• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.83-96
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• 2004

Upon the threshold of late 20th century, the social, cultural and artistic trend began to pursue aesthetic pluralism and deconstructivism, and thus, fashion also began to reflect such a trend only to express cruel, detestable, horrible and ugly aesthetics. Under such circumstances, this study focused on the cruel images appearing in the modern fashion and thereby, attempted to determine their causes in reference to Julia Kristeva's theories. Her theories of women explain that women have incessant desires or blind obsessions about penis due to the bisexual instinct inherent in their subconsciousness, and thereby, discuss sado-masochism, a characteristic of women's violence and cruelty. In addition, she determines of abject, detestable and horrible nature of women by explaining their struggle to be separated from mothers at the stage of Oedipus (sexual differences). Based on such theories about women's cruelty, the cruel images shown in the modern fashion are categorized into sado-masochism, the violent and destructive image, and abjection, the women's apparels made of unpleasant, terrible and creepy materials decorated, to be reviewed systematically.