• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.160-174
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• 2005

Despite the decrease in the number of children due to low birth rate, the domestic children's apparel market has been achieving steady growth as family income is rising thanks to more opportunities for working women, parents spend more on their children, and they prefer brand products that make their children look special. In addition, the market is suffering from hard competition as large enterprises have joined the race. The present study purposed to survey the children's apparel market in Korea, which is in a transitional period, and to contribute to the development of the market with Korean brands. For this purpose, we analyzed the characteristics of children's apparel brands in the 21st century based on the current state of the domestic children's apparel market and, based on the findings, forecasted the future trend of children's apparel brands, suggested improvements for expected problems, proposed standards for coping with changes such as diversification, high quality and differentiation in the children's apparel market, and provided consumers with information on how to purchase products. According to the result of analyzing the characteristics of children's apparel brands in the 21st century, brands are categorized largely into four types - life cultural brands, functional product brands, character brands and brands advancing to China. Life cultural brands equipped with all necessities for children are expanding, and with the deepening social problems of environmental pollution and the reduction of the child population, functional products made of environment-friendly materials are spreading widely, targeting infants and children. Furthermore, for extending age targets and diversifying products, children's apparel is using characters. The use of characters is expected to have a considerable effect on the growth of brands because children are more subjective as consumers than before and they are more easily persuaded with characters. Domestic children's apparel brands advancing to China have a high expectation of success in overcoming the limitation of the local market that has reached its peak and growing into global brands. Korean apparel makers are struggling to overcome the depressed domestic market, to recover consumers' consumption, to cope with market opening, to pursue high value of sensibility and to expand the seniors' market, etc. In this situation, future trends of children's apparel brands will be the expansion of family brands, brand totalization, quality price, niche market (pre-teen market), etc. In response to these trends, we made the following suggestions for improvement. 1. Children's apparel brands are evolving into family brands as well as into total brands through voluming. Today, however, apparel makers are advancing to the children's apparel market with the concept of adults' apparel and, as a result, children's apparel is merely adults' apparel of reduced size, having problems in design, color and materials. Thus, apparel makers must develop design considering the wide range of size and the characteristics of children's apparel, strengthen sourcing abilities to create revenues, and make thorough survey of customers to find common denominators between adults' apparel and children's apparel considering that characteristic that the target class is different from the buyer class. Furthermore, they must make active investments in human resources, develop outstanding products through advanced planning and design, and support marketing techniques and management systems to stores. 2. As the declining birth rate will continue to have a negative effect on the market, it may be difficult to expand the market size but there is still a margin for growth through high-sensibility and high-quality products. The competitiveness of brands is determined by their market shares. Accordingly, concepts should be specialized according to lifestyle, customers' diverse needs should be satisfied, and cross-coordination should be achieved within a brand. 3. Considering Korean parents who do not spare investment in their children despite shrinking consumption, functional products must be high value-added goods that can enhance efficiency. However, in the current situation of the infants' apparel industry where a textile manufacturer supply its products to multiple brands, it is difficult to develop unique products only based on materials. Thus, it is considered urgent to appeal to consumers not by relying on materials only but by finding methods of applying their own characters to children's dress.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.30 no.4 s.152
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• pp.655-661
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to investigate the make-up preference images influenced by the clothing preference images group, and importance orders among the make-up preference images. The questionnaires were given to female residents in the ages between $20{\sim}45$ in Seoul and Kyung-gi province during October 2004. 322 questionnaires were used for data analysis. The collected data were analyzed by using SPSS 10.0 software with various techniques such as ANOVA test, Duncan test and paired t-test. The results of this study as follows; 1. It was found out that the graceful, chic, and modern make-up image had significant differences. The graceful make-up preference image was preferred by the graceful clothing preference image group. The chic and modern make-up preference image were preferred by modern clothing preference image group. It was confirmed that the categories with significant differences were those with the same clothing and make-up preference image groups, which indicate people prefer unified image coordination. 2. As the results of the analysis of the difference in importance of make-up preference images, it was found out that the natural make-up preference image was the most preferred by people, and followed by the youthful make-up preference image. On the other hand, the romantic make-up preference was preferred the least. This study on relationships between clothing images and make-up images found that the costume culture is becoming more of 'total fashion' and that it would be beneficial for clothing brands to incorporate cosmetics in their business strategies and expand their businesses.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.28 no.12 s.138
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• pp.1644-1654
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• 2004

As globalization has been accelerating in recent years, more people have opportunities to live abroad for an extended period of time, which is known to have strong influence on consumers. The main purposes of this study were to examine if and how sojourning experience could bring changes to people in general and in clothing styles with focus on Korean adults. The researchers conducted in-depth interviews on a total of thirty-six women and twenty-one men who lived in foreign countries more than two years and have been back in Korea longer than one year. The major results indicated that in addition to personalities, age, length of stay, activities during stay, gender, and cultural distances played important roles in bringing long-term changes on people. Re-established self-identity, changes in values, and openness toward diversity were major common changes observed in the interviewees. In addition, they became educated consumers with good knowledge of diverse brands and prices, and emphasized value as opposed to price. Changes in clothing styles were noted mainly among women. They placed high importance on having their own style, coordination and appropriateness, which were consistent with the general changes. Influences of different cultures were also noted.