Abstract
`Early adopters,` a term first used by Everett Rogers in 1957, refers to people who are among the first to try a new product and like to evaluate the product for others. Early adopters in the digital age of the 21st century, greatly influence others by exchanging information on products and writing product reviews on Internet boards. Technological products have recently been released in the fashion world to become important fashion items, and early adopters are active buyers of these products. The purpose of this study is to examine the values and characteristics of early adopters as consumers of technological fashion products, and present a standard for designing fashion products in the future. This study was based on documentary research, Internet research and in-depth interviews. Documentary research was carried out to examine the lifestyles, characteristics and consumption habits of early adopters. Internet research was done to understand the tendencies of Korean early adopters, and a total of 18 websites were studied in 7 product categories. The subjects of in-depth interviews were 6 people who were either webmasters or members of early adopter-related websites. IT field early adopters tended to pursue new technologies, and fashion early adopters placed importance on how well a person could express their own style. New, unique, useful and pretty were the key words to describe the tendencies of early adopters, and fashion early adopters preferred the latest contemporary styles. Interviewees placed most importance on price, design and function of products. Since IT related products are continuously being added on to clothes and becoming fashion products themselves, further research on technology-related fashion design would be significant.
