Chen Lin; Yuxin Chen; Jeongwen Chiang; Yufei Zhang

Conspicuous consumption, first defined by Veblen (1899), describes wealthy people spending excessively on goods to signal their superior social status to the public. Today, this behavior is no longer exclusive to the rich. Average people can also acquire branded products with the intention of being perceived as being a member of a certain class or having desirable individual qualities. Casual observation suggests that this phenomenon has also extended to children, who can often be seen using high-status branded products. One notable example is parental spending on conspicuous children’s apparel. According to Belk (1988), this behavior falls into the domain of ‘extended self’. We ascertained the theoretical arguments found in the literature and used secondary data on children’s apparel purchases to validate the predictions implied by the signaling theory within this ‘extended conspicuous consumption’ context. Our main contribution is to fill the void in the literature on empirical validations of conspicuous consumption extended from parents to children. This study also offers guidance for children’s clothing companies to adjust their product lines to maximize sales performance.