• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.22-33
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• 2018

The aim of the research study is to carve sustainable business strategies for the fashion communities in Ethiopia and Ukraine which are suffering today due to ever-increasing share of fast fashion consumerism. Fashion houses and international brands propagandize sustainability and consumption for better consumer base, where as originally sustainable local-based craftsmen still stay in the shade. Four communities/local designers are selected from the countries through the method of purposive sampling. Qualitative analysis is the basis of the research as we performed personal interviews and in-depth analysis of the communities to diagnose the problems and subsequently devise the solutions. In this research, we have studied and analyzed the problems faced by hereditary communities and ethnic designers in small and medium scale enterprise sector from two emerging economies. After the grounding the difficulties faced we advised strategies for sustainable future growth to the companies. The current academic literature on small and medium scale enterprises highlights the problems and solutions for general industry sectors. This paper brings attention to fashion communities and designers who promote national heritage and are struggling to survive in emerging economies due to industrialization and globalization. Moreover the comparison of the two geographies is unique in nature.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.65 no.7
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• pp.101-117
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• 2015

Along with the development of overall internet service, online fashion communities appeared and have started to thrive. The growth of mobile service has led to an even bigger expansion of these communities, and will wield a strong influence for the foreseeable future. The purpose of our study is to investigate the relationship between the behavior of these fashion communities and personality characteristics of the community features. For our data analysis, our study used 302 men and women, aged from their 20's and their 40's. The study results are as follows: First, some features, such as interaction, entertainment, promotion, information, and system technique, were drawn as the factors of the online fashion communities. Second, we could divide the community behavioral types into three different groups: buyer, maven, and onlooker groups. Third, all three groups showed different community characteristics. The primary concern for the buyer group was promotion while the mavens and the on-lookers were most interested in information. Fourth, they also showed different demographic characteristics in terms of gender, age, duration of membership, on-line time per visit and number of visits per week. These results show that a new strategy is necessary for online fashion communities to differentiate themselves and their marketing to consumers and their community behavioral types.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.1005-1016
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• 2012

Recently, as growing number of consumers publish product and service reviews on the Internet, e-review has received attention from retailers and researchers. E-review, a form of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) which is typically shared between strangers whose identity and credibility are unknown, has become an important product information source as social media has facilitated information exchanges between more consumers. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of e-review attributes on purchase intention for fashion products, which is mediated by trust of e-review, as well as to explore the differences between consumer communities and cooperative communities. A questionnaire was developed based on previous researches. Data were gathered from adults living in Busan. The results were analyzed by factor analysis, t-test, and regression using SPSS 18.0. The results showed that consumers tended to recognize e-reviews from consumer communities as exaggerated information, while they considered reviews from cooperative communities as reliable information, which gave the latter higher purchase intention. There were significant differences in e-review attributes for fashion products (e.g., Exaggeration, Entertainment, Innocence, and Agreement), purchase intention between consumer communities (e.g: Blog, Internet cafe) and cooperative communities (e.g: general malls and specialty malls). For both communities, purchase intention of fashion products was influenced by its entertainment attributes and perceived trust of e-reviews. These results suggest that e-retailers need to focus on understanding the causes of purchase intention with e-reviews for fashion products. Specifically, e-retailers should recognize that e-reviews of fashion products were associated primarily with entertaining and with consumers' trust. Based on these findings, managerial implications are presented.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.15 no.1 s.66
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• pp.58-67
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• 2007

The popularity of communities on the Internet has captured the attention of marketing professionals and more consumers are involved in online activities of fashion brands. The primary purpose of this research was to explain the process of how online interactivity influence members' relational market behavior. Subjects of this study were male and female members of online communities of fashion brands. Online survey data were obtained from 416 respondents. Empirical findings of this study were suggestive of two types of interaction in fashion online communities: community-customer interaction and customer-customer interaction. Fashion online community customers' relational market behavior (word of mouth and repurchase intention) was significantly influenced by both types of interactivity. The influence of interactivity on relational behavior was stronger for word of mouth intention than for repurchase intention. This study highlights the importance of interactivity in cyberspace as well as relational market behavior and contributes to e-relationship marketing strategies of fashion brands.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.14-25
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• 2018

This study is to understand subculture as a selective amity or an emotional tribe that includes a life style, hobby and leisure of people and seeing it as the tribal solidarity or emotional alliance. Hence, based on the neo-tribalism by Michel Maffesoli who explains a tribe not composing a social vertical structure represented by class, but is composed a horizontal structure of individuals as a member of a society, this study conducted an empirical analysis on domestic minor fashion communities. Research findings show that they have a unique structure unexplained by Maffesoli. Fashion styles, values shared by domestic minor fashion communities are almost entirely based on individual likes and dislikes, escaping from a symbol of resistance to subordination explained by the existing subculture, play a role in enhancing the solidarity inside the community and confirming its identity outside. However, as for shared values within a community, it reveals a new invisible type of subculture intra-inter domestic minor fashion communities. A community showed a closed mind rather than open mind, disregarding or comparing with other communities and preventing their members from participation. A community had strict fashion rules and obvious classes, leading to participatory restriction. In conclusion, domestic minor fashion communities showed the most significant characteristic of a selective vertical structure by individual and community rather than a vertical structure by a society.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.63 no.2
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• pp.1-13
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• 2013

The purpose of this study is to examine how the features of network in the Internet fashion community affect the diffusion of fashion information to members in the online community with other variables (informative features, consumer features). Communities that actively exchange fashion information among their members were selected for the social network analysis and hypothesis verification. As a result, we found that a few information activists influenced most of the information receivers in the network features of fashion communities. Also, we found that the informative features (usefulness, reliability), consumer features (NFC, innovation) as well as the network features (connectivity, power), have a significant influence on the diffusion of Internet fashion information which verified the importance of the network features in the study on the Internet.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.35 no.8
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• pp.877-889
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• 2011

This study investigates the effects of social media's fashion advertisements. A survey was taken among men and women in their twenties who had experiences with fashion brand social media. A total of 270 questionnaires were used in this analysis. The results are as follows: First, the factors of content and pursuit of information had positive (+) impacts on advertisement attitude for both men and women in the fashion brand communities. Only the pursuit of information had positive (+) effects on men's brand attitude; however, economy, self-satisfaction, and the pursuit of information influenced women's brand attitude and purchase intention. Secondly, in fashion brand video UCCs, pursuit of information and the formation of relationships had positive (+) impacts on men and women, respectively. The formation of relationships had positive (+) impacts on men's brand attitude; however, the formation of relationships and the pursuit of information influenced women's brand attitude. The pursuit of information and formation of relationships had a positive (+) influences on men's and women's purchase intention, respectively. Men had differences in the pursuit of information and advertisement attitude in the two types of fashion brand communities and video UCCs; however, women had differences in economy and self-satisfaction, advertisement attitude, and brand attitude in the two types. The study results provide basic data by examining men and women in their twenties who have easy access to the Internet for advertisement attitude, brand attitude, and purchase intention in social media as an online fashion advertising media as well as useful information for establishing marketing strategies.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.45 no.10
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• pp.21-31
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to clarify the factors that characterize the fashion brand online communities that have a high participation rate among high school students, and to determine the impact of those factors on the high school students' commitment to the community, especially in relation to their demographics. The study was implemented through a descriptive survey method using an online questionnaire. The sample consisted of 301 members of online fashion brand communities operated on the Daum portal site. The data were analyzed by frequency, factor analysis, and regression analysis. The results are as follows: (1) Factor analysis revealed that the characteristics of a fashion brand online community are associated with three factors ; compensation/interest, interactivity, and information. (2) Regression analysis showed that the more compensation/interest, opportunity for interaction, and information the community provides, the more likely high school student members are to show a higher level of commitment to the community. (3) There was no difference in the effect of community attribute factors on the high school student members' commitment to the community according to gender. The group of students majoring in human and liberal education was the most influenced by the attributes of fashion brand online communities. The interactivity factor had a greater impact on the group of students majoring in art and physical education than on the other groups. The greater the use of the Internet, the greater the impact of community attributes on commitment. (4) In the process of developing an online community, marketers should fully consider the fact that information factors have the biggest impact on high school students' commitment to the community. Therefore, greater effort should be made to differentiate between community attributes based on high school students' majors and their amount of Internet use in order to motivate commitment to the community and brand loyalty as well.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.208-217
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• 2014

This study focuses on analyzing a subset of consumer activities (especially social medium) in their wedding preparation. The focus of this study is on wedding online communities and understanding the impact of communities on selective behavior for information-acceptance. Data was compiled based on female consumers in their 20s and 30s who actively participate in online community forums. It included female consumers preparing for their weddings and individuals interested in weddings. A total of 211 questionnaires were collected from January $10^{th}$ to $23^{rd}$ in 2012. The online communities were identified from Naver, Yahoo, and online search portals; subsequently, they were rank-sorted based on number of members, visitors, and forum posts. We identified four different characteristic based on the findings from the analysis of on-line wedding communities. The characteristic of these communities were divided into sharing experience, functionality of the webpage, informativeness, and interactivity; consequently, use of these online communities is based on trust and significant personal relationships between the members online. Out of the four different community characteristics, sharing experience was found to have a greater impact for the selective behavior of wedding dresses and information- acceptance than the functionality of the webpage, interactivity, and informativeness. We conclude that trust in information provided by members with marriage process experience is the foremost important factor in the behavior of individual consumers wit iexplore.exe -extoff hout marriage process experience. Therefore, the impact of these online communities catering to would-be brides is based on the trust of posters and how well it is articulated.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.13 no.2 s.55
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• pp.318-328
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• 2005

Our interest in human body is more and more increasing. Not only academic and art communities but also other social communities show a keen interest in the human body. Especially, the breast of women's body parts may be comparable to men's penis because it is protruded. The breast which sexually distinguishes women from men becomes an important topic in the fashion design community. Therefore, such designs which emphasize the breast are being introduced in a natural way. This paper aims at examining the reason and symbolism for the exposure of breast and analyzing the fashion design that breast is exposed. This study will help us grasp the meaning which the design has. The exposure's scope of breast in the design includes the partial exposure, total exposure and the concealment of breast. But these all have their effects in each scope. For this paper, some general things were investigated. They are as follows: the phases of breast exposure in the fashion design, the exposure of breast expressed in the works of fine art, and the alteration of breast-exposing phenomenon shown in apparels. Then, each type of breast-exposing design shown in the women's fashion was analyzed from the middle of 1980s' when the phenomenon of breast exposure occurred to the year 2004. These could be divided into 4 types. They include a suggestive type, an exaggerative type, an open type and a reproductive type. As the result of analysis of 4 types, such meanings of design as an emphasis of femininity, an expression of liberty, a symbol of maternity and a commercialization of sex could be analogized.