• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.353-364
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• 1998

Consumer knowledge has been discussed as an important concept to understand information processing such as information search and evaluation process. It has been defined as the amounts and contents of information in consumer's memory accumulated by experiences. According to literature review, experts who have much knowledge are likely to retrieve their information related to products for a purchase efficiency. Therefore, they are likely to simplify the information processing for a choice. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between clothing product knowledge and evaluative criteria for a purchase. The results were as follows; First, it was found out that evaluative criteria were composed of four dimensions such as the management, the esthetic, the fitness and the brand. Therefore, it is implied that evaluative criteria for purchasing clothing products were multidimensional. Second, the level of objective knowledge was low, and consumers perceived that they didn't have much knowledge related with clothing products. Also, the relationships between objective and subjective knowledge were positive but low. Third, the evaluative criteria were effected by the level of consumer's knowledge significantly. In subjective knowledge, the subjects in a high group considered all criteria more deeply than in a low group. But there was a significant difference only in the esthetic between two groups in objective knowledge. The results of this study imply that consumer knowledge may influence evaluation process. Knowledgeable consumer would consider product attributes deeply for evaluating clothing products, and especially, the esthetic would be an important factor as an attribute including the instrumental and expressive functions in a purchase phase. Therefore, consumer knowl- edge would be a basis of predicting expert's information processing and managing heavy buyer or loyal consumers in apparel industry.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.16-29
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• 2016

The study aims to explore the impacts of types of consumer's self-construal, prices of brands, and types of discount-based sales promotion on consumers' purchase intention. For this study, a three-way mixed factor method was applied based on a formula, types of consumer's self-construal x prices of brands x types of discount-based sales promotion. The subjects were 218 females in their 20s to 30s living in seoul or Gyeonggi-do areas. For data analysis, three-way variate analysis, analysis of simple interactions and analysis of simple main impacts were conducted through use of the SPSS program. First, based on the impacts of types of consumer's self-construal, prices of brands, and types of discount-based sales promotions in the favor of consumers, there was a significant difference between higher and lower-priced brands. Second, comprehensive discounts rather than monopolistic discounts corresponded to higher favoring by consumers of interdependent self-construal. As for monopolistic discount, lower-priced products corresponded to higher favor than higher-priced ones. Third, there was a significant difference between consumers of independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal. Fourth, comprehensive discount, rather than monopolistic discount, corresponded to higher purchase intention regardless of prices of brands in the group of consumers with interdependent self-construal.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.30 no.8
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• pp.1301-1311
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• 2006

This study rearranged a concept of Friday wear considered as casual wear by searching social background through analysis of literature study and photo materials and classifying by characteristics of casual wear. It investigated growing changes of casual wear and the progress of changes casual brands through a market survey based on departments in Seoul. And then, it examined characteristics of a design and the critical point of easy casual selecting GIORDANO, TBJ and NII of three easy casual brands. Conclusions of the study are as follows: Firstly, present casual wear showed subdivision of casual wear as abundant grouping vocabularies appeared contrary to the past. Secondly, easy casual wear has continuously increased by results of investigating departments in Seoul on the progress of changing easy casual wear brand including the concept of Friday wear. Thirdly, if a main target sets the early 20s, women workers in their 20's and 30's are likely to be reluctant to wear it according to results of investigating designs and characteristics based on GIORDANO, TBJ and NII of existing three easy casual brands through the market survey. Also, it was verified that most of these brands have no a luxurious image because they adhere to middle-low price. Fourthly, it improved problems of easy casual through developing designs of easy casual wear. Easy casual wear supplementing weak these points of easy casual wear was evaluated as suitable clothes for workers to wear in on and off their own time in Friday.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.93-101
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to provide for the basic data useful to the effective production and thereby, help them improve their apparel life. For this purpose, 180 Korean mothers who bring up from newborns to fouryear-old babies were sampled to survey their practices of purchasing the infant's wear and positively identify the factors affecting the practices. Data is processed by a computer(SAS) and analyzed by using frequency, percentage, $\chi^2$-test, Duncan's Multiple Range test. The main results of this study are as follows; 1. The mothers tend to gather the information from the items displayed(50.6%) in the stores. The criteria for purchasing considerably depends on the 2. The places of purchasing on which the mothers rely most for infant's wear are department stores(35.2%) and stores nearby their house(28.5%). The frequency of infant's wear depend on the change of season and necessity. 3. It had been disclosed that the brand favored most by the mothers is AGABANG(48.6%). The most influential factors for the popularity of brands are Design(53.1%). The most important reference affecting the mother's choice of infant's wear is size(51.1%) followed by functionality and price(26.7%). After the purchase, mothers are discontent with the high prices of infant's wear. In all, it has been found through this study that the behavior of number in purchasing infant's wear was influenced by many external factors. Therefore, manufacturers and retailers should manufcture and sell products that are of the highest quality. This must be their utmost concern for the satisfaction of their customers.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.183-194
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• 2013

In recent years, intense cold spells caused by climate change have encouraged an increasing number of people to wear a variety of padded jackets. In this context, this paper aims to address the production of padded jackets in casual brands and to develop basic patterns for well-fitted padded jackets targeted toward women in their 20s. The study centered on the production of padded jackets from 13 apparel companies. In addition, three sample jackets were created with 3oz. fill in the body and 2oz. fill in the sleeves, and they were subjected to a wearing test to determine their movement functionality. The research findings were as follows. Woven jackets constituted 53.4% of the winter jackets produced by casual brands; padded jackets accounted for 25.3%, leather jackets 12.6%, and other jackets 8.7%. Thus, data showed that padded jackets accounted for a considerable proportion of overall winter jacket production. Based on the wearing test results, the basic measurements of a padded jacket for women in their 20s were as follows: bust girth of B/4+3cm front length and B/4+3.5cm back length; waist girth of W/4+3.1 cm front length and W/4+1.9cm back length; and hip girth of H/4+3.3cm front length and H/4+2.8cm back length. The jacket length was set at 62.8cm, with a 63.8cm sleeve length. This study concluded that providing padded jacket manufacturers with basic pattern designs for a well-fitted jacket is expected to boost the efficiency of pattern design processes and the production of padded jackets.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.1-22
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• 2011

This paper is a study on the information required for developing Korean clothing products intended for Chinese students in Korea and for opening markets of Korean clothing and brands in China. It analyses the buying behaviors, purchasing ability, the favourite apparel type for clothing, and satisfaction with Korean clothing and brands of Chinese students in Korea, with which it seeks a program for South Korea branding to enter into the Chinese clothing market. Three hundred fifty seven students of Hannam University and PaiChai University Chung nam National University in Daejeon-city took part in this study. This paper adopts Descriptive Analysis, Crossing Analysis, Bivariate Correlations, and One-way ANOVA in SPSS 17.0 with Post Hoc Multiple Comparisons to know about the impact of demographic variables of Chinese students in Korea on buying information sources, the criteria for store selection, buying capacity, praise degree on various properties of Korean clothes products and their satisfaction with Korean clothes products. The first proposal of expanding China market for Korean merchants is to achieve maximum sales based on sales promotion strategies, such as the credit card corporations, the store display and sales person service development, SPA, design size development, and to upgrade consumption values. The second proposal is Korean clothes corporations should open the Internet shopping corresponding to the physical stores, the most frequently used information source of Chinese students is the network, from the age distribution of Internet users in 2008 in China, population above 10 and below 30 accounts for 66.7% of all users, In recommending clothes made in Korea to Chinese young people, on-line advertising will get better effects than other strategies, specially during advertisement, they should take good use of Korean television shows and variety shows or help Chinese poor areas to do the social contribution hereby to improve the public image of Korean clothes corporations, which can bring good sale promotion effects as well.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.4-14
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• 2010

Collaboration strategies entail information sharing and other varied forms of cooperation that are mutually beneficial to the company and stakeholder groups. This study addresses the specific types of collaboration used in the fashion industry while also examining strategies that have been most successful for fashion companies and perceived benefits of collaboration from the customer perspective. In the present study we define fashion companies and brands as collaborators and their partners or stakeholders as collaboratees. We define collaboration as a cooperative relationship where more than two companies, brands or individuals provide customers with beneficial outcomes utilizing their own competitive advantages on an equal basis. Collaboration strategies entail information sharing and other varied forms of cooperation that are mutually beneficial to the company and stakeholder groups. Through collaboration, fashion companies have pursued both tangible differentiation, such as design and technology applications, and intangible differentiation such as emotional and psychological benefits to customers. As a result, collaboration within the fashion industry has become an important, value creating concept. This qualitative study utilized case studies and in-depth interview methodologies to examine customers' attitudes concerning collaboration in the fashion industry. A total of 173 collaboration cases were identified in Korean and international markets from 1998 through December 2008, focusing on fashion companies. Cases were collected from documented data including websites and industry data bases and top ranked portal search sites such as: Rankey.com; Naver, Daum, and Nate; and representative fashion information websites, Samsungdesignnet and Firstviewkorea. Cases were collected between November 2008 and February 2009. Cases were selected for the analysis where one or more partners were associated with the production of fashion products (excluding textile production), retail fashion products, or designer services. Additional collaboration case information was obtained from news articles, periodicals, internet portal sites and fashion information sites as conducted in prior studies (Jeong and Kim 2008; Park and Park 2004; Yoon 2005). In total, 173 cases were selected for analysis that clearly exhibited the benefits and outcomes of collaboration efforts and strategies between fashion companies and stakeholders. Findings show that the overall results show that for both partners (collaborator and collaboratee) participating in collaboration, that the major benefits are reduction of costs and risks by sharing resource such as design power, image, costs, technology and targets, and creation of synergy. Regarding types of collaboration outcomes, product/design was most important (55%), followed by promotion (21%), price (20%), and place (4%). This result shows that collaboration plays an important role in giving life to products and designs, particularly in the fashion industry which seeks for creative and newness. To be successful in collaboration efforts, results of the depth interviews in this study confirm that fashion companies should have a clear objective on why they are doing the collaboration. After setting the objective, they should select collaboratees that match their brand image and target market, make quality co-products that have definite concepts and differentiating factors, and also pay attention to increasing brand awareness. Based on depth interviews with customers, customer benefits were categorized into six factors: pursuit for individual character; pursuit for brand; pursuit for scarcity; pursuit for fashion; pursuit for economic efficiency; and pursuit for sociality. Customers also placed more importance on image, reputation, and trust of brands regarding the cases shown in the interviews. They also commented that strong branding should come first before other marketing strategies. However, success factors recognized by experts and customers in this study showed different results by subcategories. Thus, target customers and target market should be studied from various dimensions to develop appropriate strategies for successful collaboration.

• Journal of Intelligence and Information Systems
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.77-110
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• 2017

Recently, the diversification and individualization of consumption patterns through the web and mobile devices based on the Internet have been rapid. As this happens, the efficient operation of the offline store, which is a traditional distribution channel, has become more important. In order to raise both the sales and profits of stores, stores need to supply and sell the most attractive products to consumers in a timely manner. However, there is a lack of research on which SKUs, out of many products, can increase sales probability and reduce inventory costs. In particular, if a company sells products through multiple in-store stores across multiple locations, it would be helpful to increase sales and profitability of stores if SKUs appealing to customers are recommended. In this study, the recommender system (recommender system such as collaborative filtering and hybrid filtering), which has been used for personalization recommendation, is suggested by SKU recommendation method of a store unit of a distribution company that handles a homogeneous brand through a plurality of sales stores by country and region. We calculated the similarity of each store by using the purchase data of each store's handling items, filtering the collaboration according to the sales history of each store by each SKU, and finally recommending the individual SKU to the store. In addition, the store is classified into four clusters through PCA (Principal Component Analysis) and cluster analysis (Clustering) using the store profile data. The recommendation system is implemented by the hybrid filtering method that applies the collaborative filtering in each cluster and measured the performance of both methods based on actual sales data. Most of the existing recommendation systems have been studied by recommending items such as movies and music to the users. In practice, industrial applications have also become popular. In the meantime, there has been little research on recommending SKUs for each store by applying these recommendation systems, which have been mainly dealt with in the field of personalization services, to the store units of distributors handling similar brands. If the recommendation method of the existing recommendation methodology was 'the individual field', this study expanded the scope of the store beyond the individual domain through a plurality of sales stores by country and region and dealt with the store unit of the distribution company handling the same brand SKU while suggesting a recommendation method. In addition, if the existing recommendation system is limited to online, it is recommended to apply the data mining technique to develop an algorithm suitable for expanding to the store area rather than expanding the utilization range offline and analyzing based on the existing individual. The significance of the results of this study is that the personalization recommendation algorithm is applied to a plurality of sales outlets handling the same brand. A meaningful result is derived and a concrete methodology that can be constructed and used as a system for actual companies is proposed. It is also meaningful that this is the first attempt to expand the research area of the academic field related to the existing recommendation system, which was focused on the personalization domain, to a sales store of a company handling the same brand. From 05 to 03 in 2014, the number of stores' sales volume of the top 100 SKUs are limited to 52 SKUs by collaborative filtering and the hybrid filtering method SKU recommended. We compared the performance of the two recommendation methods by totaling the sales results. The reason for comparing the two recommendation methods is that the recommendation method of this study is defined as the reference model in which offline collaborative filtering is applied to demonstrate higher performance than the existing recommendation method. The results of this model are compared with the Hybrid filtering method, which is a model that reflects the characteristics of the offline store view. The proposed method showed a higher performance than the existing recommendation method. The proposed method was proved by using actual sales data of large Korean apparel companies. In this study, we propose a method to extend the recommendation system of the individual level to the group level and to efficiently approach it. In addition to the theoretical framework, which is of great value.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.83-91
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• 1999

The purpose of this study is to provide some useful references to the educational field in terms of providing on analysis of job characteristics of fashion designers working in the women's wear industries. The data were collected from 102 fashion designers working in women's wear industries through the questionnaire and were analyzed by SPSS packages of frequencies and percentiles for comparative study, and the results are as follows: 1. The demographic characteristics of the fashion designers are; unmarried (80.4%), working less than 2 years (20.2%), completion of junior college(68.6%), majority ages between 20-24 yrs(43.1%). An average length of working in one company war less than 6 months. 2. The ratio computer usage of the design room was approx. 52.0% especially in the management of sales (52.9%) and the ratio in fashion design was approx. 17.6% in merchandising planning. 3. 76.4% of respondents was working 10 hours a day, and 50% of them was dissatisfied on the job caused by excessive working hour (31.4%) and job over load (35.3%). In the developing fashion design with the relation of actual job, insufficient knowledges of the concerned technical and production fields (68.6%) were indicated as the most difficult area. In addition, fashion magazines were considered as the most helpful resource(94.1%). 4. It was noted that the target age groups for the brand were clearly divided into two groups, notably the early and middle of twenties and the early and middle forties. Among the produced items, formal wears were accounted for 52.9%. 5. As far as the contents of job are concerned, the fashion designers are mostly engaged in purchasing textile, collecting informations of fashion, quality control, whereas their actual job is apparel design. 6. The training that the fashion designer received beside formal education includes attendance of private institutes(62.7%), OJT(7.8%), seminars(4.9%). Regarding formal education, the respond indicated that they had least opportunity to received computer training. 7. The necessary subjects in the schools for the fashion designers in relation to the current job were fashion information, merchandising planning, pattern making, cutting, fashion marketing, knowledges of clothing material in sequence. Subjects which are necessary for the further development include pattern making(21.6%), fashion marketing(14.7%), and designing with computer(7.8%).

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.15-26
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• 2010

Due to the globalization across various industries and cultural trade among many countries, oriental concepts have been attracting world’s attentions. In fashion industry, one's traditional culture is often developed as fashion theme for designers' creation and became strong strategies to stand out among competitors. Because of the increase of preferences for oriental images, opportunities abound to introduce traditional fashion goods and expand culture based business to global fashion markets. However, global fashion brands that include Korean traditional culture are yet to be developed. In order to develop a global fashion brand with Korean taste, it is very important for native citizen to accept their own culture in domestic apparel market prior to expansion into foreign market. Loungewear is evaluated to be appropriate for adopting Korean traditional details into clothing since this wardrobe category embraces various purposes which will easily lead to natural adaptation and wide spread use. Also, this market is seeing an increased demand for multipurpose wardrobes and fashionable underwear (Park et al. 2009). Despite rapid growth in the loungewear market, specific studies of loungewear is rare; and among research on developing modernized-traditional clothing, fashion items and brands do not always include the loungewear category. Therefore, this study investigated the Korean loungewear market and studied consumer evaluation toward loungewear with Korean traditional fashion design elements. Relationship among antecedents of purchase intention for Korean traditional fashion design elements were analyzed and compared between lifestyle groups for consumer targeting purposes. Product quality, retail service quality, perceived value, and preference on loungewear with Korean traditional design elements were chosen as antecedents of purchase intention and a structural equation model was designed to examine their relationship as well as their influence on purchase intention. Product quality and retail service quality among marketing mixes were employed as factors affecting preference and perceived value of loungewear with Korean traditional fashion design elements. Also effects of preference and perceived value on purchase intention were examined through the same model. A total of 357 self-administered questionnaires were completed by female consumers via web survey system. A questionnaire was developed to measure samples' lifestyle, product and retail service quality as purchasing criteria, perceived value, preference and purchase intention of loungewear with Korean traditional fashion design elements. Also, loungewear purchasing and usage behavior were asked as well in order to examine Korean loungewear market status. Data was analyzed through descriptive analysis, factor analysis, cluster analysis, ANOVA and structural equation model was tested via AMOS 7.0. As for the result of Korean loungewear market status investigation, loungewear was purchased by most of the consumers in our sample. Loungewear is currently recognized as clothes that are worn at home and consumers are showing comparably low involvement toward loungewear. Most of consumers in this study purchase loungewear only two to three times a year and they spend less than US$10. A total of 12 items and four factors of loungewear consumer lifestyle were found: traditional value oriented lifestyle, brand-affected lifestyle, pursuit of leisure lifestyle, and health oriented lifestyle. Drawing on lifestyle factors, loungewear consumers were classified into two groups; Well-being and Conservative. Relationships among constructs of purchasing behavior related to loungewear with Korean traditional fashion design elements were estimated. Preference and perceived value of loungewear were affected by both product quality and retail service quality. This study proved that high qualities in product and retail service develop positive preference toward loungewear. Perceived value and preference of loungewear positively influenced purchase intention. The results indicated that high preference and perceived value of loungewear with Korean traditional fashion design elements strengthen purchase intention and proved importance of developing preference and elevate perceived value in order to make sales. In a model comparison between two lifestyle groups: Well-being and Conservative lifestyle groups, results showed that product quality and retail service quality had positive influences on both preference and perceived value in case of Well-being group. However, for Conservative group, only retail service quality had a positive effect on preference and its influence to purchase intention. Since Well-being group showed more significant influence on purchase intention, loungewear brands with Korean traditional fashion design elements may want to focus on characteristics of Well-being group. However, Conservative group's relationship between preference and purchase intention of loungewear with Korean traditional fashion design elements was stronger, so that loungewear brands with Korean traditional fashion design elements should focus on creating conservative consumers' positive preference toward loungewear. The results offered information on Korean loungewear consumers' lifestyle and provided useful information for fashion brands that are planning to enter Korean loungewear market, particularly targeting female consumers similar to the sample of the present study. This study offers strategic and marketing insight for loungewear brands and also for fashion brands that are planning to create highly value-added fashion brands with Korean traditional fashion design elements. Considering different types of lifestyle groups that are associated with loungewear or traditional fashion goods, brand managers and marketers can use the results of this paper as a reference to positioning, targeting and marketing strategy buildings.