A Study on the Aesthetic Value Featured in the Body Decoration in Contemporary Fashion

현대 패션에 나타난 신체장식 표현의 미적 가치에 관한 연구

The aim of this study is to clarify aesthetic values and sociocultural meanings that reappears in contemporary fashion. In order to analyze aesthetic values and symbolic meanings of body decoration, I examined the concepts and expression methods of the body decoration. Also, analyzed external characteristics of expression and its internal meanings that applied in modern fashion. The expressions of body decoration represented in contemporary fashion are classified into direct and indirect methods. The direct method is expressed by tattoos, piercing, henna, make-up and body painting. And, indirect method is expressed by see-through look, body-conscious look and accessories that were utilized its patterns and the material adaptation methods. Such expression of body decoration in the modern fashion was represented into grotesque images and erotic images. The characteristics of grotesque images are abnormal state, hateful animal image and distorted or transformed body and the internal meanings are the pursuit of primitive, exoticism, the pursuit of playfulness, and resistance. The characteristics of erotic images are an exposure of body, see through, body-conscious and androgynous look and the internal meanings are the self-intoxication, naturalism and sexual pleasure.