• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.592-600
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• 2012

Social reactions to body exposure in American leisure wear (bathing suits, shorts, and halters) in the 1930s were analyzed to provide an understanding of the process of adopting more abbreviated and less-occasion specific styles of garments in women's fashion. The research questions were as follow: How did women expose their bodies in leisure wear during the 1930s? How did the social reaction to women's body exposure in leisure wear change throughout the 1930s? How did the body exposure in women's leisure wear play a significant role in the history of women's fashion? Primary sources were collected from issues of The New York Times published in the 1930s. Topics including dress, fashion, ethics, social ethics, and sexual ethics, were reviewed in The New York Times indices. The findings were analyzed and interpreted with reference to secondary sources that included books and research papers. The results showed that the body exposure of the styles as well as the place where these styles were worn was a public issue. Women were criticized and regulated for body exposure as well as for wearing bathing suits, shorts, and halters on the streets. However, the social regulations that restricted bathing suit styles almost disappeared by the end of the decade. This represented the change of social expectations toward body exposure in the 1930s. In addition, reports of laws that forbade the wearing of bathing suits, halters, and shorts outside of beaches, pools, and parks indicated women's increased attempts to expose their bodies in public places. However, reactions to women's body exposure in leisure wear changed to accept more flexibility in the social customs throughout the decade. These phenomena were a partial step toward the popularization of less occasion-specific styles - sportswear - that took place in the 20th century.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.15-29
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• 2017

The purpose of this study is to examine modern people's lifestyle and identify their needs by analyzing clothing behavior through city nomads' attitudes in dairy life, tastes, and methods to pursue in their life. This study tries to understand substitute values as ethical life emerging recently, free life style of mental emotion, clothing behaviors, and fashion style represented by the results. Upon observing city nomads' fashion trend, tunics symbolizing flexibility and comfort and simultaneously reflect colors in a monk style or from basic items that have been used. City nomads' fashion trend also reveals androgynous freeness-and-easiness. City nomads reflect a folksy inspiration, and different cultural perspectives appear in a mixed fashion. Multi-purpose gypsy/boho style is ideal for traveling and occupying smaller spaces in line with the nomadic lifestyle reflectings an American casual image partially by way of gypsy or bohemian nuances. Motorcycle jeans symbolizing functionality for traveling are becoming a part of everyday life. The fashions discussed are categorized as urban, tourer, sports and road. Everyday sportswear - athleisure - is attracting attention enabling a healthy and sound lifestyle. Athleisure is fashion wear harmonizing workplace with leisure, and everyday life and social gatherings. Athleisure represents a significant collapse of the boundary of high fashion and street fashion. Urban- tech wear is light and enables modern people to perform garment and gear functions simultaneously, making storage useful using various technical devices by elevating activity and functionality. Urban outdoor fashion holding functionality and adding modern fashion in appearance has appeared.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.47-58
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• 2009

The marketing environment has become competitive to an extent that requires firms to target their products at markets that span national boundaries. However, competitive clout cannot be achieved in global consumer markets unless firms thoroughly understand and adequately respond to the core values and needs of those consumers. Brand equity is one of the most important assets to a company. Especially in sportswear markets, brand equity is the crucial value added to a product by its brand name. Factors such as country of origin also influence customer's attitude towards brand equity. Therefore, this paper discusses the relationship between country of origin effect and brand equity, and how they influence consumers' loyalty for respective brands. This paper focused on the sports shoes market, because it is an increasing area of opportunity for world manufacturers. The objectives of this study were the following. (1) Test the effect of country of origin on brand equity. (2) Test how brand equity influences consumers' brand loyalty. (3) Find whether there are differences in the effects of country of origin and brand equity among the three countries. (4) Find whether there are differences in the effects of country of origin and brand equity among the different lifestyles. Based on the review of literature results, the hypotheses are concluded as the following: H1-a: Country image has positive influence on country of origin. H1-b: Product perception has positive influence on country of origin. H2-a: Perceived quality has positive effect on brand equity. H2-b: Perceived price has positive effect on brand equity. H3: Country of origin has positive effect on brand equity. H4: Brand equity has a positive impact on brand loyalty. Research model was constructed (see Fig. 1). After data analysis, the following results were concluded: sports shoes purchase behavior showed significant differences among Korean, Chinese, and American consumers for favorite brand, purchased brand, purchased place, information usage, and favorite sports games. The results of this study also extend the research of the relationship among country of origin, brand equity and brand loyalty to the sports shoes market. Brand equity was proven to have a significant relationship with brand loyalty for all countries. The factors which can influence brand equity are different for different countries. The third finding of this paper is that we identified different three lifestyles, adventurer, follower, and laggard, for Korean, Chinese and American consumers. Without the nationality boundary, seeing the emergence of a new group of consumers who have similar preferences and buy similar brands is more important. All of the consumers consider brand equity to keep their brand loyalty. Perceived price is the only factor which can influence brand equity for adventurers; brand is more important for them. The laggards were not influenced by any factor. All of the factors expect perceived price are important for the followers. Marketing managers should consider brand equity when introducing their brand into a new market. Also localization is the basic strategy that all the sports shoes companies should understand. But as a global brand, understanding the same characteristics for each country is more important to build global strategy.