• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
• /
• v.41 no.4
• /
• pp.599-614
• /
• 2017

With the increasing media representation of aging as negative and abnormal, anti-aging products and discourses are spreading to younger generations. This paper analyzes the anti-aging discourse in a fashion magazine targeted towards women in their 20s. It quantitatively analyzes the historical development of the antiaging industry and discourses from 1994 to 2014 in the magazine "$C{\acute{e}}ci$". It also analyzes the patterns of signification associated with aging in the magazine through the use of critical discourse analysis. This paper identifies five major discourses -"segmentation of the definitions of youthful appearance", "scientific and medical discourse", "self-care discourse", "prevention of aging", and "social values of youthful appearances". The paper finds that the construction of anti-aging discourses towards women in their 20s is heavily influenced by the close link between the anti-aging industry and the fashion media. It also confirms the ideology of self-development though a rigorous appearance-management that is strongly imposed on Korean women and subsequently reproduced in an anti-aging discourse towards women in their 20s.