Status symbolism in vegan fashion: an experimental study on the role of vegan material authenticity

Abstract

This study examines how the status symbolism associated with vegan fashion materials (vegan leather vs. vegan fur) influences consumer responses and how vegan material authenticity moderates these effects in women’s handbag advertising. Drawing on the Value–Attitude–Behavior framework, schematic processing theory, and cognitive dissonance theory, we conducted a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment using fictitious handbag advertisements featuring vegan leather and vegan fur. Data were collected from 487 U.S. women and analyzed using ANCOVA and SPSS Process Macro model 4 and 8, with fashion involvement included as a covariate. The results reveal three key findings. First, vegan leather handbags elicited a more favorable advertising attitude and higher purchase intention than vegan fur handbags. Second, perceived vegan material authenticity moderated these responses: higher authenticity amplified favorable responses to vegan leather but attenuated favorable responses to vegan fur. This interaction was most pronounced for advertising attitude, whereas the effect on purchase intention was only marginally significant. Third, advertising attitude mediated the effect of status symbolism on purchase intention, with this indirect effect emerging only under high vegan material authenticity but not under low authenticity. Taken together, vegan material authenticity does not uniformly enhance consumer responses in vegan fashion contexts; rather, its effects depend on the symbolic congruence between a vegan material and its product category. The study extends prior research on vegan fashion by demonstrating that material symbolism and authenticity shape consumer responses alongside the ethical and functional considerations emphasized in earlier work, offering context-specific implications for vegan handbag advertising.