• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.646-660
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• 2008

Korean export of fashion products to the U.S. has fallen off sharply after 2001. Now, Korean fashion companies have to develop higher value-added business. In the U.S., Korean-American fashion companies are taking a primary role in up-stream of the fashion industry. To cut the edge over the U.S. fashion companies, one of the solutions could be to build the business relationship with Korean fashion companies which reflect the recent trend rapidly and have high quality production. On this study, we investigated the marketing strategies of Korean-American fashion companies to seek to start business with Korean fashion companies and make suggestions for Korean fashion companies who want to enter into the U.S. market effectively. To analyze current situation of Korean export to the U.S. and the U.S. fashion industry, we considered various kinds of statistic data, publications and studies. And we performed in-depth interviews with 9 Korean-American fashion companies in LA from $9^{th}$ to $21^{st}$ of July. The results are as follows. first, Korean fashion companies should aim for high-end market with the products of high quality and design. Second, there should be professional agents who manage Korean small-medium fashion companies and connect them with Korean-American fashion companies. Third, Korean fashion companies who want to enter into the retail market of the U.S. have to decide the target market clearly and plan strategic and differentiated merchandising. Fourth, Korean fashion companies can specialize in product developing service like proposing a product or a merchandising line as a package including designs, fabric swatches, trims, production information, etc.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.74-84
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• 2013

The purpose of this research is to provide useable data for application in American and Korean apparel company. This data was developed by analyzing information of Korean and American body sizes obtained from "Size USA Project" and "Size Korea Project". The Subjects were 6,306 American females and 1,988 Korean females over 18 years old. 30 measurements and 14 computed values were chosen that were considered critical in making garments. And descriptive analysis, percentile analysis and t-test were used as statistical methods for analyzing measurements and computed value between the two countries. The results were as follows. It was determined that American women were larger and bigger than Korean women in all measurements and computed values, except for Shoulder Slope. Based on BMI values, we determined that American women had a distinct tendency towards being overweight. Through the comparison of drop values (i.e. the difference between Hip and Bust Girths or Hip and Waist Girths), ratio values (i.e. waist height divided by height) and Body Mass Index (BMI) between the two countries, we determined that American women's figures were shapelier than Korean women's. American women had higher hip heights and longer leg lengths for their height compared to Korean woman. Furthermore, the back shapes of Korean women were flatter than American women and BMI values indicated American women were relatively more overweight than Korean women.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.13 no.5 s.58
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• pp.844-855
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• 2005

The purpose of this paper is to examine which fashion brands are most likely to be investigated by Korean textile firms when they conduct their market trend analyses. The result shows that for the domestic sales, textile firms are most likely to collect and analyze information on the Cheil Textil Co. It is followed by Bean Pole, Chanel, Buberry, Tomboy. For the future domestic sales, textile firms prefers referring foreign fashion brands such as Burberry, ZARA, MaxMara, Missoni, and Chanel. Textile firms majoring exports prefers collecting and analyzing information on D&G followed by Chanel, Gucci, and DKNY. This preference, however, differs when considering exporting areas. Textile firms targeting the French market considers Gucci, followed by Ferragamo, Dior, Louisvuitton. Textile firms targeting the Italian market prefer Chanel, followed by Valentine, ZARA, Gucci, and Armani. Chanel is also top brand for the North American and Japanese markets, and followed by GAP, ZARA, OZOC, Missoni, Munshing Wear. The information content collected and analyzed by textile firms is style, pattern, color, and textile materials for textile firms targeting the domestic sales, while the exporting firms prefer information on color and textile materials proposed and presented by the fashion brands to which they prefer to make reference. The result of this study can be used to effectively and efficiently collect and analyze market information on fashion brands for textile firms majoring the domestic and foreign sales.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.101-115
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• 2003

The object of this study looks into the awareness and satisfaction about Korean fashion product of Chinese adult women inhabited in China, by comparing with foreign fashion product. The questionnaire used as a method of measurement, and the sample was 848 Chinese women from 20 to 50 age, living in China. The analysis of all data was handled by SAS(Statistical Analysis System) program, Frequency Analysis, ANOVA, Duncan's Multiple Range Test was also executed. The results from the study were as follows: 1. The preference about Korean fashion product of Chinese women is higher than American, English and Japanese fashion product, but is lower than Italy, French and Chinese fashion product in each age. 2. About the quality, design, service's satisfaction and brand reputation of Chinese adult women, Italy product is first ranked and Korean, Chinese is followed. 3. About the possession item on Korean fashion product of Chinese adult women, younger and younger chinese women on age, Ta-Ryun resident in area, a company employee on occupation hold the most. 4. About the recognition on Korean fashion product of Chinese adult women, younger and younger preferred the popularity and special design of Korean fashion product, the women inhabited in Ta-Ryun and Buk-Kyung recognized the Korean product as economical. 5. About the satisfaction on Korean fashion product of Chinese adult women, there is no significant difference on age, residential district and occupation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.51 no.8
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• pp.93-110
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• 2001

The present study attempted to compare the behavioral patterns and attitudes of American and Korean female students toward apparel ads in magazines in relation to their physical self-concept. The study used a self-administered questionnaire. The sample consisted of 730 female students majoring in the fields related to clothing and textiles : 310 American students at six colleges and universities located in the west, northeast and southwest parts of the U.S., and 412 Korean students at four Seoul-based universities. Likert scales were used for most measures with 1=never or very unimportant and 5 =always or very important. Physical self-concept was measured on the basis of W. S. Jung's Standardized Self-concept Test and Tennessee Self-concept Scale. Surreys were back translated for validity. Percentage, t-test, Contingency Tables and Chi-square were used for the analysis of the data. Results are as follows : (1) Korean students read more magazines than U.S. students, however, Vogue was the most popular for both groups. (2) Those with a high sense of Physical self-concept read more magazines. for both countries. (3) American students'attitudes toward apparel ads in magazines were similar, regardless of whether their sense of physical self-concept was high or low. For Koreans, those with higher sense of physical self-concept showed greater interest in magazine ads, consulted magazines for fashion trends, found ads more useful, and more often expressed satisfaction with the ads, than the lower self-concept group. (4) Korean students cited a lack of information in ads while American students felt body types of models were unrealistic. Both Koreans and Americans in the higher self-concept group expressed a greater level of dissatisfaction with apparel ads in magazines. (5) Advertisers should attempt to again a deeper understanding of the socio-psychological characteristics of their readership as self-concept appears to be related to several magazine readership attitudes and behaviors. Magazines targeting Americans might consider the importance of coordination and merchandising. Apparel ads targeting Korean should consider the importance of company ads.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.137-154
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• 2002

It's not easy to renew old brand of over 50 years history to the tastes of new consumer of our time. Most of national brands that has a history of some 20 years in Korea have strove for continuation and growth of brand to no avails, which can be taken as a good example of current situation. For instance, C company, one of the National brand of US which has a history of 51 years, has made its position secure as a fashion group and based itself on a sound foundation by establishing new marketing strategy and completing successful brand renewal in the process of strategic M&A with Italian company. Those successful marketing strategies are as follows. 1) they regarded both market and consumer oriented marketing activity as company's highest priority strategy and put great emphasis upon concentration on target market and reestablishment of brand image of business casual wear. 2) Setting up and operating planning team composed of merchandizer alone in Milano, they set the direction of plan on the basis of concentrated research on potential item in market according to thorough market research done by buying office in Korea, branch office in Hong Kong and buyer in US prior to blueprint planning for season. 3) Great emphasis was placed on business which focused on intensive presentation of basic key item for apparel career women who are main consumer group in the midium-low prices market in US and on supplementation of size and color. they named this line 'collectibles' and helped their customer develop their own clothes plan without worrying about the change of color and fabric by supporting same fabric and color throughout the year and enabled them to add variation easily by supplementing new trend item. 4) Company set black as a main color that lots of apparel career women find easy to care and to express their own image and presented them with pebble which belongs to navy and beige and added fashion color such as wine and brown etc as season goes by. They constructed basic line in order for their customers to coordinate purchased item with new one or to add them to present collection, and to achieve efficient sale by setting up strategy which allows this cross coordination and changing pattern occasionally. 5) Though basic jacket for 99$, short slim skirt for 49$ are products within midium-low prices range, in the material planning stage aiming at production of item that has both resonable function appealing to consumer and is fashionable, synthetic material had to be used as a main source due to price competitiveness. Despite this situation, considering comfortable sense of fit and refined drape of silhouette that has no sign of cheap material, whole collectible line was divided into two items, which contributed to reduction of cost. In case of material that is composed of triacetate and polyester in 70 to 30 ratio, was used up to 4 million yard, which allowed drastic curtailment of cost accompanied by concentration. In case of 'collectibles' line, using Korean material mainly, C company chose to have their product sewed in Southeast Asian countries where transportation is well developed and both productivity and quality verified by operating global production system which aiming at cutdown of cost through outsourcing production from the country where labor cost is low and getting finished product. Polarization between present consumers telling us that consumers with the mind of middle classes in the past no longer exists between consumers who seek after only fine article of highest quality and wise consumers who are sensible enough to judge bubble on correlation between price and quality. To cope with this change in new consumer mind, apparel makes changing their policy so as to produce item that has reasonable quality and falls within affordable price range anywhere in the world. and they're striving to get out of difficult situation by operating global marketing strategy which stresses separation of planning, production and sale and sensibility of fashion shared worldwide. The marketing strategy of C company can be exemplified as a successful one.

• Journal of Distribution Research
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.63-92
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• 2012

This study investigated consumer intention to use a location-based mobile shopping service (LBMSS) that integrates cognitive and affective responses. Information relevancy was integrated into pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) emotional state model in the present study as a conceptual framework. The results of an online survey of 335 mobile phone users in the U.S. indicated the positive effects of arousal and information relevancy on pleasure. In addition, there was a significant relationship between pleasure and intention to use a LBMSS. However, the relationship between dominance and pleasure was not statistically significant. The results of the present study provides insight to retailers and marketers as to what factors they need to consider to implement location-based mobile shopping services to improve their business performance. Extended Abstract : Location aware technology has expanded the marketer's reach by reducing space and time between a consumer's receipt of advertising and purchase, offering real-time information and coupons to consumers in purchasing situations (Dickenger and Kleijnen, 2008; Malhotra and Malhotra, 2009). LBMSS increases the relevancy of SMS marketing by linking advertisements to a user's location (Bamba and Barnes, 2007; Malhotra and Malhotra, 2009). This study investigated consumer intention to use a location-based mobile shopping service (LBMSS) that integrates cognitive and affective response. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship among information relevancy and affective variables and their effects on intention to use LBMSS. Thus, information relevancy was integrated into pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) model and generated the following hypotheses. Hypothesis 1. There will be a positive influence of arousal concerning LBMSS on pleasure in regard to LBMSS. Hypothesis 2. There will be a positive influence of dominance in LBMSS on pleasure in regard to LBMSS. Hypothesis 3. There will be a positive influence of information relevancy on pleasure in regard to LBMSS. Hypothesis 4. There will be a positive influence of pleasure about LBMSS on intention to use LBMSS. E-mail invitations were sent out to a randomly selected sample of three thousand consumers who are older than 18 years old and mobile phone owners, acquired from an independent marketing research company. An online survey technique was employed utilizing Dillman's (2000) online survey method and follow-ups. A total of 335 valid responses were used for the data analysis in the present study. Before the respondents answer any of the questions, they were told to read a document describing LBMSS. The document included definitions and examples of LBMSS provided by various service providers. After that, they were exposed to a scenario describing the participant as taking a saturday shopping trip to a mall and then receiving a short message from the mall. The short message included new product information and coupons for same day use at participating stores. They then completed a questionnaire containing various questions. To assess arousal, dominance, and pleasure, we adapted and modified scales used in the previous studies in the context of location-based mobile shopping service, each of the five items from Mehrabian and Russell (1974). A total of 15 items were measured on a seven-point bipolar scale. To measure information relevancy, four items were borrowed from Mason et al. (1995). Intention to use LBMSS was captured using two items developed by Blackwell, and Miniard (1995) and one items developed by the authors. Data analyses were conducted using SPSS 19.0 and LISREL 8.72. A total of usable 335 data were obtained after deleting the incomplete responses, which results in a response rate of 11.20%. A little over half of the respondents were male (53.9%) and approximately 60% of respondents were married (57.4%). The mean age of the sample was 29.44 years with a range from 19 to 60 years. In terms of the ethnicity there were European Americans (54.5%), Hispanic American (5.3%), African-American (3.6%), and Asian American (2.9%), respectively. The respondents were highly educated; close to 62.5% of participants in the study reported holding a college degree or its equivalent and 14.5% of the participants had graduate degree. The sample represents all income categories: less than $24,999 (10.8%), $25,000-$49,999 (28.34%), $50,000-$74,999 (13.8%), and $75,000 or more (10.23%). The respondents of the study indicated that they were employed in many occupations. Responses came from all 42 states in the U.S. To identify the dimensions of research constructs, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using a varimax rotation was conducted. As indicated in table 1, these dimensions: arousal, dominance, relevancy, pleasure, and intention to use, suggested by the EFA, explained 82.29% of the total variance with factor loadings ranged from .74 to .89. As a next step, CFA was conducted to validate the dimensions that were identified from the exploratory factor analysis and to further refine the scale. Table 1 exhibits the results of measurement model analysis and revealed a chi-square of 202.13 with degree-of-freedom of 89 (p =.002), GFI of .93, AGFI = .89, CFI of .99, NFI of .98, which indicates of the evidence of a good model fit to the data (Bagozzi and Yi, 1998; Hair et al., 1998). As table 1 shows, reliability was estimated with Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability (CR) for all multi-item scales. All the values met evidence of satisfactory reliability in multi-item measure for alpha (>.91) and CR (>.80). In addition, we tested the convergent validity of the measure using average variance extracted (AVE) by following recommendations from Fornell and Larcker (1981). The AVE values for the model constructs ranged from .74 through .85, which are higher than the threshold suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981). To examine discriminant validity of the measure, we again followed the recommendations from Fornell and Larcker (1981). The shared variances between constructs were smaller than the AVE of the research constructs and confirm discriminant validity of the measure. The causal model testing was conducted using LISREL 8.72 with a maximum-likelihood estimation method. Table 2 shows the results of the hypotheses testing. The results for the conceptual model revealed good overall fit for the proposed model. Chi-square was 342.00 (df = 92, p =.000), NFI was .97, NNFI was .97, GFI was .89, AGFI was .83, and RMSEA was .08. All paths in the proposed model received significant statistical support except H2. The paths from arousal to pleasure (H1: ${\ss}$=.70; t = 11.44), from information relevancy to intention to use (H3 ${\ss}$ =.12; t = 2.36), from information relevancy to pleasure (H4 ${\ss}$ =.15; t = 2.86), and pleasure to intention to use (H5: ${\ss}$=.54; t = 9.05) were significant. However, the path from dominance to pleasure was not supported. This study investigated consumer intention to use a location-based mobile shopping service (LBMSS) that integrates cognitive and affective responses. Information relevancy was integrated into pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) emotional state model as a conceptual framework. The results of the present study support previous studies indicating that emotional responses as well as cognitive responses have a strong impact on accepting new technology. The findings of this study suggest potential marketing strategies to mobile service developers and retailers who are considering the implementation of LBMSS. It would be rewarding to develop location-based mobile services that integrate information relevancy and which cause positive emotional responses.