• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
• /
• v.12 no.5
• /
• pp.721-736
• /
• 2004

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.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
• /
• v.51 no.3
• /
• pp.87-98
• /
• 2001

The purpose of this study is to examine the tattoo look in modern fashion from the aspects of 'expression techniques' and 'aesthetic properties'. Tattoos are one of the body decoration which have been continued for a long time all over the world and have contained various meanings in : invocation. symbolization. solidification, exotic tastes, and body decoration. While tattoos have been progressed for the past time, they have been enlarged into body painting, make-up, and even into body art. Besides, their technical skills and equipments have been also developed. Therefore, tattoos are neither tabooed nor restricted in lower class, such as gangsters, bickers, prostitutes, etc., any longer. They are showed in everywhere of our society, running on the fashion. Specially, in fashion, they are shown through the 'tattoo look' designed by talented fashion designers. Futhermore, tattoos are one of the things which have gotten a new value under the Post-modernism and the turning of the century. The various tattoo looks in modern fashion are classified into four categories, according to the expression techniques, the use of see-through, reappearance of primitive body-decoration, application of tattoo patterns, application of street styles'tattoo patterns, make-up & body painting. And, they are also classified into four categories, according to the aesthetic properties Exoticism, Eroticism, Primitivism, and Grotesque.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
• /
• v.53 no.2
• /
• pp.153-169
• /
• 2003

I think that apparel attaches importance to the degree of satisfaction of visual expression in one ornamental culture in which it is clothed on human body. whereas a tattoo attaches more importance to part of the expression of one's own identity in the same context. However. modern tattooing act was highlighted only as an element of act which was negative in the purpose and the degree of taste or which assumed the grotesque meaning of a particular group. away from pure concepts such as simple ornament or an amulet according to the flow of the world. A tattoo is gradually being seen as one of avant-garde methods of art again these days, and TATTOO LOOK is being popularized as street fashion as an effective method of one's own satisfied desires and peculiar expression of personality. I have got the following conclusions as the result of having studied on a tattoo which is establishing itself as another plastic art that is matchable with the fashion of dress and its ornaments in which human incessant instinctive desire for the ornament of body has been beyond nostalgia for the past and simple ornament which were pure in up-to-date modern society First, a tattoo is of personality. In that it solidifies one's own personality of another side by being transformed, one's own attraction can be transferred to a fashion tattoo with which one can emit one's own personality. Secondly. a tattoo is fashion. As a new body ornament called transformation by a tattoo was emerging, the fashionableness owned by a tattoo had in its area ample room for the fashionableness with which it can coexist with the culture of dress and its ornaments. Thirdly. a tattoo is popularized. TATTOO LOOK in which one's own satisfied desires and the expression of personality are properly applied is being recently transmitted easily everywhere in the world and popularized as street fashion. Fourthly, a tattoo is not depraved art. It's because of the point that a tattoo which had been recognized only as a decadent expression in which avant-garde elements of unknown nationality appeared mixed showed the possibility that it could establish itself as fashion art. If we go on studying and complementing the problems of individual sides about a tattoo also in the future, the infinite fashionableness for the elements called personality. sense and emotion owned by a tattoo suggested ample possibility as future industry to be highlighted.