Exploring factors impacting fashion choices for metaverse events

Abstract

Virtual fashion has garnered considerable attention as companies strive to stay up to date with emerging technologies and align with current trends. This study investigates the impact of virtual clothing's perceived attractiveness, perceived popularity, perceived novelty, and self-congruence with the displayed virtual clothes on the intention to purchase virtual clothes, considering also the moderating role of desire for uniqueness, social enhancement, social comparison, and fear of missing out (FOMO). We designed two online experiments (Total N = 271) to test the proposed model in two different contexts; a Metaverse party and a virtual work meeting. The results revealed differences between the two contexts: in the virtual work meeting scenario, virtual clothing perceived attractiveness and popularity were the most significant variables, while the Metaverse party condition exhibited higher scores in perceived novelty and self-congruence as drivers of purchase intention. Additionally, the thesis highlights a moderating role of the desire for uniqueness on the relation between perceived popularity and purchase intention, a moderating effect of social enhancement on the path between perceived attractiveness/perceived popularity and purchase intention, a moderating effect of social comparison on the relation between perceived popularity and purchase intention, and a moderating effect of FOMO on the path between perceived popularity and purchase intention. Drawing upon these findings, we discuss our theoretical contributions and offer managerial insights to retailers, proposing strategies for virtual clothing design.

Date of Award	16 Jul 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Maher Georges Elmashhara (Supervisor)