Abstract:
When it comes to clothing brands in Pakistan, the Transgender community cannot be ignored any longer as a major potential strategic market segment. Yet there has not been much research done in the domain of academics when it comes to their attitude towards branded clothes, their perceptions on fashion in general and specific clothing items in particular, also psychological aspects that influence them in developing these perceptions and their buying behaviour, as these factors have not been explored in depth. This is an exploratory research which is focused on the transgender community’s perception of branded clothes as compared to their perception of unbranded clothes. The methods of research include Focus groups and in-depth interviews. The results of this research clearly tell us and indicate that (1) Transgender people share nothing but positive perceptions when it comes to branded clothes. (2) The value of unbranded clothes was not denied, but they were deemed less favourable but were preferred as a second choice by transgender people due to several societal and monetary restrictions. (3) When it comes to designer brands versus regular tailored clothing, they were unanimous in saying that the designer brands were very much preferred as compared to tailored clothes. The results also show the importance of including the Transgender community in the process of product creation and promotion from the perspective of local designer brands that have embraced the transgender inclusion movement and have benefited socially as a business but also monetarily, also the reasons for the lack of inclusion have also been identified and discussed.
