Information Seeking by Fashion Opinion Leaders and Followers

A self‐designating scale was included in a mailed questionnaire to identify fashion opinion leaders, followers, and indeterminates among female undergraduates. The number, fre quency, type, and variety of fashion information sources used by leaders and followers in the awareness, comprehension, and legitimation stages of the fashion adoption process were studied. The demographic characteristics of the respondents were also examined. Both the leaders and followers used all of the twenty‐one sources studied. However, the leaders consulted a greater number of sources more frequently than did the followers. Both the leaders and followers recalled marketer‐dominated sources as creating awareness of new clothing styles. However, the most important sources in the comprehension stage were marketer‐dominated sources for the leaders and consumer‐dominated sources for the fol lowers. Leaders and followers could not be differentiated by demographic characteristics.