An examination of female consumers' attitudes toward clothing styles and their style-creation behaviors on a digital platform

Clothing has historically served as one of the primary means through which individuals express themselves. The concept of style is shaped not only by temporal developments but also by social, cultural, and psychological factors, presenting a multidimensional structure related to identity construction and everyday life practices. Recent studies indicate that clothing style is not merely an aesthetic preference, but a dynamic process closely associated with individual attitudes and perceptions. In this context, the purpose of this study is to identify women consumers' awareness of clothing styles based on styles defined in the literature and to categorize these styles according to consumer perspectives, as well as to examine their evaluation through digital visual applications. The population of the study consists of women consumers aged 25–45 residing in Konya, while the sample comprises 30 participants selected from this population. A descriptive research design was adopted, and the study was conducted in two stages. In the first stage, clothing styles identified in the literature and the visual materials representing these styles were evaluated by 32 fashion design experts working at universities across Türkiye through an online survey, and visuals deemed to adequately represent the styles were selected. In the second stage, face-to-face applications were carried out in which participants were asked to adjust avatars according to their body measurements and to create style groups and combinations for daily, work, and special occasion contexts using a digital visual catalog. The analysis of the qualitative data revealed that women consumers' style preferences clustered distinctly under casual, minimal, fancy, and retro/vintage style categories. The findings demonstrate that these styles can be defined through specific patterns of attitudes, perceptions, and preferences, offering a structured framework for understanding women consumers' clothing style orientations.