복식문화와 여성

Clothing Culture and Korean Women

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.