Abstract
The purposes of the study were to analyze the changes in formal attires and decorative features of middle age Korean women during the last half of 20th century and to find out any significant differences in formal attires according to periods. The study was a documentary research, and data were collected from 344 family wedding photographs by convenient sampling. The statistics used were content analysis, frequency and a time series analysis, and the results were as follows : 1. Four schematic clusters of formal attires were categorized according to skirt(chima) length and width, jacket(jogori) length, motifs and decorative features; simple classic, decorative classic, fashionable, and extravagant fashionable. Simple classic attires were popular until 1960s, the decorative classics were appeared from late 1960s to 1970s, fashionable attires were introduced from the late 1970s and the attires became more luxurious and extravagant until 2000. 2. Color symbolism in couples mothers'attires according to the couples gender - pink or red for the bride's mother and blue or green for groom's mother - was introduced from the late 1970s, and reached the maximum level by the early 1980s but slowly disappeared after the late 1980s. 3. The complete fashion cycle did not exist in the formal attires'change, however, since the Period of data were ranged from 1943 to 2000, the 57 years period may not long enough to measure a complete fashion cycle.
