Master’s Thesis
Associating The Overconsumption of Fashion to Social Status: How Shein and TikTok Drive Consumption Behavior
“Fashion in class terms...,became the means to subjectively negotiate contradictory impulses to fit in and stand out, enabling both ‘social adaptation’ and ‘differentiation’.”
This study focuses on the multi-disciplinary facet that fashion holds giving it its unique disposition as a phenomenon and industry. It aims to explicitly provide evidence for the fundamental and inherent relationship fashion has to social status, and why we overconsume fashion today.
The theoretical framework used for this study will draw from, social theorists, authors, and academics who wrote on the socio-cultural, political, and psychological bearing of fashion in our societies. To name a few, Thorstein Veblen, Elizabeth Wilson, George Simmel, etc. and their theories and writing provides the groundwork for my study.
The methodology for the study is Content Analysis of Shein hauls on TikTok. Shein is relatively new but one of the most powerful fashion brands today, its growth can be largely attributed to the uncanny low prices and aggressive social media promotions. The brand has not appeared in any scientific study so far, hence the data from this study will prove to be vital in analyzing consumption behavior and triggers for overconsumption in the age of ultra fast fashion and TikTok.
This research is part of the M.S. Sustainable Fashion thesis that concluded in April 2023. To read my full work please click here.
