• Title/Summary/Keyword: Jeans Fashion

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A Study on the Apparel Industry and the Clothing Culture of North Korea (북한(北韓)의 의류산업(衣類産業)과 의생활문화(衣生活文化) 연구(硏究))

  • Cho, Kyu-Hwa
    • Journal of Fashion Business
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    • v.5 no.4
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    • pp.158-175
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    • 2001
  • The purpose of this study was to understand and improve the clothing habits and the apparel industry of North Korea in preparation for the reunification of South and North Korea. For this study, literary data, reports, periodicals, interviews and internet data of the two Koreas were reviewed. North Korean clothing habits used to be monotonous and uniform but nowadays people's clothes have become somewhat brighter in color and more diverse in design than before. In particular, liberal and individual dressing habits appeared among the privileged classes. When taking part in national events, women have to wear the traditional Korean costume, Hanbok, while men wear business suits for formal wear. In general, men don't wear Hanbok. Students have to be in uniforms but blue jeans, T-shirts with English logos were popular among them reflecting their sensitivity and openness towards western cultures. The brides usually wear pink Hanboks and the bridegrooms wear black business suits for their wedding. North Koreans also wear Hanbok on national holidays like South Koreans. Clothing is the most important item in the trade of process commission between North and South Korea. Trading items are mid to low end men's clothing for the most part due to less emphasis on fashion in the North. The processing is indirect trade and composed of sample making and contracting, sending out materials and production, carrying in goods and setting accounts. To activate South-North trade, establishment of infrastructure, stabilization of shipping, reducing high costs of distribution, building direct communication system by setting up office in a neutral zone and simplifying procedures in applying for the South and North Korea Economic Cooperation Fund. On the other hand, clothing and textiles education is carried on at art colleges, light industries colleges and commercial colleges in Pyongyang. Clothing institutes which study Hanbok and Western clothes, are installed in each city and province. Graduates who majored in clothing and textiles are posted in institutes or apparel factories. Their job is designing, patternmaking and sewing for their customers. Most of them are women and in good state of economic conditions. The North Korean clothing industry has been the core national industry that has developed based on overseas demand form the mid 1980s. The standard is that of South Korea in the early 1980s. In 1999, trade of North Korean textile products with trade counterparts such as Japan and China was $1.3 million in exports and $1.27 in imports. Of this amount the export takes up 25.4% of the total exports in North Korea. However, fundamentally even in sectors that are irrelevant to politics such as the fashion clothing industry, trust between the South and North should be a prerequisite. Only through this can exchange between North and South and economic cooperation contribute towards the reunification.

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Brand Equity and Purchase Intention in Fashion Products: A Cross-Cultural Study in Asia and Europe (상표자산과 구매의도와의 관계에 관한 국제비교연구 - 아시아와 유럽의 의류시장을 중심으로 -)

  • Kim, Kyung-Hoon;Ko, Eun-Ju;Graham, Hooley;Lee, Nick;Lee, Dong-Hae;Jung, Hong-Seob;Jeon, Byung-Joo;Moon, Hak-Il
    • Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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    • v.18 no.4
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    • pp.245-276
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    • 2008
  • Brand equity is one of the most important concepts in business practice as well as in academic research. Successful brands can allow marketers to gain competitive advantage (Lassar et al.,1995), including the opportunity for successful extensions, resilience against competitors' promotional pressures, and the ability to create barriers to competitive entry (Farquhar, 1989). Branding plays a special role in service firms because strong brands increase trust in intangible products (Berry, 2000), enabling customers to better visualize and understand them. They reduce customers' perceived monetary, social, and safety risks in buying services, which are obstacles to evaluating a service correctly before purchase. Also, a high level of brand equity increases consumer satisfaction, repurchasing intent, and degree of loyalty. Brand equity can be considered as a mixture that includes both financial assets and relationships. Actually, brand equity can be viewed as the value added to the product (Keller, 1993), or the perceived value of the product in consumers' minds. Mahajan et al. (1990) claim that customer-based brand equity can be measured by the level of consumers' perceptions. Several researchers discuss brand equity based on two dimensions: consumer perception and consumer behavior. Aaker (1991) suggests measuring brand equity through price premium, loyalty, perceived quality, and brand associations. Viewing brand equity as the consumer's behavior toward a brand, Keller (1993) proposes similar dimensions: brand awareness and brand knowledge. Thus, past studies tend to identify brand equity as a multidimensional construct consisted of brand loyalty, brand awareness, brand knowledge, customer satisfaction, perceived equity, brand associations, and other proprietary assets (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Blackston, 1995; Cobb-Walgren et al., 1995; Na, 1995). Other studies tend to regard brand equity and other brand assets, such as brand knowledge, brand awareness, brand image, brand loyalty, perceived quality, and so on, as independent but related constructs (Keller, 1993; Kirmani and Zeithaml, 1993). Walters(1978) defined information search as, "A psychological or physical action a consumer takes in order to acquire information about a product or store." But, each consumer has different methods for informationsearch. There are two methods of information search, internal and external search. Internal search is, "Search of information already saved in the memory of the individual consumer"(Engel, Blackwell, 1982) which is, "memory of a previous purchase experience or information from a previous search."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). External search is "A completely voluntary decision made in order to obtain new information"(Engel & Blackwell, 1982) which is, "Actions of a consumer to acquire necessary information by such methods as intentionally exposing oneself to advertisements, taking to friends or family or visiting a store."(Beales, Mazis, Salop, and Staelin, 1981). There are many sources for consumers' information search including advertisement sources such as the internet, radio, television, newspapers and magazines, information supplied by businesses such as sales people, packaging and in-store information, consumer sources such as family, friends and colleagues, and mass media sources such as consumer protection agencies, government agencies and mass media sources. Understanding consumers' purchasing behavior is a key factor of a firm to attract and retain customers and improving the firm's prospects for survival and growth, and enhancing shareholder's value. Therefore, marketers should understand consumer as individual and market segment. One theory of consumer behavior supports the belief that individuals are rational. Individuals think and move through stages when making a purchase decision. This means that rational thinkers have led to the identification of a consumer buying decision process. This decision process with its different levels of involvement and influencing factors has been widely accepted and is fundamental to the understanding purchase intention represent to what consumers think they will buy. Brand equity is not only companies but also very important asset more than product itself. This paper studies brand equity model and influencing factors including information process such as information searching and information resources in the fashion market in Asia and Europe. Information searching and information resources are influencing brand knowledge that influences consumers purchase decision. Nine research hypotheses are drawn to test the relationships among antecedents of brand equity and purchase intention and relationships among brand knowledge, brand value, brand attitude, and brand loyalty. H1. Information searching influences brand knowledge positively. H2. Information sources influence brand knowledge positively. H3. Brand knowledge influences brand attitude. H4. Brand knowledge influences brand value. H5. Brand attitude influences brand loyalty. H6. Brand attitude influences brand value. H7. Brand loyalty influences purchase intention. H8. Brand value influence purchase intention. H9. There will be the same research model in Asia and Europe. We performed structural equation model analysis in order to test hypotheses suggested in this study. The model fitting index of the research model in Asia was $X^2$=195.19(p=0.0), NFI=0.90, NNFI=0.87, CFI=0.90, GFI=0.90, RMR=0.083, AGFI=0.85, which means the model fitting of the model is good enough. In Europe, it was $X^2$=133.25(p=0.0), NFI=0.81, NNFI=0.85, CFI=0.89, GFI=0.90, RMR=0.073, AGFI=0.85, which means the model fitting of the model is good enough. From the test results, hypotheses were accepted. All of these hypotheses except one are supported. In Europe, information search is not an antecedent of brand knowledge. This means that sales of global fashion brands like jeans in Europe are not expanding as rapidly as in Asian markets such as China, Japan, and South Korea. Young consumers in European countries are not more brand and fashion conscious than their counter partners in Asia. The results have theoretical, practical meaning and contributions. In the fashion jeans industry, relatively few studies examining the viability of cross-national brand equity has been studied. This study provides insight on building global brand equity and suggests information process elements like information search and information resources are working differently in Asia and Europe for fashion jean market.

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Clothing Culture and Korean Women (복식문화와 여성)

  • 임숙자
    • The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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    • v.4 no.2
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    • pp.113-124
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    • 1996
  • This research was designed to find out what is a distictive feature of the design elements of Korean women's costume and its influence by analizing the trend of Korean women's constume during the period of 1890 and 1995. The research was analized by a total of 854 random samples of clothing styles collected from materials in the museums and from articles of three leading newspapers and one of the best women's magazines in Korea. The changing trend of Korean women's costume was found out to be as follows: 1. In around 1910s, the trend of Korean women's costume has been changed into two-tier structure of both Korean and Western styles, and the typical and traditional Korean women's street wears such as 'Chang-ot' and 'Tsdechima' have been gradually diminished. 2. From 1920s, length of the Korean skirt, which was unnecessarily long and inconvenient, has been getting shorter for the convenience of walking. In addition, Korean women's underwear has become simplified, and sports wear could be seen for the first time in Korea. 3. During 1960s, the Western clothing styles have been increased rather than Korean styles as the street wear of the Korean women. 4. In 1970s, blue jeans, mini-skirts and casual wears have become a trend or fashion for women in Korea. 5. In 1980s, a fashion of unisex mode has arrived in this country, and from the year of 1987, wearing of panties among the Korean women has been increased rather than skirts wearing for the street wear. 6. During 1990s, various forma of complex styles came into being in such styles as so-called 'orange class style,' 'protruding navel T-shirts' and 'runner wear speedy.' From mid-1990s, Korean women have turned out to prefer the cute and light costumes by placing emphasis on the image of intellectual, professional and functional wears. The changing special feature of the Korean women's clothing designs could be distinctively observed during 1960s as the modernization policies in Korea have been processed during the period. The clothing trend before 1960 was to change and to solve problems of inconvenient and impractical wears, but the trend after 1960 was seen as a change to confirm a trend of the world fashion. From mid-1990s, however, preference of Korean women's self-conceited conception socially and an unquestionable changing pattern of Korean women's life.

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Shopping behavior, attitude and characteristics of internet clothing shoppers (인터넷 의류구매자의 의류쇼핑행동, 태도 및 특성)

  • 하오선;신혜원
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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    • v.25 no.1
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    • pp.71-82
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    • 2001
  • In this study, Internet users were separated into 3 groups(clothing shoppers, clothing non-shoppers, non-shoppers). Shopping behavior of clothing shoppers(those who used the internet channel for clothing shopping) and the attitude to internet clothing shopping were examined. And characteristics of clothing shoppers were compared with characteristics of clothing non-shoppers(those who purchased goods except clothing on internet) and non-shoppers(those who purchased nothing on internet). The reason why clothing non-shoppers and non-shoppers didnt purchase clothing on internet was also investigated. Questionaire was used as method of gathering data. Mean, ANOVA, Duncan-test, t-test and $\chi$$^2$-test were used for data analysis. 1. Clothing shoppers considered carefully design, exchange & refund, quality and price and purchased generally T-shirt, underwear, jeans and sports wear. 2. Clothing shoppers thought clothing in internet shopping malls was not various in item, design, color, size and price. But they were satisfied with shopping convenience. 3. Clothing shoppers were more conscious of the shopping cost compared with clothing non-shoppers and non-shoppers Recreational shopping orientations and fashion leader orientations were low in both groups. Self-confidence in connection with clothing purchase were high in each groups, but that of clothing shoppers were relatively higher than clothing non-shoppers and non-shoppers. 4. The reason why clothing non-shoppers and non-shoppers didnt purchase clothing in internet shopping malls was that they wanted to buy after trying on clothing in a store, didnt believe the quality of clothing, didnt need to purchase clothing in internet shopping malls, and worried about exchange & refund.

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