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