Abstract
The term ‘aesthetic labour’ has come to describe the recruitment, selection, development and deployment of physical and presentational attributes geared towards ‘looking good and sounding right’ (Warhurst and Nickson, 2007: 104). Further research has identified a degree of stratification within interactive service work, with further distinctions developing around how particular aesthetic requirements reflect firms’ brand strategies, market orientations and how they appeal to different consumer groupings – what we term, following Pettinger (2004, 2005), ‘aestheticised labour’. This article presents quantitative data and analyses the prevalence, character and use of aesthetic and aestheticised labour in the Australian fashion retail industry based on a study of fashion retail stores in the central business district of Sydney, Australia. Building on previous work, it identifies that what constitutes aesthetic labour varies according to the market segment and character of the store and brand. As such it reinforces the utility of ‘aestheticised labour’ as a means of identifying nuances in the intensity and orientation of aesthetic labour within the retail sector.
Aesthetic and aestheticised labour: Concepts and theoretical context
Aesthetic labour has become an important analytical category in contemporary research on interactive service work, complementing the importance attributed to attitude and emotions in research on emotional labour, with the recognition of the additional significance of physical appearance (Hamermersh and Biddle, 1994; Spiess and Waring, 2005; Warhurst and Nickson, 2007; Witz et al., 2003). While its existence was implied but not fully elaborated by the early work of Hochschild (1983), the importance of aesthetic labour to employers was explicitly identified by Warhurst et al. (2000) in their study of retail and hospitality work in Glasgow. Following this identification of aesthetic labour, subsequent research and debate has included discussion of the extent, nature and deployment of aesthetic labour.
Nickson, Warhurst and their colleagues’ original research suggested the existence of a ‘style labour market’ in the ‘high-end’ retail and hospitality sector and the emergence of a ‘labour aristocracy’ (Nickson and Warhurst, 2003), who enjoyed certain advantages in this labour market as a result of their aesthetic attributes. It became apparent, however, that the demand for and deployment of aesthetic labour was rather more widespread than simply occurring in style bars and boutique hotels. Nevertheless, the extent of the demand for aesthetic labour has only rarely been the subject of study (see, for a rare example, Nickson et al., 2004).
A second issue emerging from this research has been the question of how aesthetic attributes might be mobilised, developed and commodified by employers. Some have questioned whether aesthetic attributes are actually akin to skills that can be trained or developed and whether workers are actually paid any kind of premium for those attributes or skills (Grugulis, 2007; Grugulis et al., 2004). Others (e.g. Callaghan and Thompson, 2002) have suggested that employers recruit on the basis of attitudes and aesthetic attributes presumably so they can avoid having to train and develop these critical ‘soft skills’. Therefore a key question which this article seeks to address is whether, and if so, how, employers attempt to develop aesthetic attributes or skills.
A third issue emerging from the aesthetic labour research is how the demand for aesthetic labour might be stratified or segmented. Nickson and Warhurst’s original formulation of the labour aristocracy saw ‘those employed as aesthetic labour forming a distinct upper strata within jobs that have been traditionally regarded as working class’ (Nickson and Warhurst, 2003: 17; Nickson et al., 2004). If, however, aesthetic labour demand is more common, how is it structured or oriented? Do different kinds of employers seek different kinds of aesthetic labour? Pettinger’s suggestion of a distinction between ‘aesthetic labour’ and ‘aestheticised labour’ is instructive here. Her research suggests that rather than simply seeking aesthetic labour, employers seek in employees physical appearance qualities that are aestheticised in certain ways that embody and represent the brand image of the business.
Pettinger’s (2002, 2004, 2005) research into fashion retail in the UK identified how corporate branding and marketing influenced subtleties around customer service provision and variations in the embodiment of sales assistants. She identified a range of branding techniques used by retail chain stores to ‘stratify shops by age, gender, class and “lifestyle” ’ (2004: 166). These stratifications formed the basis of her classification of store strategies ranging from ‘Cheap Chic’ involving fashion and value pitched at a young, working-class clientele, to ‘Distinction’ involving style and quality ‘targeted at the top end of the mass market’ and ‘Fashion Junction’ where ‘aspirational’ shoppers are more likely to shop (2004: 171, 172). Pettinger argues that these three brand strategies manifest in different ways ‘through workers’ style of embodiment’ (2004: 172). For example ‘corporate identity’ at Cheap Chic and Distinction involved workers wearing uniforms, however at Cheap Chic uniform policies were loosely enforced and included broad guidelines including stipulations of a coloured shirt with black trousers. By contrast, at Distinction, suits (drawn from current stock) were compulsory and workers risked being sent home if wearing inappropriate clothing. At the more ‘aspirational’ and higher-end Fashion Junction, workers also modelled stock, however the focus was akin to the Warhurst and Nickson ‘aesthetic labour’ model (2001) involving a preference for attractive and slim sales workers who were given more autonomy to develop their own aesthetic style in keeping with the brand’s more boutique, cutting-edge image. Pettinger further identified how variations within these three strategies reflected store location and local labour market conditions (Pettinger, 2004: 178–179).
Pettinger’s work is important to this current research because it established that interactive service labour is ‘aestheticised’ in different ways and to different degrees, depending on the market niche, marketing strategy and store location which in turn depended on the relative emphasis on three broad priorities of style, value and quality. She highlights that:
The clothing worn by workers is part of the performance of an organisation’s brand image, and workers’ bodies are part of how the brand is communicated. . . . Work and consumption in retail are entwined most clearly on the bodies of sales assistants. (Pettinger, 2004: 180)
As indicated elsewhere, service employees are unavoidably embroiled in corporate branding, often represented as an ‘animate component of the material culture that makes up the corporate landscape’ (Witz et al., 2003: 44; see also Olins, 1991). Whether employees are used as ‘walking billboards’ (Zeithaml and Bitner, 2003: 318) or seen to be presenting a manufactured and gendered face of the company (Wellington and Bryson, 2001), how firms brand themselves, and their employees, shapes many aspects of retail service work. Indeed such branding processes also operate as an important recruitment strategy for firms by seeking to strengthen the alignment of employee engagement and organisational culture.
We see in Pettinger’s work the opportunity to further develop and refine the path-breaking work of Warhurst, Nickson and their colleagues on ‘aesthetic labour’. While we see their work as establishing that employers of customer service labour are prone to recruit, develop and reward aesthetic labour, we take from Pettinger the insight that the intensity of the demand for, and the specific orientation of, this aesthetic labour varies according to the brand and image of the organisation. Thus we see labour as being aestheticised in specific sorts of ways that serve to promote the brand and image.
Here we seek to build on Pettinger’s original research and investigate whether it is possible to operationalise her concept of ‘aestheticised’ labour (2004: 177). Pettinger’s (2004) research represents the only published work which appears to provide a model of fashion retail market segmentation explicitly associated with aesthetic labour attributes. Her work and model has been very widely referenced and relied on in a number of key papers (e.g. Entwistle and Wissinger, 2006; Gatta et al., 2009; Hancock and Tyler, 2007; Warhurst and Nickson, 2007, 2009). Pettinger’s work relied on the collection of rich ethnographic data gathered during participant observation as an employee and a customer observing and interacting with workers in the three retail outlets described earlier. This method allowed for important detail about the processes by which firms shape service work, and the ‘multiple competing roles and identities that co-exist on the shopfloor between workers and customers’ (Pettinger, 2004: 167). By contrast our focus is on the prevalence of different forms of aestheticised labour within the wider fashion retail industry. As such we rely on quantitative data and analyse how widespread the use of aestheticised labour might be across the fashion retail sector more generally. In particular we unpack Pettinger’s three ‘exemplar’ store brands (represented in her work by ‘Cheap Chic’, ‘Distinction’ and ‘Fashion Junction’) and consider the extent to which these might be indicative of common brand orientations in the fashion retail market. We then consider the extent to which specific demands for aestheticised labour might be associated with each of these orientations and how ‘appropriately aestheticised’ labour is recruited, developed, rewarded and managed by employers.
We also use the survey data to assess the extent of the demand for aesthetic labour in the Australian fashion retail sector with particular attention to two issues raised in the above literature review: the extent to which employers with a relatively intense demand for aesthetic labour actually seek to train and develop aesthetic attributes or skills; and the extent to which employees with those demanded aesthetic attributes might be rewarded by way of a wage premium.
Method and data collection
In order to investigate the magnitude and the nature of the demand for aestheticised labour in the Australian retail sector we designed and administered a survey questionnaire mailed out to a representative sample of Australian fashion retailers. The questionnaire was initially developed by the researchers and was piloted with a small number of fashion retailers and further developed in consultation with representatives from the NSW branch of the Australian Retailers Association. The final questionnaire consisted of 39 questions covering organisational details of the business and its employees, customers, work clothing and physical appearance policies, employee induction and training and employee rewards.
The sample for the survey was drawn from lists of stores provided by retail property owners and managers responsible for all the major shopping centres and precincts in the Sydney central business district (CBD). All stores listed under the categories of ‘Fashion – Women’s’, ‘Fashion – Men’s’, ‘Fashion – Accessories’ and ‘Jewellery’ were retained on the list. This list was then supplemented by a search of Yellow Pages listings for other establishments in Sydney City under the categories of ‘Menswear’, ‘Ladieswear’, ‘Fashion Accessories’ and ‘Jewellers – Retail’. The list was further supplemented by the inclusion of two city-adjacent shopping precincts that are well known for fashion retail: Oxford Street, Paddington and the Bondi Junction Shopping Centre. In the former area the list was generated from the same Yellow Pages categories (restricted to store addresses in Oxford Street, Paddington) and, in the latter, the tenant list provided by the operator of Bondi Junction (Westfield). Ultimately, then, the sample frame for the study could be described as fashion and jewellery retailers in the Sydney CBD and the adjacent retail area. A total of 717 retail stores were identified through this process. From the initial mail-out of questionnaires, 62 were returned to sender as ‘no longer at this address’. These respondents were therefore excluded from the sample as incorrectly described, addressed, no longer in business or no longer operating from that address. As a result, the total number of potential respondents was regarded as 655 stores. Following an initial wave of returns and subsequent waves prompted by mail-out reminders, individual non-responding stores were telephoned by researchers. Those stores that indicated that they were prepared to participate were then visited by one of the researchers, who left a copy of the survey with the store manager and then returned to collect the completed survey the following day (or at another agreed time). Questionnaires were directed to the store manager in all instances. Initial mail-out was undertaken in September and October 2006 with phone and in-person follow-up carried out in November 2006 and January 2007. A total of 197 valid questionnaires were completed, resulting in a response rate of 30.1%. While this response rate is not high, it is certainly within the range of commonly reported mail-out organisational surveys. There was no reason to suspect that the non-response rate was biased in any systematic way.
The completed questionnaires were then coded and the data were entered by a research assistant using SPSS. The data were then checked and cleaned by the researcher. The dataset was then again checked by one of the authors. The final dataset used for analysis consisted of 156 raw variables. Derived variables are described in the subsequent analysis.
Key characteristics of Sydney fashion retailers
Table 1 shows key descriptive statistics relating to the sample of Sydney fashion retailers surveyed.
Key characteristics of Sydney fashion retailers.
As shown in Table 1, the majority of stores in the sample are branches of fashion store chains, however a significant number are independent stores. The stores are overwhelmingly small workplaces. As might be expected given the prominence of women’s fashion stores, over half the sample have mainly women customers, and this is reflected in the gender distribution of staff. Temporary employment (or ‘casual employment’ as it is known in Australia) is very common in retail trade and the vast majority of fashion stores surveyed employ at least some temporary staff with over half employing ‘mainly’ temporary staff.
Clothing policies
The survey investigated that extent to which Sydney fashion retailers use policies relating to uniforms and clothing worn at work. At minimum we would expect if employers in fashion retail were seeking to use aesthetic labour, is that they would regulate the clothing worn by their staff through policies, whether formal or informal. Selected descriptive statistics relating to clothing policies are summarised in Table 2.
Clothing and uniform policies in fashion retail.
It is apparent that the vast majority of stores operate with a clothing policy, and that most commonly, the policy is that staff are expected to wear current stock supplied to employees at a discount. This practice effectively casts staff as models of the store’s fashions and has the added advantages that the stores increase sales (by virtually compelling employees to purchase stock albeit at a discounted rate) and build employee identification with their fashion, or, perhaps more likely, attract employees who are attracted to their fashion. Anecdotal evidence gathered during survey fieldwork suggests that the opportunity to purchase at a discount and wear store fashions is seen by many employees as an incentive to work at a particular store, although Pettinger’s research suggests that at least some employees resent having to purchase current store stock for work, albeit at a large discount, as it eats into their relatively low wages (2005: 472). To the extent that stores see their employees as working as models, as well as customer service staff, this presumably heightens the likely importance of the employee’s physical appearance – fashion models, even ‘amateur’ ones who are actually shop assistants, are evidently meant to be ‘good-looking’.
Stores that reported that they had a clothing policy were also asked the reason for that policy and were given a number of possible reasons (of which they could choose more than one). The most commonly reported reasons were: ‘to fit the company image/ brand’ (58.2%); ‘to display stock’ (57.7%); and ‘to look neat and presentable’ (46.6%). The other potential reasons were much less frequently cited: ‘to standardise appearance’ (16.9%); ‘to make staff appear distinct from customers’ (14.7%); and ‘to save staff’s own clothing’ (1.6%). The three most common reasons all appear to underline the aesthetic significance of the clothing policy. For most stores the clothing policy is not in place for instrumental or practical reasons related to the identification of staff. It is there to ensure the presentation of a particular aesthetic promoting the store’s products. Even the third reason – ‘to look neat and presentable’ – suggests an aesthetic motive, albeit a more generic one, not directly related to the store’s image, brand or product.
Physical appearance policies
Fashion stores can also regulate aesthetic labour through policies relating to the physical appearance of their staff. It was anticipated that even where stores might not have an explicit clothing policy, they still might have policies regarding the physical appearance of their staff. More typically it was anticipated that stores would have physical appearance policies as well as clothing polices to more comprehensively regulate the overall appearance of staff.
A high percentage of stores in the sample claimed to have physical appearance policies. In most cases these policies included regulation of fundamental aspects of appearance: tidiness and hygiene, make-up and grooming and clothing style. A second set of physical appearance characteristics – the wearing of jewellery and tattoos – was somewhat less likely to be included in physical appearance policies. A third set of appearance characteristics relating to bodily characteristics – age, weight and height – was rarely reported to be part of the appearance policy. This is unsurprising, if only because it is widely known that discrimination on the basis of these characteristics is unlawful in Australia (Equal Opportunities Commission, 2003; Warhurst et al., 2009).
It was assumed that the existence of a physical appearance policy was indicative of at least a basic strategy to employ and deploy aesthetic labour. In order to test whether the physical appearance policy was seen to promote a more specific form of aestheticised labour embodying the store’s brand or image, respondents with an appearance policy were asked: ‘How important is the conformity to company/brand image in shaping your company’s physical appearance policy?’ Presented with a Likert scale range from 1 (‘not at all important’) to 5 (‘very important’) 72.7% of respondents scored the item 4 or 5, suggesting that conformity with the store’s brand and image was an important reason for the appearance policy in most cases.
The mere existence of a policy is, of course, no guarantee of its enforcement. We sought to investigate the extent to which clothing and physical appearance policies were enforced by our fashion stores. Almost 73% of stores with either or both types of these policies reported that ‘staff would be disciplined for not conforming to the clothing and/or physical appearance policy’.
The significance of aesthetic labour
Our understanding of the aesthetic labour thesis is that it claims that a significant proportion of employers in certain services industries, recruit, develop, deploy and reward aesthetic labour – the quality of ‘looking good’ and ‘sounding right’. The above data would seem to indicate that a substantial proportion of fashion retail employers in our sample seek to brand their employees in different ways through policies. We also asked respondents about the relevance of physical appearance to the selection of new employees so as to estimate the extent to which employees are recruited on the basis of their aesthetic attributes. Respondents were asked about the relative importance of various applicant characteristics when selecting customer-facing staff. Table 4 shows the percentage reporting that the characteristic was ‘important’ or ‘very important’.
Physical appearance policies in fashion retail.
Important factors in selection of customer service staff.
Evidently, while ‘the right appearance’ is not important for quite as many employers as having ‘the right personality’, it is still important for the vast majority of these employers.
The pioneering work of Warhurst, Nickson and colleagues, discussed in the first section of this article, highlights the existence of aesthetic labour and suggests that certain types of employers will be particularly focused on recruiting, developing and deploying aesthetic labour. These employers were seen to be drawing on and cultivating a ‘style labour market’. In our review we argued that Pettinger’s work presents an opportunity to further refine and extend Warhurst and Nickson’s concept of aesthetic labour by pointing to the existence of employers who seek to use aesthetic labour to different degrees and in the promotion of different and distinct brand images. We conceptualise these dimensions in terms of the different intensity and orientation of employers’ aesthetic labour demands, and we appropriate and develop the concept of ‘aestheticised labour’. In other words, rather than a binary categorisation of aesthetic/non-aesthetic labour employers, we seek to identify different forms of aestheticised labour sought by employers, with distinct brand images, occupying distinct niches in the fashion retail market.
In order to analyse the intensity of aesthetic labour demand, we use data drawn from an item asking respondent store managers to assess the extent to which the physical appearance of their customer-facing staff is important. The issue of aesthetic orientation is more complicated. As noted earlier, Pettinger’s segmentation of the fashion market in her UK study involves a distinction between three stores (‘Cheap Chic’, ‘Distinction’ and ‘Fashion Junction’), based on a number of variables: the relative emphasis of the brand on value, fashion, style and/or quality; whether these stores catered to the ‘mass market’ or more exclusive ‘boutique market’; and the age and class status of the clientele. Cheap Chic emphasised ‘value fashion’ for the ‘mass market’ with an orientation towards a younger, working-class clientele; Distinction emphasised ‘quality’ and ‘style’ but was still geared towards the mass market catering for more ‘corporate’, older and presumably more middle-class customers. Fashion Junction emphasised a stronger ‘style identity’ for a more exclusive, boutique market suggesting a stress on fashion and style, but not low cost or value. Certainly, it is in the niche occupied by Fashion Junction that Pettinger sees Warhurst and Nickson’s ‘style labour market’ and as providing the clearest demonstration of aesthetic labour and the demand for ‘attractive’ staff.
Here we attempt to operationalise a version of Pettinger’s fashion brand orientations. Our data are well-suited, drawing as they do on a sample of the Australian equivalent of the UK’s high street chain stores. A number of survey items assist in the construction of measures of aesthetic orientation. In a series of three separate questions, we asked respondents to assess the extent to which their customers were ‘cost-conscious’, ‘quality-conscious’ and ‘value-conscious’ on five-point Likert scales. During questionnaire piloting the use of an additional item (‘fashion-conscious’) was considered and ultimately rejected because some respondents and key informants argued that it was difficult to draw a clear distinction between ‘style’ and ‘fashion’. As a result ‘style’ was retained. While there is a clearer distinction between the notions of ‘style’ and ‘quality’, the data reveal a very high level of correlation between the style-conscious and quality-conscious items (Pearson’s R = .436**). As a result, the two items can only be considered to be virtual proxies of each other – in other words, in the view of our respondents, style and quality ‘go together’ and if their customers were concerned with style, then they were typically equally concerned with quality. Therefore, either the ‘style-conscious’ or the ‘quality-conscious’ items might be used in the subsequent analysis; the former is preferred because it might be a more appropriate term given the connotation of the ‘style labour market’.
In view of these limitations of the survey method and the data, we use the items relating to ‘cost-conscious’ and ‘style-conscious’ customers to construct three measures to represent three distinct segments within the retail fashion market. First, we define a Boutique Style market as constituted by stores whose customers are typically style-conscious (scoring 4 or 5 on the relevant Likert scale) but not very cost-conscious (scoring 1 to 3 on the relevant Likert scale). Second, we define a Mass Style market as made up of stores with customers who are both style- and cost-conscious (scoring 4 or 5 on both scales), the ‘mass market’ notion implying some concern with ‘value’ or ‘cost-consciousness’. Third we identify a Value Fashion market where customers are typically cost-conscious (scoring 4 or 5) but not very style-conscious (scoring 1 to 3). We are not representing these to be perfect operationalisations of Pettinger’s three store types. Rather, we are using Pettinger’s insight that aestheticised labour might be oriented differently in different parts of the market, and using the available data, to investigate whether different brands are associated with different aestheticised labour demands. Nevertheless, Pettinger’s ‘Fashion Junction’ would clearly fall within our boutique style market, and ‘Distinction’ seems to be a good example of our mass style market, albeit at the ‘higher end’ of our broader category. Our value fashion market might be somewhat different from Petttinger’s more distinctive ‘Cheap Chic’. Our category does not emphasise style (or, by implication, fashion) yet this is a relative statement. While this category would include ‘budget’ stores that specialise in low-cost clothing with little regard for contemporary fashion, only a small number of stores in the Sydney CBD fit that description. Most of these stores would still claim to offer fashionable clothing and accessories and to have customers who are ‘relatively’ fashion-conscious, while remaining cost-conscious.
Aestheticised labour? Boutique Style, Mass Style and Value Fashion stores
In this section of the article we identify three types of stores based on their place within the retail fashion market and then examine their differing use of aesthetic labour. The proportion of stores in our sample in each of the three categories is shown in Table 5.
Segmentation of fashion retail stores.
Almost 95% of the stores fall into one of the three categories. The remaining handful of stores in the ‘other’ category are those where customers are regarded by the store manager respondents as neither style-conscious nor cost-conscious – understandably a very small category.
As Table 6 shows, regulation of clothing and appearance appears to be most pronounced in the Boutique Style segment, and clothing policy is generally used to promote and model the store’s clothes. Clothing policies are even slightly more common in the Value Fashion segment, which may well reflect a greater need to regulate the dress of workers in these ‘lower-end’ stores. The main role of the policy here is to ensure that staff are ‘neat and presentable’ – a fairly basic level of aesthetic presentation. On the other hand, clothing policy in the Boutique, high end is apparently used to promote a specific style of appearance and presentation exemplifying the brand. In the Mass Style segment, clothing policies are still common, but not quite as commonly used as in the other segments. This probably reflects both the less pressing need to regulate employees to a basic presentable standard, and the less intense emphasis on a particular fashion style compared to the Boutique segment. Physical appearance policies are common in all segments, but more widely used in Boutique stores compared to Mass Style stores, and in turn, more common in those stores than in Value Fashion stores.
Clothing and physical appearance policies in fashion retail segments (in percentages).
Figures in this column should be treated with caution owing to small cell counts.
While the pattern of the relative importance of various employee attributes and qualities is quite similar for each segment, the absolute level of importance of each of these factors varies significantly (see Table 7). For Boutiques, personality and appearance are ‘very important’ for the majority of employers. For Mass Style stores, personality and experience are very important for the majority, and among Value Fashion stores only personality was regarded as ‘very important’ for a majority. The importance of appearance for Boutiques (90% reported that the right appearance was either ‘important’ or ‘very important’ in the selection of customer-facing staff) is striking. It is somewhat less important for Mass Style, and significantly less important for the Value Fashion stores. This again suggests that a pronounced emphasis on highly aestheticised labour is most common among Boutique Style stores, then slightly less common, but still prominent among Mass Style stores, and then significantly less common among Value Fashion stories.
Very important selection factors in fashion retail segments (in percentages).
Figures in this column should be treated with caution owing to small cell counts.
A more direct estimate of the relative intensity of the demand for aesthetic labour can be gained by comparing the extent to which stores in the different market segments regard appearance as important. Boutique stores are much more likely to report that ‘overall physical appearance is important or very important for customer-facing staff’: 57.6% of Boutiques reported this, compared to 34.8% of Mass Style stores and 33.3% of Value Fashion stores. Given that Boutiques therefore have a greater demand for staff who have the ‘right’ physical appearance, it might be hypothesised that these stores have the most difficulty in attracting the ‘right’ applicants, and/or that they may need to pay higher rates of pay in order to secure the fashionable, attractive aestheticised labour they demand. Alternatively, given that Boutiques are very likely to supply staff with store clothes (typically at a discounted rate), it may be the case that this benefit, or other aspects associated with the image or cachet of the store, serves as a sufficient attraction for attractive staff.
Contrary to what might be expected given their demand for aestheticised labour, Boutiques are less likely to report difficulties in attracting the right applicants compared to Mass Style and Value Fashion stores (see Table 8). This is also reflected in Boutiques reporting that they are less likely than Value Fashion stores to need to pay higher rates of pay to attract applicants. This finding is directly confirmed by other data based on respondent estimates of standard rates of pay for store managers and customer service staff: there is very little variation in the median average rates of pay paid by all stores, irrespective of segment.
Attraction, retention and reward of staff in fashion retail segments.
Figures in this column should be treated with caution owing to small cell counts.
Respondents were also asked to estimate how important various factors were in attracting ‘good applicants’. Boutiques are significantly more likely to report that ‘brand/image’ and ‘other benefits’ are very important for attracting ‘good applicants’ than Mass Style stores, which in turn are more likely to report that these factors are very important than Value Fashion stores (see Table 8). This would appear to support the hypothesis that Boutiques attract staff with the right looks on account of their image and cachet, and by offering benefits such as discounted clothing, rather than by offering higher rates of pay.
Highly aestheticised Boutique Style, Mass Style and Value Fashion stores
The preceding analysis and discussion has identified three distinct types of stores in the Sydney fashion retail market and shown the extent to which each of these types of stores requires a specific form of aestheticised labour. It is apparent that although Boutiques are the most demanding in terms of rating the importance of physical appearance, having a physical appearance policy and using clothing policy to promote the store’s image and products, stores in the Mass Style and even Value Fashion segments also have demands for aestheticised labour and have physical appearance and clothing policies, although the emphasis of these policies and the intensity of these aesthetic demands is clearly different. We finally ask whether it is possible to identify stores in each segment with highly aestheticised labour demands, policies and practices. In order to identify such stores, we constructed derived variables that identified, within in each segment, those stores that regarded physical appearance as ‘important’ or ‘very important’ and reported that ‘conformity to brand/image’ was ‘important’ or ‘very important’ in shaping their physical appearance policy. In this way we seek to capture stores with a relatively intense demand for labour that is aestheticised in accord with their brand and image.
Stores that might be defined in this way as users of distinctive, highly aestheticised labour can be identified in our sample, although they are a minority of all stores in the sample. Just over half of the Boutiques emerged as ‘highly aestheticised boutique stores’ accounting for over 45% of all highly aestheticised stores. Around a third of the Mass Style stores were classified as ‘highly aestheticised’, accounting for approximately 40% of all highly aestheticised stores. Just on a third of the Value Fashion stores could be classed as ‘highly aestheticised’, and they accounted for only 13% of all highly aestheticised stores. This appears to confirm our earlier findings that using aestheticised labour is a more common strategy for Boutiques than for Mass Style and Value Fashion stores.
Training, appraisal and pay in highly aestheticised stores
As noted in the earlier review of the aesthetic labour literature, there is debate as to the extent to which employers seeking aestheticised labour might train or develop those attributes or skills. The analysis here has already confirmed that employers appear to recruit on the basis of aesthetic attributes, but are stores that regard overall physical appearance as important (highly aestheticised stores) more likely to ‘train’ employees in aesthetic skills and attributes, or reward performance on the basis of aesthetic attributes or skills?
The data in Table 9 strongly suggest that highly aestheticised stores (which constitute 40.1% of all stores surveyed) are more likely to train their staff in all aspects of physical appearance and presentation. While a majority of all stores include aesthetic skills and appearance in their employee appraisals, this is also more common in the highly aestheticised stores. It is notable, however, that even the less aestheticised stores still provide reasonably extensive aesthetic training (reinforced by appraisal processes) especially in clothing, dress sense and style, what to say and body language. This suggests that aesthetic labour, as a management strategy, might be as much about demonstrating control over employees as it is about achieving a particular aesthetic style.
Training, appraisal and pay in highly aestheticised stores.
The data also provide evidence on the question of whether stores with stronger aesthetic demands reward employees with a wage premium. The survey results suggest that employees in these stores are not paid a premium. Managers in these stores are, on the other hand, more likely to claim that employees are attracted by the brand or image of the store, and by ‘other benefits’, presumably the opportunity to purchase store stock at discount.
Discussion and conclusions
Employers operating with the fashion retail sector recruit and develop a mixture of technical, social and aesthetic skills and attributes. Increasing discussion about the aesthetic requirements highlights the (often thin) boundaries around preferred attributes relating to race, age, class and sexuality (Adkins, 1995; Loury, 2006; Nickson and Warhurst, 2006; Pettinger, 2004). Similarly we have come to recognise the strategic way that firms mobilise these preferences through their recruitment and selection practices, their formal clothing and appearance policies, as well as their training and appraisal practices.
While the term ‘aesthetic labour’ has been an important concept to denote the attributes of ‘looking good and sounding right’, this article has argued that what constitutes looking ‘good’ and sounding ‘right’ in fashion retail will vary depending on the market, strategy, location and character of the store and brand. Therefore, by building on existing research we have identified the need for the more nuanced concept of ‘aestheticised labour’ to further an understanding of the distinct patterns in the intensity and orientation of aesthetic labour usage in fashion retail service work. Further, while earlier research has identified some of the processes by which firms might shape service work (Pettinger, 2004, 2005), we have highlighted the prevalence and orientation of aestheticised labour demands within the wider fashion retail industry to describe employer preferences for a particular look and presentation style which suits the store’s brand image.
The analysis presented here confirms that employers in fashion retail routinely recruit and select customer service staff on the basis of their aesthetic attributes – appearance is second only to personality as an important consideration in selection. The study also confirms that employers typically use their clothing and appearance policies to promote and project a specific image consistent with their brand and image. We also find evidence to support the proposition that, in fashion retail at least, employers seek labour which is (or can be) ‘aestheticised’ in ways that are consistent with the image of their store. Certainly, stores in our Boutique Style segment were most likely to use clothing policies to display stock and promote a certain brand image, and to regard physical appearance as very important. Nevertheless, these strategies were also quite common in the Mass Style and even in the Value Fashion segments.
The research data reported and analysed in this article contribute to the research and debates on aesthetic labour in several ways.
First, it demonstrates the potential utility of the concept of ‘aestheticised labour’, compared to the more general concept of ‘aesthetic labour’, and shows that most fashion retail employers seek employee attributes, physical characteristics and qualities, and skills that are embodied and aestheticised in particular ways – ways which represent and promote the image and brand of the store.
Second, it shows that employers with relatively strong aesthetic demands (highly aestheticised stores) attempt to develop those attributes through training and coaching employees on matters of physical appearance and presentation, and by appraising their performance on criteria including their aesthetic attributes and skills and adherence to company appearance and presentation policies and preferences.
Third, our data and analysis deepen our understanding of the ways in which aestheticised labour is mobilised and commodified: employees’ appearance is regulated, formally and informally, so as to ensure that they embody aspects of the brand and image of the store – employers select employees on the basis of the ‘right personality’ and the ‘right appearance’, they require employees to model store stock, and they monitor employee adherence to prescriptions regarding physical appearance.
Fourth, the study provides evidence on the question of whether, and if so, how, employers reward employees with the ‘right’ aesthetic attributes. It appears that employers in highly aestheticised stores do not pay a wage premium but instead claim that their employees benefit from association with the brand and image of the store and from access to other benefits such as discounted merchandise.
This last finding certainly adds support to critiques of aesthetic labour which argue that aesthetic skills carry few benefits for workers, at least in terms of higher pay. The finding certainly suggests that rather than an emerging labour aristocracy, aestheticising labour strategies are, first and foremost, managerial strategies in which employers define the aesthetic attributes they want, and the terms of their commodification.
While the systematic consideration of the implications of aestheticising labour strategies for workers is beyond the scope of this article and the survey it relies on, the evidence presented here suggests few advantages or opportunities for workers. The demand for aesthetic labour is not apparently leading to wage premiums. Control over the key aspects associated with the process of aestheticising fashion retail labour appears to rest with management (Grugulis et al., 2004: 8): store managers recruit on the basis of the highly subjective assessments of the right personality and the right appearance, rather than on the more objective characteristics of experience and qualifications; and clothing and physical appearance policies and regulations are extensive and detailed, and are defined and monitored by store managers. The former phenomenon opens up the scope for discrimination on the basis of fairly nebulous criteria (Warhurst et al., 2009), and the latter serves to extend the level of managerial control to which employees are already subject in this relatively low-paid sector.
Footnotes
This work was supported by a University of Sydney School of Business Research Grant number RI3SG04DIA.