Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in

clothing, foot wear or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the

current trend in look and dress up of a person. The more technical term, costume
, has become so linked in the public eye with the term "fashion" that the more g
eneral term "costume" has in popular use mostly been relegated to special senses
like fancy dress or masquerade wear, while the term "fashion" means clothing ge
nerally, and the study of it. For a broad cross-cultural look at clothing and it
s place in society, refer to the entries for clothing, costume and fabrics. The
remainder of this article deals with clothing fashions in the Western world.The
term youth refers to persons who are no longer children and not yet adults. Used
colloquially, however the term generally refers to a broader, more ambiguous fi
eld of reference- from the physically adolescent to those in their late twenties
. India Inc. is no doubt becoming younger with 60% of its population under the a
ge of 30 and further depicting a downward trend (where-as most of the developed
countries are becoming aged and the work force with creative green mind will be
in high demand). About six out of ten household in India have a liberalization c
hildren (born and have grown up in the period of liberalization of Indian econom
y) who acts as a change agent in that household. With the first ever non-sociali
stic generation s thriving aspiration & new found money power combined with steadi
ly growing GDP, bubbling IT industry and increasing list of confident young entr
epreneurs, the scenario appears very lucrative for the global and local retailer
s to target the Gen Y. Due to these reasons, India is marked as the most prospec
tive destination for the retail investment in the A. T. Kearney s Global Retail Op
portunity Report, 2007.
Hence, the hype is on and the business possibilities are enormous. But, these gr
oup of wonderful young bloods are not yet understood (by the market experts & re
searchers) in respect of their lifestyle, habitat & attitude and often being mis
taken as similar to any of their global peers. The result is to take them for gra
nted and copy the similar products most popular in various other countries and try
to promote them in India with an obvious result of instant failure. Then making
a haul stating that the Indian youth are not yet trendy as of their global peers s
o the internationally hip designs or colors are not selling in India
Have we ever tried to understand the logic of them who rejects the product? What
goes in their mind resulting a nation-wide ripple effect (through word-of-mouth
, sms-ing, instant messaging and scrapping in social network sites)? Why a blue
color beverage or yellow color two wheeler (for ladies) fails to catch their att
ention? Why they want to look matured yet cool rather than wild and outrageous ? Why
there is no indigenous youth oriented style-tribes or subcultures (ie. Punks, Hi
ppies, Goths, Psychedelics, Skin-heads etc.) in India though we have enormous nu
mbers of sects, sub-sects and religious or spiritual groups?
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Aspire rich -
When I was growing up, my parents told me, Finish your dinner. People in China and
India are starving. I tell my daughters, Finish your homework. People in India an
d China are starving for your job . Thomas Friedman
As Marian Salzman & Ira Matathia states in Next Now- Trends for The Future A lot
of world s smart money is flowing to where a lot of the world s smart people are- sp
ecially as they cost less than smart people in the developed countries (in west) a
nxiety will be a raising emotion as people get scared- for their job and for the
ir future.
Not only in west, but the liberalization s children of India are also under pressu
re to get the first wave of becoming rich before it eases off. But it s not an easy gr
b . As many as 9.3 million young people want to go to college where as only 3 mill
ion seats are available. For admission to the premier engineering college, the I
ITs, there are 7,000 kids at each mark point in the entrance exam. During any ma
jor exam season the household becomes war zone. In India, the children are conside
red as an asset for the entire family and the expenditure in their education is
considered as investment for the future of their parents. As Rama Bijapurkar cor
rectly quotes, the liberalization s children in India are a Pressure-cooked Generat
ion . Unlike their global peers they study really hard to make their parents proud
and pay them back by achieving the epitome of success. Hence, interestingly, th
e youth icons in India are the successful Indian entrepreneurs (Tata, Birla, Amb
ani etc.), rich established Indian sport-person (Cricketers, Tennis players etc.
) or rich & famous (not the struggling, young & not-so-famous) gilt-edged Bollyw
ood movie stars, singers and producers rather than scandalous young and upcoming
pop-stars or alternative subculture leaders.
The Indian youth are highly motivated and geared with limitless aspiration. For
a lucky few, the success follows; and follows the money-power, at quite a young
age. The high aspiration with a motto to make my family proud (as seeded by their
parents) are not only making the youth in India as focused & career centric but
also the most family oriented youth in the world. The recent Global TGI report s
tates that India scores highest (76%) in the rating of it is important my family
thinks I m doing well .

The Indian youth segment roughly estimates close to 250million (between the ages
of fifteen and twenty-five) and in my view, this segment can be broadly divided
into three categories: the Bharatiyas, the Indians & the Inglodians (Copyright
Kaustav SG2007). The Bharatiyas estimating 67% of the young population lives in
the rural (R1, R2 to R4 SEC) areas with least influence of globalization & high
traditional values. They are least economically privileged, most family oriented
Bollywood influenced generation. The Indians constitute 31.5% (A, B,C, D & E SE
C) and have moderate global influence. They are well aware of the global trends
but rooted to the Indian family values, customs and ethos. The Inglodians are ba
sically the creamy layers (A1,A SEC) and marginal (1.5% or roughly three million
) in number though they are strongly growing (70% growth rate). Inglodians are a
ffluent and consume most of the trendy & luxury items. They are internet savvy &
the believers of global-village (a place where there is no difference between e
ast & west, New York & Noida, developing & developed countries), highly influenc
ed by the western music, food, fashion & culture yet Indian at heart and emotion
.
The Inglodians are minimal in number but they are the innovators or initiators o
f most of the trend directions. They are globally inclined, exposed and affluent
enough to afford so called trendy look . All the Inglodians may not have grownup i
n creamy layer but reached in the creamy layer through various professional and ac
ademic achievements. This category always wants to be different than the rest of
other categories and wants to appear different than the rest of their peers as
well as from aam aadmi or mass population of India. Here stands my theory of adopte
d differentiation which states that To distinguish & separate themselves from the
mass culture (aam aadmi) of India and other youth categories the Inglodian (and
majority of Indians) youth segment consciously adopted the sophisticated yet coo
l look and attitude which is not as young as per the Global perception of youth
culture . The theory is fairly simple to understand. India, as a country is very c
olorful (considering various cultural aspects, festivals, decors and lifestyle)
and decorative. The mass uses color & ornamentation as a tool to define their id
entity and interest because color & textures are the most cost effective & easil
y accessible medium in fashion (other than the rest two attributes: materials an
d silhouettes). Being a well lit and sun drenched country, color has the maximum
impact on the viewer. Naturally, the black, white, pastels and grays are the mo
st awkward color tones among mass. Here I want to quote Mr. Kishore Biyani s obser
vation on the immediate cause of failure of white shirt sell at the Big Bazar one
of our first mistakes was around the humble white shirt. Plain observation and
intuition suggested that almost everybody has a white shirt in his wardrobe. The
refore it should naturally be one of the highest selling items. So we ordered ar
ound one lakh white shirts and offered these at Rs. 149 customer however, were not
 keen as we expected them to be and it took us a long while to get rid of all th
at bulk the reason slowly became clear. The customer who walks into a Big Bazar tr
avels by train and buses. Even when the price of a white shirt is low, the maint
enance cost of these shirts is too high for him (It Happened in India- Kishore Bi
yani & Dipayan Baishya, Page. 122) and check what one of our respondents told dur
ing my one-to-one discussion session (for trend direction analysis) at Delhi Uni
versity White is mine it makes me stand out of d crowd and chaos And ya, it shows tha
t I have money to maintain white as I drive ma car Its really tough to maintain whit
e in Delhi u know he he he . The color makes a difference even in social status!
Not only social status, a color exhibits the aspiration level too. Another respo
ndent stated Why Grey?! I wana be Tata or Birla wana acquire all the global giants
in business wana be the man of steel u know, the Ambanis and Mittals look smart I wana
be in the Forbes list of global rich! Another exclaimed Bright I like in occasions w
hen I wear kurta during festives but I like pastels overall it makes me appear matur
ed sometimes, even if u have money People doesn t respect u unless u LOOK matured.