• Journal of Fashion Business
• /
• v.20 no.1
• /
• pp.115-126
• /
• 2016

Today the Olympics are considered representative of a culture that symbolizes the country's image and cultural specificity, and important colors act as effective means of Olympics marketing. Each color is unique to the natural environment and cultural heritage is one of the languages of each country, region or community and it symbolizes. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine the color and to view the color image displayed on Olympic uniforms based on the national color sensibility. After analyzing the color image of the Olympic athletes, including six kinds of uniforms and operational personnel, a cool casual/casual image is created more frequently, followed by a modern, gorgeous, dynamic, elegant/chic, dandy/classic image. The uniform color is consistent with the national image and the theme of the Pyeongchang Olympics is to enhance the country's competitiveness by widely promoting the national image of Korea around the world. Furthermore, it is necessary to provide the empirical basis for creating the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic uniforms.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.40 no.6
• /
• pp.1062-1071
• /
• 2016

Olympic uniforms emphasize aesthetics along with sports fashion trends and tendencies to display national competitiveness through colorful designs that use the national flag or colors as motifs. Korea needs to enhance the national brand through international sporting events such as the 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Games (30 years after the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games); therefore, a multilateral analysis is required to promote a global image of Korea. This study presents a development direction for more diverse national brand values for Korea through design research on Olympic uniforms. Research methods investigated the concepts and changes of the Geongongamli, and Taegeuk symbols as well as Olympic uniforms based on literature data and existing studies using uniforms. An Olympic uniform using symbols of the Korean flag was designed through a case analysis of Olympic uniform designs of countries that participated in the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games and 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games that reflect the countries' image. The research scope excluded uniforms for the actual games and limited the uniforms to official uniforms for the opening ceremony that represent the characteristics of each country; consequently, we analyzed 70 uniforms of 162 countries of the Winter Olympic Games. As a result, official national symbols were more frequently reflected than unofficial symbols in the uniform designs of the Summer and Winter Olympic Games with more frequencies of direct reflection than indirect reflection. Korea's national brand is expected to enhanced through a uniform that expresses Korea's image at international events and global exchanges.