• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.717-729
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• 2019

This study defines critical fashion designs and investigate its critical messages on fashion itself. The critical messages on fashion are categorized into two major issues of a fashion industry system and fashion consumer culture. This study contributes to the understanding of meaning and value for critical fashion messages that match critical art. As the research method, this study combines a literature review and case studies and the research scope focuses on cases that have appeared in fashion media since the 2000s when social critical messages in fashion began to emerge. The results of the study are as follows. Critical designers such as Viktor & Rolf, Elisa van Joolen, Issey Miyake, and Mary Ping have delivered messages challenging the nature of fashion industry system that criticize the cycle and limitation of a fashion system and pursues changes in perception of sustainability. The critical message on fashion consumer culture articulated by designers such as Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Hussein Chalayan, and Ricarda Bigolin & Nella Themelios insist on the formation of community while delivering a critical message on social, political, and cultural problems that raise the mechanism of social awareness through fashion design.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.116-125
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• 2018

With rapid economic development in Korea, interests in interior design have increased gradually. However, interior design markets were poorly evaluated from 2015 Korean Consumer Evaluation. It is necessary to identify what kinds of problems, defects, and consumer claims have arisen during interior design planning and construction procedures. Therefore the purpose of this study is to investigate claims and disputes in interior design project procedures and to find out when defects or claims take place in those procedures in order to reduce claims or defects. Email questionnaires were distributed to KOSID members (professional interior designers) using Google Survey. In addition, a focus group interview was conducted. A total of 54 responses were collected and analyzed using SPSS 19. As a result, in an agreement stage, alteration in materials is the major source of claim. More than a half of respondents addressed time shortage for programming and planning. During the construction stage, approximately 31% respondents experienced client dissatisfaction with materials and finishes. The reason for project completion delay was due to claims during construction. The claims most frequently appealed by clients were related to painting. The satisfaction with project quality is positively related to the quality and contents of design documents including design drawings and specifications. Regulations and communication with clients are important issues to reduce the gaps between interior designers and clients/ consumers.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.985-994
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• 2009

This research is exploratory in considering the unique socio-cultural context of South Korea, where the present government is responding to the demand for English language training. The study asked the question: What do mothers experience when sending their young children to a private English institute, so called English kindergarten, instead of a regular preschool? A qualitative approach was used to analyze the in-depth interviews with 19 mothers who sent their young child to an English kindergarten. Mothers stated that their young child needs to be a competent English speaker. The mothers expected that an English kindergarten would prepare their child better for the elementary school English curriculum than a regular preschool. The study revealed that English kindergartens symbolized the precedence and the privileges of the elite because of their high tuition fees, native-speaker teachers, and small class sizes. The mothers showed a sense of pride and vicarious satisfaction from sending their child to an English kindergarten. However, the mothers recognized that English kindergartens put more emphasis on cognitive learning instead of the social development of children. It was almost impossible for mothers to communicate with the native-speaker teachers about their child. The mothers seemed to overlook their child's struggle to adapt to an English Kindergarten. The findings of the study raise issues concerning the boom of teaching young children English in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean housing association
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.169-180
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• 2015

This study was carried out to offer direction to the Housing Management Support Center in terms of its key features and specific operational tasks. The research involved the property management office (n=35) and Resident Representatives of the apartment blocks (n=52). Advisory Services conducted a consumer survey, as well as a survey of expert interviews (n=15). Survey results were as follows: (1) the Managing Director and secretary residents were satisfied with the Diagnosis and Advisory services; (2) the administrative support services need to address housing issues, including a long-term repair plan and advice on using long-term repair reserves and "conflict resolution associated with public housing management"; and (3) there was a greater need for a "basic, common-sense Housing Management Information Base to provide services to the Resident Representatives of the apartment blocks". Based on the survey results, the main roles of the Housing Management Support Center are to act as a House of Commons Administrator to handle complaints with counseling, diagnosis and advice; to support the Resident Committees; to provide professional training, research, and investigation; to support community revitalization; to manage the business of guidance and inspection; to coordinate conflicts and disputes; to build a comprehensive source of information; and to build networks.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.19-29
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• 2004

The current fashion market is experiencing a lot of difficulties in fashion forecasting due to consumers' fast-changing lifestyle on fashion, changes in consumer behavior, and the segmentation of the fashion market. To cope with this harsh reality, many fashion enterprises have paid much attention to the SPA (Specialty Retailer's Store of Private Label Apparel) brand as a promising fashion marketing strategy in terms of which they can survive in the extremely competing fashion market. The SPA brand is in the stage of inception in Korea, but the SPA brands such as MUJI and UNIQLO are already dominating the fashion business in Japan. Korea has just started developing the SPA brand, but its technological development, which was triggered by the success of 'BASIC HOUSE', is rapidly evolving. Under these circumstances, the SPA brand is getting vital for the fashion market in efficiently realizing consumers' requirements, revolutionizing the method for providing product information and the process of Marketing Mix Program, and expressing the value of shop. This paper studies the nature of the SPA brand and fashion merchandising system, and in turn examine the differences between the visual merchandising of the existing fashion brands and the Japanese SPA brands that are used as the fashion marketing strategy which is driven by the up-to-date technological system. Centering around these issues, we propose a visual merchandising system for fashion enterprises which serves to develop Korean-style SPA brands.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.13-28
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• 1995

This study analyzed marketing activities of producers' organization on organic farming products(O.F.Ps), and was inquired into direction of consumption increase by it. As a result, in order to raise marketing efficiency and to increase consumption of O.F.Ps, the present questions and issues which are to be solved is as follows: Consumer's confidence for O.F.Ps should be obtained broadly and formally. Particulary, the use of brand such as 'no pollution' or ' no pesticides' should be forbidden without institutional certification. Thus cosumers should be able to distinguish O.F.Ps from general farming products(G.F.Ps) by the brand. Also physical marketing is inefficient since many items are marketed in small amount, and marketing cost is spendedtoo much relatively. Physical marketing center to cut down this expenses should be constructed under government support largely. And the consumers' price of O.F.Ps tends to be fixed all the year round. Owing to this feature, the consumers' price of G.F.Ps have severely influece upon at once demand and supply of O.F.Ps. The associations of consumer and producer should allow O.F.Ps price to fluctuate in proportion to G.F.Ps price. Besides, both should vary marketing patterns. Finally, government should help both associations legally and institutionally to improve all economic activities.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.45 no.8
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• pp.127-142
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• 2007

The objective of this study was to discuss child privacy issues at Web sites targeting children, Specifically, the study examined l)types of information required for join the membership, 2)whether privacy policies at Web sites for children abide by privacy guideline, and 3)specific examples of recommendable privacy policy and problematic privacy policy from Web sites, Total of 305 Web sites targeting children were used for content analysis, Selected Web sites included recommended sites by Korea Council of Children's Organizations and food business Web sites, The results showed that more than 70% of Web sites required private information when children join the membership. Most of these Web sites provided mailing service for children. Generally, Web sites showed problems in parents' approval procedures. Also, privacy policies at Web sites frequently omitted purpose specification principle and the security safeguard principle. Regulating online service provides and marketers targeting children would be necessary for protecting child privacy. Further, education program targeting parents and children could help them make right choices to protect children's online privacy.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.15-31
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• 2013

Consumers are quite worried about food safety because food is one of the most important necessities in everyday life. Many studies have been conducted regarding the food safety issues, however, most researches have focused only on a limited range of risk factors and used only quantitative survey methods. The purpose of this study was to investigate consumers' perceptions of the risky components of food safety and how the perceptions have been formed. For this study in-depth interviews were conducted. For the interviewees, nine housewives, who are in their 30s to 50s, were selected taking into consideration their age, education level, number of children, and employment status. Results showed that the risk factors many consumers worried about were agricultural pesticides, MSG, food additives, GMO, Mad Cow Disease, preservatives, and growth hormones, etc. Consumers were worried about the risk of the retail process the most because they thought it was not informed and controlled well. Consumers tend to worry much more when the risks are involuntary, uncontrollable, unreliable, and have a gradual negative effect. Some of the food safety-oriented behaviors of consumers were also investigated.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.111-120
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• 2011

The concept of Smart-Homes is becoming more and more popular. It is anticipated that Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) technology will play a major role in such environments. We can find many previously proposed schemes that focus solely on: authentication between the RFID tags and readers, and user privacy protection from malicious readers. There has also been much talk of a very popular RFID application: a refrigerator/bookshelf that can scan and list out the details of its items on its display screen. Realizing such an application is not as straight forward as it seems to be, especially in securely deploying such RFID-based applications in a smart home environment. Therefore this paper describes some of the RFID-based applications that are applicable to smart home environments. We then identify their related privacy and security threats and security requirements and also propose a secure approach, where RFID-tagged consumer items, RFID-reader enabled appliances (e.g., refrigerators), and RFID-based applications would securely interact among one another. At the moment our approach is just a conceptual idea, but it sheds light on very important security issues related to RFID-based applications that are beneficial for consumers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.984-1003
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• 2020

The global fashion industry produces significant carbon emission and micro-plastics in oceans. Studies on sustainable design methods as such environmental issues in fashion are becoming intensely problematic. This study conducted a case study on 100 upcycle fashion brands to propose strategical upcycle fashion designs to compete in a sustainable fashion market. A literature review indicated that 3 types of textile wastes are generated as upcycling materials: post-producer, pre-consumer and post-consumer. Wastes are categorized together with 3 types of techniques: redesigning, reconstruction and handcrafting. This research derived 7 types of upcycle fashion designs that have the following features: to make luxury upcycle fashion products, to make sustainable grunge looks, to re-evaluate deadstocks, to recover vintage clothes, to convert waste into craft-arts, to offer solutions for damaged products, and to make zero-waste small fabric waste. The study results show that key drivers in the upcycle fashion design are the redesignability of materials and technique-related costs. This study implies that adopting appropriate design features can be a useful strategy for designers. New technologies will solve current problems and encourage them to design products in a new circular value system.