• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.160-174
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• 2005

Despite the decrease in the number of children due to low birth rate, the domestic children's apparel market has been achieving steady growth as family income is rising thanks to more opportunities for working women, parents spend more on their children, and they prefer brand products that make their children look special. In addition, the market is suffering from hard competition as large enterprises have joined the race. The present study purposed to survey the children's apparel market in Korea, which is in a transitional period, and to contribute to the development of the market with Korean brands. For this purpose, we analyzed the characteristics of children's apparel brands in the 21st century based on the current state of the domestic children's apparel market and, based on the findings, forecasted the future trend of children's apparel brands, suggested improvements for expected problems, proposed standards for coping with changes such as diversification, high quality and differentiation in the children's apparel market, and provided consumers with information on how to purchase products. According to the result of analyzing the characteristics of children's apparel brands in the 21st century, brands are categorized largely into four types - life cultural brands, functional product brands, character brands and brands advancing to China. Life cultural brands equipped with all necessities for children are expanding, and with the deepening social problems of environmental pollution and the reduction of the child population, functional products made of environment-friendly materials are spreading widely, targeting infants and children. Furthermore, for extending age targets and diversifying products, children's apparel is using characters. The use of characters is expected to have a considerable effect on the growth of brands because children are more subjective as consumers than before and they are more easily persuaded with characters. Domestic children's apparel brands advancing to China have a high expectation of success in overcoming the limitation of the local market that has reached its peak and growing into global brands. Korean apparel makers are struggling to overcome the depressed domestic market, to recover consumers' consumption, to cope with market opening, to pursue high value of sensibility and to expand the seniors' market, etc. In this situation, future trends of children's apparel brands will be the expansion of family brands, brand totalization, quality price, niche market (pre-teen market), etc. In response to these trends, we made the following suggestions for improvement. 1. Children's apparel brands are evolving into family brands as well as into total brands through voluming. Today, however, apparel makers are advancing to the children's apparel market with the concept of adults' apparel and, as a result, children's apparel is merely adults' apparel of reduced size, having problems in design, color and materials. Thus, apparel makers must develop design considering the wide range of size and the characteristics of children's apparel, strengthen sourcing abilities to create revenues, and make thorough survey of customers to find common denominators between adults' apparel and children's apparel considering that characteristic that the target class is different from the buyer class. Furthermore, they must make active investments in human resources, develop outstanding products through advanced planning and design, and support marketing techniques and management systems to stores. 2. As the declining birth rate will continue to have a negative effect on the market, it may be difficult to expand the market size but there is still a margin for growth through high-sensibility and high-quality products. The competitiveness of brands is determined by their market shares. Accordingly, concepts should be specialized according to lifestyle, customers' diverse needs should be satisfied, and cross-coordination should be achieved within a brand. 3. Considering Korean parents who do not spare investment in their children despite shrinking consumption, functional products must be high value-added goods that can enhance efficiency. However, in the current situation of the infants' apparel industry where a textile manufacturer supply its products to multiple brands, it is difficult to develop unique products only based on materials. Thus, it is considered urgent to appeal to consumers not by relying on materials only but by finding methods of applying their own characters to children's dress.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.17 no.5
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• pp.733-745
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• 2009

The contra-sexual phenomenon that is recently focused is one of the new factors, which is focused when explaining the life style of progressive woman's image and it is creating cultural category. Moreover, the contra sexual people that are rising as new consuming subjects are not simple primary consumers but their shopping culture and cultural tastes are giving effects to many people. Because of the tendency, marketer of consuming industry are making efforts to predict the changes of contra-sexual people's shopping habits and tastes. Therefore, it is necessary to grasp contra-sexual phenomenon and research the fashion design aiming at that in order to predict woman's fashion image in the future. Therefore, the study considered concept and characteristic of contra-sexual phenomenon and surveyed its example in the popular culture. And, the study analyzed the formative characteristic of contra-sexual fashion shown in the public cultures such as drama and movie. On the basis of the result, design was suggested by reflecting contra-sexual fashion characteristic under the concept of 'Urban Splendor'. From the results above, it was possible to grasp the concept and characteristic of contra-sexual phenomenon, which appeared as a trend and understand new woman's image and the fashion that has changed because of it. It is considered that the establishment of the foundation of contra-sexual phenomenon, which plays as an important variable in woman's fashion, fashion accessory, cosmetic and advertisement field but it is hard to clarify, by analyzing the work aiming at contra-sexual phenomenon will be helpful for predicting the change of woman's fashion in the future.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.563-581
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• 2015

Objective: This study was conducted to investigate the potential of sematic network analysis for design research. Background: As HCD (Human-Centered Design) was emphasized, lots of design research methodologies were developed and used in order to find user needs. However, it is still difficult to discover users' latent needs. This study suggests the semantic network analysis as a complementary means for design research, and proved its potential through the practical application, which compares multi-screen purchase and usage behaviors between America and China. Method: We conducted an in-depth interview with 32 consumers from USA and China, and analyzed interview texts through semantic network analysis. Cross cultural differences in purchase and usage behaviors were investigated, based on measuring centrality and community modularity of devices, functions, key buying factors and brands. Results: Americans use more services and functions in the multi-screen environment, compared to Chinese. As a device substitutes other devices, traditional boundaries of the devices are disappearing in the USA. Americans consider function to recall Apple, but Chinese consider function, design and brand to recall Apple, Sony and Samsung as an important brand at the time of their purchase. Conclusion: This study shows the potential of semantic network analysis for design research through the practical application. Semantic network analysis presents how the concepts regarding a theme are structured in the cognitive map of users with visual images and quantitative data. Therefore, it can complement the qualitative analysis of the existing design research. Application: As the design environment becomes more and more complicated like multi-screen environment, semantic network analysis, which is able to provide design insights in the intuitive and holistic perspective, will be acknowledged as an effective tool for further design research.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.35-51
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• 2020

To satisfy consumers' desire to enjoy their own individuality and cultural trends, the discovery of various materials and the expression of materials embodying their characteristics are increasingly important in the fashion jewelry industry. This study examines, paper mulberry fiber, a raw material of hanji that has been excavated as a new material for fashion jewelry, is durable as wall as, soft and easy to form, has a unique texture along with, excellent aesthetic quality, and expresses various colors, thereby differentiating itself from traditional fashion jewelry materials. The material itself also has symbolic significance as an approach to discovering new sustainable materials for fashion jewelry to ensure increased specificity of the product based on the premise of freedom of expression. The weight and optimal drying time of chicken fiber were derived for the study of fashion jewelry expression using the characteristics of paper mulberry fiber. The techniques of casting, deflection, packing and winding (winding beads with fibers and straps) were derived and four brooches were produced in total. This study is meaningful for the future of, the fashion jewelry industry as it presents the uses of new materials such as paper mulberry fiber to induce multidisciplinary consumption and to suggest a direction for the creation of new value-added products. Further, in order to expand the realm of fashion jewelry industry with our own competitive products that have secured our cultural identity and uniqueness in the global market, there must be continued follow-up research on mass production methods for industrialization.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.177-185
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• 2011

Craft industry in Iran in the past to preserve the technology and production methods, or a newly developed in modern technology, techniques, and material that are intended to use in the decorative, practical characteristics, and the general public are using living water district, ornaments, symbols, products, and so on are collectively, craft industry-specific regional environmental, air velocity, ruins, etc. based on the characteristics of the region's traditional or artistic nature to produce products with the industry, the craft inherent in cultural element out of the help of stock, production, distribution and consumption of a series of process, namely the commercialization of the craft. This future-oriented State images for a unique sentiment based on the tradition of craft culture prize of Korea national image to create a decisive role in the would do. Therefore, in this study, consumers of the craft cultural products awareness and marketability to domestic craft industry status and enhance the use of the show. In addition, based on craft culture industry's efficiency and the issue is what the research and improvement.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.56 no.5 s.104
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• pp.44-58
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• 2006

Dolls which were recognized as children's toys are recently also recognized as one of the cultural products of adult's hobby. Thus this research is about dolls' fashion and the possibility of their industrial expansion. Moreover, the object of the research is to develop and manufacture high quality fashion doll products in Korea which are mostly imported from foreign countries. The research studied the origin and the path of the development of fashion dolls with the history of clothing and special books for dolls. By organizing the character and the fashion of dolls' costumes, the research has a meaning for not only to make an academic approach of dolls' costumes which was insufficient in Korea but also to provide useful information to toy enterprises. The conclusion of this research is as followed. First, dolls have a lot of possibilities to be developed as a high value added cultural product industry by emerging from their children's toy image. Second, since costumes of dolls also have a trend, it is necessary to develop products with the trend to satisfy customer's willing. Third, organization of both the books about the dolls' costumes and the information for their DIY is urgently needed for the domestic fashion doll manias. Forth, the necessity to scheme the expansion of fancy industry has been raise by using dolls' characterization and fashion. Fifth, the researcher who has researched the above necessities has manufactured 8 pieces of dolls' costumes and provided the actual solutions to the each point of the discussions. In sum, I suggest expanding the scope of both research subject and product manufacturing of the research results and also recommend for further researches to develop the products which consumers want.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.108-115
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• 2013

This study focused on whether the existence and type of originals have any effects on box-office performance of the movie. Cultural products have characteristics of experience goods of which consumers hardly know the value of the products before they actually experience the products. To reduce the uncertainty, movie producers may want to use existing contents already made for other type of cultural products, which is generally called of One Source Multi Use. Using 381 Korean box-office data during January 2010 and September 2012, this study found that, first, the existence of original affects positively the movie's box office performance, second, the fiction based original has a positive effect on the movie's box office performance while cartoon and movie/TV based originals do not, and third, the movie type(commercial movie) positively moderates the relationship between fiction based original and movie performance. This study showed that box-office performance is not only affected by the characteristics of the movie itself, but also affected by other conditions including the use of existing originals created for other purposes.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.9 no.11
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• pp.130-139
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• 2009

This paper introduces the secondary cultural productions of game fandom that have been underestimated. The participatory cultural activities of game users are broadly expanding owing to machinima technology based on game engine. It allows gamers to make the three dimensional digital animations simple and easy way. This paper studies that how simple game consumers change their role as producers through machinima. This study is focused on the relationship between polysemy of participatory Machinima and former fandom's the secondary culture studies using ethnographic research method. It is to clarify relationship between the game users' psychological motivation for culture practice and the machinimas. We verify practically the machinima's effects on fandom culture through analysing viewers' reaction using replies on the machinimas and then find out machinima is a very important tool for expanding the game culture realm as the main body.

• Korean journal of communication and information
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• v.51
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• pp.136-155
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• 2010

Media diversity, coupled with the logic of competition in the global media market, has become a fashionable yet unfitting lingo of media policy in Korea. Media diversity has been fenced in the neoliberal economic logic of market competition and so tamed to consumers' free choice in the market. It is within this context that this article attempts to problematize narrowly-defined, market-oriented, and measurement-obssessed funtionalistic approaches to media diversity. In doing so, the article provides a critical overview of various definitions of media diversity. It also reveals how certain definitions, justifications, and measurements are legitimized and normalized in the name of science and objectivity. The core argument is that reflecting a larger neoliberal, deregulatory turn in media policy, media diversity has shifted from the pluralistic principle of democracy to the matter of free market choice or the myth thereof. It then focuses on the ongoing debate between state interventionists and free market liberals over the relationship between media ownership concentration and content diversity. Finally, it puts forth some recommendations as to how media diversity ought to be reconsidered as reformers' cultural politics, rather than marketeers' science, and discusses implications diversity has for deepening Korean democracy.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.67 no.4
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• pp.131-152
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to analyze modern fashion culture in the 20th century through changes in transmedia in order to better understand characteristics of fashion contents. The study also strived to identify the characteristics of remediation in modern fashion and media by exploring the cultural code, and use it to establish an integrated view. The subjects and the method of the study are as follows. First, the study analyzed the development of transmedia and fashion culture since the 20th century. Second, it identified the transitional characteristics of transmedia. Third, the study analyzed the characteristics of remediation in modern fashion culture by using the characteristics of mediation, which appeared with the transitional characteristics of transmedia. The study results are as follows. First, the types of remediation are 'borrowing,' 'Representation,' 'Expansion,' 'Refashion,' and 'Absorb.' In old and new media, each type can be aesthetically experienced in 'transparency,' opaqueness,' 'Hypermediacy,' and 'Immediacy.' Second, fashion culture can undergo a transformation from its original form to a second and a third iteration, and this process allows for possibility of an expansion of multiple plots and well-rounded character settings. This opens up the possibility for fashion consumer participation, and signifies a transition into an environment where expansion of time and space is possible. The third finding is the non-mediation of fashion objects. The mediating relationship between clothes and media is directly connected to the development of new media. The immersion of new media by fashion consumers has the characteristics of 'transparency'/'Non-mediation,' and the reinterpretation and reproduction of original fashion styles have the characteristics of 'opaqueness'/'Hyper-mediation.' Fourth, fashion culture has data variability. Through 'Borrowing,' 'Representation,' 'Expansion,' 'Remodeling,' and 'Absorption,' the cultural hierarchy of reproduced fashion forms a multi-layered integrated network. Mediation code, which repurposes fashion culture contents, also creates new media fashion through transmedia.