Woodside & Megehee 设计的虚拟叙事艺术（VNA）研究进行复制和延伸，探讨了

时尚购物者有意识和无意识的消费动机和感觉。基于博客和电影中文字和图片等可视化形式
的数据表现，本文创建了两项 VNA, 将时尚购物体验嵌入到一系列的情境叙事中。从而揭示了
全新的时尚购物者的购买动机和体验。

关键词：博客; 消费者动机; 电影; 休闲购物; VNA

1. Introduction
Consumers’ stories and experiences have been studied extensively within the domain of
fashion marketing. One focus of previous research (e.g., Bäckström, 2010, Thompson,
Pollio, & Locander, 1994) is the study of consumers’ motivations and purpose in fashion
shopping. Researchers relate socio-cultural, experiential, symbolic, and ideological
aspects of consumption to shopping practices and experiences (e.g., Bardhi and Arnould,
2005; Sherry, 1990; Thompson et al., 1994). However, the unconscious mental processing
mode (system 1 processing; see Evans, 2008 for a detailed review) receives less attention
in the literature. The present study applies VNA (Megehee & Woodside, 2010) to examine
consumers’ motivation and purpose – both conscious and unconscious – in the fashion
shopping context, based on the fashion shopping behavior exemplified in “Everyday
Chic,” a blog providing tips on shopping practically and wisely for fashion bags, and
Confessions of a Shopaholic, a movie about a woman who has difficulty controlling her
urge to shop.
Following this introduction, section two of the article elaborates on the research and
theories about motivation and purpose in fashion shopping; section three reviews VNA as
a method of studying fashion marketing; section four presents two accounts of VNA

*Email: arch.woodside@bc.edu

q 2013 Korean Scholars of Marketing Science

68 G. Lee et al.

creation, based on a blog and a movie respectively; and section five concludes and offers
suggestions for future research.

2. Theories of fashion shopping as leisure consumption

Fashion shopping, as one type of leisure consumption, relates to social motives and is an
activity characterized by a quest for pleasant experiences and stimulation of senses.
There are considerable variations in the ways in which consumers engage in fashion
shopping, particularly in terms of their purpose and structure. Thompson, Pollio, and
Locander (1994) found that each of their study’s participants reflected a distinct
perspective on the meanings of shopping, and furthermore that individuals’
understanding of shopping differs across situations. Similarly, Thompson, Locander,
and Pollio (1990) offered a description of shopping situations as experienced by the
subjects and illustrated that truly enjoyable shopping experiences may be context-bound
and thus unpredictable in their occurrence.
In the context of leisure consumption, Bäckström (2011) shows that there are three
overarching themes: the first theme is “shopping as hunting,” which refers to consumers
searching and finding desirable objects. The second theme is “shopping as scouting,”
which refers to consumers receiving enjoyment from just being at the marketplace and
experiencing stores, products, and people. The third theme is “shopping as socializing,”
which refers to consumers enjoying social interaction with friends and family members as
part of shopping experiences.

3. Method
Traditionally, consumer experiences are recorded through text transcripts, which are
normally adequate for file-keeping and further analysis. Many accounts of consumers’
experiences could be enhanced with accompanying materials such as pictures and other
visual media which are more visually appealing. Visual narrative art (VNA) is among the
oldest tools known to researchers for recording and transmitting information to others
(Woodside & Megehee 2010a, 2010b).
As the name suggests,

“VNA includes scenes and/or all the acts/episodes in a story using one or more illustrations
via paintings, sculpture, photographs, physical movements, film, or other media beyond
verbal reporting that creates a picture in the mind relating to events involving symbols,
people, animals, and other objects within contexts relevant to action in the story” (Megehee &
Woodside, 2010, p. 604).
Notably, over recent years, the Internet has given rise to a new form of visual art media
– the blog, in which consumers use photographs and other forms of visual art to express
their ideas to the audience. These visual arts, in different forms, often help to visually
demonstrate relevant ideas and concepts from consumers’ dual mental processing mode (i.
e., unconscious thinking vs. conscious thinking) in consumption processes, and thus give a
deeper understanding about consumers’ intentions and motivations in the context of
fashion consumption.
The first VNA created for this article is based on the information presented in the entries
in Everyday Chic, a blog written by Chicette. The first entry, “An Introduction and
Admonition,” states the consequences of purchasing a fake handbag and provides details of
how to identify a bad fake. The fourth part, “Canal Street – Fake Handbag Mecca,” talks
 Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 69

about how to navigate Manhattan’s Canal Street to find an affordable quality fake. A follow-
up post, “Chloe’s Arrived!,” reports the blogger’s experience in Canal Street, during which
she discovered the presence of imitations of certain brands, and gives her analysis of what a
visitor should expect.
Pictures were then extracted from the blog and from various other websites to create a
work of VNA. Due to its single-spread composite format, arrows were placed between
individual component images to show the flow of the blogger’s narrative and avoid
confusion. The winding, serpentine motion of the narrative was chosen over a static
“typewriter” format of pictures in order to create fewer burdens for the reader as he or she
follows the flow of the narrative. The contextualized text guides the reader through the
pictures while explaining the explicit meaning of each picture.
The second VNA is created based on the protagonist’s story in Confessions of a
Shopaholic. The story consists of prequel, awakening, journey, catharsis, and outcome
stages, as described in Doyle and Sims’ phase dynamics theory of epiphany travel. The six
main characters – Rebecca, Luke, Rebecca’s parents, Suze, and Alette Naylor – are
described in the VNA as archetypes, and an explanation of their roles is also presented.
Pictures were extracted from the movie and arrows show the flow of the movie’s story.
Symbols such as hearts, double slashes, and smiles are used to show the nature of the
transitions between pictures.

4. VNA of fashion shopping

4.1. Blog
Blog Name: Everyday Chic
Blog Website: http://everydaychic.blogspot.com
Blogger: Chicette (Washington DC, New York)

Chicette worked part-time as a floater at Macy’s, where she learned retail-insider

strategies for shopping and wearing clothes.
As a fashion-conscious blogger, Chicette provides suggestions on how to shop for
fashion bags without breaking the bank.
Her first piece of advice is to only purchase good fakes. Buying a bad fake is not only a
bad decision financially, but makes the buyer seem like they are too lazy to even try to fool
people about their status. Rather than a bad fake, an off-brand purse will make its owner
look more creative, honest, and far more self-respecting. That being said, a good fake can
make one appear to have a keen eye. That is to say, attention to detail is needed to keep
from being caught with a fake, and it can be fun to reveal your well-crafted fake to close
associates. The ability to fool experts is the true test of a good fake. The blog author was
able to fool a fashion magazine editor with an ersatz Prada bag from Rome, giving her
pride in her ability to choose the kind of bag that has all the quality of the original without
its large price (see Figure 1).
Chicette suggests visiting Canal Street in Lower Manhattan, in New York’s Chinatown, to
find the best fakes. To get to the stores, one needs to follow a guide who usually calls out to
people to inform them about bargain-priced bags. The actual path is a little complex, involving
multiple guides and winding paths that usually lead to seedy-looking rooms in which the bags
are located. Once there, bargaining skills are necessary to achieve price reductions.
In a follow-up post, Chicette describes a trip to Canal Street in which she found some
items she had not planned on. The trip started off rather uneventfully, with only her usual,
less-than-stellar finds. After some time, she came across some counterfeit Chloe handbags.
70 G. Lee et al.

Figure 1. Visual narrative art with contextual text of Chicette’s shopping, buying, and using fake
fashion bags.

Low-quality leather had been used in one of the Chloe Paddington bags, while the other
had a dysfunctional clasp. Chicette had previously noted that these handbags are rarely
counterfeited due to low demand and less consumer visibility for real Chloe bags, and as such
she had instructed readers not to expect to find such items on the black market.
Chicette had previously mentioned her belief that a non-branded bag is better than a bad
fake, and as the quality for both bags was under par, she bought neither. However, the
important thing to take away from this, she says, is that the fake handbag market is actually
growing and increasing in relation to both supply and quality, a sign of good things to come.

4.2. Movie
Movie name: Confessions of a Shopaholic
Movie type: Comedy– romance
Director: P.J. Hogan
Writer: Tracey Jackson
 Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 71

This movie is a story of one woman’s conspicuous consumption of clothing and how it
affects her life. Ever since childhood, protagonist Rebecca Bloomwood has been fixated
on the luxury goods that her mother cannot afford. She considers shop windows to be a
view of paradise and stores to be a place where grown-up girls get what they want. She is
obsessed to such a point that shopping negatively affects her desire for a relationship. Thus
she ends up with 12 credit cards.
Struggling with her debilitating obsession with shopping and the sudden collapse of
her income source, she unintentionally lands a job writing for a financial magazine after a
drunken letter-mailing mix-up. While visiting her parents, Graham and Jane Bloomwood,
she discovers that she has become famous when her parents reveal they have unwittingly
taken their own daughter’s advice about financial security. Ironically writing about the
very consumer caution by which she herself has not abided, she is known as “the girl in the
green scarf” because of her innovative comparisons and unconventional metaphors for
economics. Due to her fame and talent, she gains the admiration of her supportive boss
Luke, with whom she becomes romantically involved.
Her friend Suze suggests that she attends Shopaholics Anonymous, but this action
results in Rebecca giving away her bridesmaid’s dress, causing a split between Suze and
Rebecca. While pursuing a job at the fashion magazine Alette, Rebecca attracts negative
attention from Alicia Billington, a jealous employee. Alicia takes advantage of a meeting
between Rebecca and the magazine’s editor, Alette Naylor, to reveal Rebecca’s location
to a persistent debt collector, Derek Smeath. After her irresponsible spending habits are
exposed on television and she loses Luke’s trust, she is offered a job by Alette Naylor.
During the interview, she realizes her habits are self-destructive and has a change of
heart.
She finally pays off her debts by selling all of the clothing she has bought. Her acts of
selflessness allow her to regain her shattered friendships, reconnect with Luke, and take
control of her life.

5. Findings
Table 1 shows the six archetypes that appear in the movie Confessions of a Shopaholic.
The table includes the story gist of the archetypes. The Greek figure of Perseus represents
the hero, as Perseus is known for bravely slaying Medusa and other monsters.
A chameleon is used to represent the Change Master because this archetype is well
known for its ability to change its skin color. Da Vinci refers to the Creator due to the fact
that he is famous for his art, inventions and scientific inquiries. Steve Jobs is chosen to
represent the Powerbroker because of his fame and resources. Dogs are known for their loyal
personalities, so a picture of a dog is used for the Loyalist. The Virgin Mary represents the
Mother of Goodness, since she is known as the mother of Jesus Christ in Christian lore.
Table 2 summarizes the symbols used in the Phase Dynamics Theory of Epiphany
Travel, which appear on the VNA to show the nature of the transitions between pictures.
A heart symbol represents pleasant events which occur during the journey. The double
slashes show a delay or an obstacle that appears during the protagonist’s journey. A
smile symbol expresses help from someone – sometimes a person giving advice or a
suggestion.
In the prequel phase, the protagonist, Rebecca, has uncontrollable shopping habits, but
her life is otherwise in balance, allowing her to continue these habits. In the awakening
phase, she loses her source of income, forcing her to try writing for a magazine. She
unintentionally gets a job when she sends the article to the wrong company. During her
72 G. Lee et al.

Table 1. Archetypes and story gists.

Archetype Story gist

Hero Fortitude, Courage, and victory; a
(Perseus) journey and transformation.

The Change Transformation, self-improvement, and

Master (Chameleon) self-mastery.

The Creator Creative inspiration and the potency of

(Da Vinci) imagination; originality; authentic.

The Powerbroker Authority, influence and domination.

(Steve Jobs)
-The world’s leading . . . ; the best . . .
number one.

The Loyalist Trust, loyalty, and reassurance.

(Dog)

The Mother of Goodness Purity, nourishment, and motherly

(The Virgin Mary) warmth.

journey, she gets help from friends and her parents while overcoming obstacles. In the
catharsis phase, she has an epiphany during an interview with Alette Naylor. The catharsis
transforms her into a different archetypal force. Finally, she overcomes her conspicuous
consumption habits and takes control of her life.

Table 2. Symbols used in the Phase Dynamics Theory of Epiphany Travel.

Good times moments occurring during the journey

Delays, breakdowns

Help from a person – often a person on the scene that provides advice and assistance;
serves to help craft solutions and means around world blocks
 Journal of Global Fashion Marketing 73

6. Conclusion, implications, and future research

The creation of blog and movie-related VNA provides a deep understanding of consumer
behavior and reveals their unconscious feelings in the context of fashion marketing. By
creating VNA, the study has shown that consumers in both blogs and movies are fashion
conscious consumers and leisure shoppers who enjoy shopping. However, their shopping
purposes are different. By documenting and linking Chicette’s consumption expereriences
such as enjoying being in Canal Street, browsing the stores which sell good fakes, and
spending time with her boy friends in the shopping process, the first VNA created in this
study reveals that the purposes of her fashion shopping are “shopping as scouting” and
“shopping as socializing.” On the other hand, the consumer in the movie examplifies
different purpose of fashion shopping- “shopping as hunting” -through her strong ambition
to find desirable objects and obsession with luxury fashions.
This study creates two accounts of VNA based on a blog and a movie. In the future,
researchers should look further into other forms of social media Facebook or Twitter
profiles. Moreover, future research should continue to examine various facets of
unconscious motivations for fashion shopping.

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