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Fashion and luxury brands struggle to make themselves distinguished by ever more apathetic consumers in this highly competitive market. Fashion and luxury retailers can use emotional branding as a way to get their customers involved to address the increasing trend of emotional relationships with a brand to become more competitive. Although brand technology, such as product attributes, characteristics and facts, is unforgettable, personal sensations and experiences better shape brand assessments of consumers. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the dominance of consumers’ emotions over objective analysis in selection among the brands in the field of fashion and luxury products for similar products.

A comprehensive literature study has been done to explore the various emotional associations that are identified by the advertising, marketing, psychology scholars and researchers. This study also analyses the relevance of consumers’ emotional associations with the fashion and luxury brands. Various online scholarly journal platforms have been used to find the relevant research papers, books and other publications on the basis of keywords of this study. Only recent studies and literature covering the basic concepts of branding, emotional buying and fashion consumer behaviour have been included after scrutinising carefully.

This study illustrates how emotional branding is crucial in a volatile market, particularly for fashion and luxury brands. This study will also be focussed on the possibility in which consumers buy the fashion and luxury products under the influence of emotional needs. The objective of this paper is to inform both consumers and brands about the emotional influence on the buying decision so that both can take better conscious decision.

Understanding the influence of emotional needs will help fashion brands in creating better customer value and satisfaction. A business or product will be successful only if it is chosen by the consumer to satisfy his needs. Understanding of emotional needs would result in enhancement of consumer’s loyalty for the brand with better satisfaction of needs. As huge part of marketing resources is involved into advertisement and celebrity endorsement, identifying the effective way of advertising and endorsement can help in efficient utilisation of resources.

The study aims to focus on developing a methodology of technical calculation for fixation of piece rate for embroidery homeworkers of fashion industry to ensure an ethical livelihood standard. The standardised methodology for wage fixation will ensure better payments for homeworkers with clarity down the supply chain and sustainability of pay scales that will in turn improve the homeworkers’ impecunious living standards. The brands giving living wage will be benefitted in terms of savings on training costs, more stable work force, reliable services and enhancements to the reputation.

Interviews of subcontractors and agents down the supply chain in a target region were conducted to know current practice of wage fixation. The influential parameters were work content, basic living expenses and necessary benefits under government policies. Based on the aforementioned parameters, a formula has been generated. The present study is an attempt to develop a standard methodology to be used for piece rate calculation to ensure fair compensation for homeworkers. Impact of increased earnings of home workers on garment free on board cost has also been analysed.

As there is no uniformity in methodology used for piece rate calculation, and work content is not considered in calculating piece rate, the wage earned per month by homeworkers, minimum wage and living wage are INR 2,860, 6,998 and 8,007, respectively. Homeworkers receive 54-58 per cent of total embroidery labour cost incurred by suppliers. It can be increased up to 75 per cent, which would result in increasing the wage earned per month by homeworkers to INR 4,000.

The impact of implementing the outcome of the study will increase the earnings of embroidery homeworkers and reduce wage inequality in women’s favour, as there are more women than men in embroidery homeworking.