• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.61 no.8
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• pp.100-113
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• 2011

The earlier notion of feminism regarding gender equality was changed into that of Postfeminism because of gender differences. The idea of Postfeminism has been present since the 1980s but has been influenced by modern culture theories such as Postmodernism, Poststructuralism, Theory of Power and Discourse and Psychoanalysis. Various features of Postfeminism are found in the medieval warrior images of contemporary fashion. Warrior costumes were men's exclusive property in the medieval ages, but as it is introduced as women's wear in the 21st century, it shows us new fashion images which are constructed by gender deconstruction, differences and pastiche. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to examine a key characteristic of Postfeminism fashion. An article described the historical costumes of medieval warriors and refocused on the development processes of feminism and then conducted an analysis on formative characteristics and Postfeminism tendencies in contemporary women's wear from 2000 to 2011. The results were that materials such as metallic and flexible materials, monotonic and red colors and detailed patterns of armor were used to display forms of exaggeration and restraint. These elements fully and correctly expressed the image of a medieval warrior woman in contemporary fashion. Postfeminism fashion is constructed with feminine power, gendered identity, sensual elegance and a postmodern body. Postfeminism is the contemporary cultural icon and is continuously influencing modern fashion design in the 21st century in a positive and powerful way.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.65 no.5
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• pp.1-13
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to make a contribution to men's fashion by analyzing changes related to excessive and decorative expressions of latest men's wear design in the viewpoint of Maximalism, and using the results to develop a new fashion style. Results of the study are as follows: The characteristics of Maximalism in men's wear collection in the last 5 years can be classified as 'Fusion Maximalism, 'Decorative Maximalism', 'Exaggerative Maximalism', 'Humorous Maximalism', and 'Duplicative Maximalism'. The characteristics of each type of Maximalism can be summarized as follows: First, Fusion Maximalism creates new men's fashion style by fusing designs from different cultures in clothing items as well as dismantling gender boundaries in clothing design, and by having designs which transcends time and space. Second, Decorative Maximalism expresses ambiguous decadence by implementing feminine decoration that applies handicraft technique, as well as exaggeratedly using details and trimmings of contrasting images, and applying women's clothing items. Third, Exaggerative Maximalism represents extreme avant-garde that changes the idea of fashion design by changing the styling or the exaggerated silhouette. Fourth, Humorous Maximalism expresses not only the creation of new men's fashion look, but also expresses humanism with exaggerative enjoyment and pleasant ideas. Fifth, Duplicative Maximalism expresses creative design by implementing vivid images of different period and culture, and reproducing successful images of the past into modern fashion.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.891-902
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to analyze sexual images in the 21th century men's fashion, including phenomenal formative changes and characteristics. Theoretical framework was developed based on literature reviews. Photo images were collected from collections presented in 2001 to 2008 on the internet sites. By focusing on sexual image. men's fashion design was analyzed. Since 21th century, men have expressed their own fashion sense and sexual image quite freely. Men's fashion has expanded its scope into region which are not exclusively of men's traditional fashion identity realm. The result of this study is as follows: First, Noble Dandyism is common among noble dandies whose desired image is luxurious, soft, and sophisticated. Second, Bisexual Caportism is another appealing 'Youth is beautiful' trend of our modern age. Beyond age and gender, modern people pay a special attention to the Caports look which aims to project an image of healthiness, dynamism, youth, and pure balanced beauty combined with fashion. Third, Macho Narcissism enjoys showing and exposing well-trained and beautiful bodies, compared to the old masculine image which was more known for expressing an authoritative and dominant strength. Fourth, Homme Fatale Vampicism seeks to accentuate deconstructed femininity and bare legs, matted make-up, long and curly hair, especially aims to emphasize sexual charms, which naturally makes its image more fascinating.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.61 no.6
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• pp.60-73
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• 2011

Men's fashion has not much changed due to the pervasive patriarchy Because of the change of gender roll and attitude towards one's appearance and fashion, men began to express themselves with fashion in the late 90's. The purpose of this study is to categorize men's image and their fashion styles from Korean TV dramas to provide informations for predicting men's fashion trend in rapidly changing market. Through the analysis of three dramas with 30% or more of audience rating by all age groups from January to July, 2009, nine distinctive male images were selected and their styles were analyzed; silhouette, details, materials, color, accessories, and hair-style. The results are as follows: In the past holding neat and straight line silhouettes but today shows tight silhouette. In color and detail, the use of brilliant chromatic colors, use of hight saturation colors, big and brilliant pattern, ruffles, frills, beads, knitwear, mix matched new composed materials, and light materials are dominant. While short and simple shape of hair-styles were predominant in the past, now we see more varied hair length. Not only that, variety of perms and colors are showed on TV screens. Hence, the results show that a lot of radical change has happened in the men's fashion, and marketing propositions that reflects this change in men's fashion market are requested along with trendy emotional product development and coordination proposals, and finally calls for more multilateral study and market search of male consumers.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.197-204
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• 2000

With the current of the end of a century and social, economic, political, and cultural turbulence, people take advantage of the various ways to express their stagnation. This study introduces the term representativity and it will explain the men's fashion of the end of a century. On a theoretical basis, the concept of the representativity, image, symbol and imitation which are used as a tool for expression will be examined, and together with this, inner representation and outer representation will be categorized. The inner representation of the men's fashion in the end of a century can be taken for the purpose of connecting the image of masculinity. The image of masculinity is widely spread owing to the mass communication of a consumption-oriented society, so its hard to define that image as one thing specific. Hence, in order to discuss the male gender and mens fashion, New Man phenomenon should be noticed of. 1980's New Man influence has lasted till now. New Man images were largely categorized into two images like New Lad and Iron John after the mid 1990's. Therefore, the image of masculinity is largely classified New lad, who desires success and pursues the hedonistic life style and Iron John, who enjoys thrill and follows economical life style. The image of masculinity has influence on the outer representation how it is imitated and symbolized via many designer's works and street fashion. Two masculinity images are dominant over the men's fashion of the end of a century. One is inhumane and rational corporate power look that stems from symbolization and imitation of New Lad. The other is outdoor casual that originated from the symbolization and imitation of Iron John.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.58-73
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• 2015

The purpose of this study is to examine the characteristics of men's wear designs unveiled while Hedi Slimane worked for Dior Homme and Yves Saint Laurent. The study will analyze and focusing on the modernistic characteristics in order to discover the postmodernism trends in his works. The results of the research are as follows. First, Hedi Slimane's fashion style can be cited as grunge and punk due to the trend of expressing the subculture of postmodernism. The design features shown in Dior Homme were straight lines, leather, metallic materials and dark colors used to reinterpret a grungy punk style, romantic patterns, glossy materials, elastic leather, and bright colors were the salient features of Yves Saint Laurent. Second, the feature of cultural pluralism of postmodernism appeared as a type ethnic style. He presented this through the Third World images in the Dior Homme but Spanish matador images, Marrakech's images and North African images in the Yves Saint Laurent. Third, he feature of his style is metrosexual feminizing men's fashion and breaking up gender stereotypes. I-type and X-type silhouettes that emphasize the human body and feminine design motifs such as a skirt are dominated in Dior Homme, and he completed the metrosexual style by using materials, colors and patterns such as bright feminine pink, red, laces, fur, floral and leopard prints, as well as flagrantly expressing body contour.

• International Journal of Costume and Fashion
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.29-45
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• 2014

In the contemporary world, fashionable bodies are socially constructed in light of current idealized images. Media portrayal of such images can have negative health implications. This issue has long been problematic for women. Nowadays, men are subject to more scrutiny regarding their bodies, although male body image has been studied far less than female body image. In this position paper based on a review of the major studies that have been conducted on men and body image, we summarize the findings from these state-of-the-art studies that have been recently published in academic journals. Three themes related to male body image were extracted: socio-cultural ideals, masculinity, and minority men. This study adds to the literature I that it demonstrates that men experience and view their bodies differently from women, though some behaviors, such as disordered eating, are similar. Other behaviors, such as the drive for muscularity, are couched in the context of the social construction of gender and power. Most of the studies were done on white, heterosexual populations of young men, and nearly all used quantitative research methods. Little research has been conducted on ethnic and sexual minorities. We conclude with a discussion of what we need to know, and to that end, we suggest future avenues of research.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.63 no.6
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• pp.29-39
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• 2013

In this study, the image of the male body represented in fashion advertisement is analyzed based on discourses on the male body. Fashion brand advertisements, which emphasized the images of the male body, were selected from two magazines: GQ, a men's magazine, and VOGUE, a representative women's magazine. The published dates of the selected images were from Feb. 2010 to Oct. 2012, and these images were used for the analysis. The study results of the discourse on the male body appearing in fashion advertisement based on the discussion of changing masculinity suggests the following 4 features: i) macho, powerful and muscular male representing the hegemonic manhood; ii) refined and decorated male representing the wealthy and disengaged figure of a successful businessman; iii) androgynous male represented by the deconstruction of masculinity and femininity embedded in gender; iv) as an aesthetic object, the male with sex role of changed from a subject to an ornament, whose body becomes the object of voyeuristic view. This study tried to grasp the ideal and modern masculinity, and in particular, attempted to offer suggestions in different approaches to the male body image depending on the consumer type in order to enhance the brand image. This new masculinity is thought to be a foundation on which the advertisement and products suitable for the demands of future customers can be produced.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2014

The purposes of the study were to explore differences in preference for clothing images according to wearing situations and clothing product involvement. A questionnaire was developed by the researcher and was collected by 101 men and 100 women aged between 40 and 59. Data were analyzed by factor analysis, repeated measure ANOVA, t-test adjusted by Bonferroni, paired sample t-test, and independent sample t-test. The results of the study showed that clothing images were classified into five factors including hard cold image, modern urban image, bold unique image, and heavy luxurious image. There were significant differences in preference among clothing images according to wearing situations and clothing product involvement. While modern urbane image was most preferred, hard cold image was least preferred in both formal and informal wearing situations, and for either high or low involvement clothing products. Also, there were significant differences in clothing image preference according to wearing situations and product involvement. In formal situations, stronger preference for modern urban image and heavy luxurious image showed than in informal situations, and bold unique image and heavy luxurious image were more preferred for high involvement clothing product than for low involvement clothing product. In addition, there were significant differences in preferences for clothing images between groups according to gender and age. In both formal and informal situations, men showed stronger preferences than women for hard cold image, but women for bold unique image. For either high or low involvement clothing products, men preferred hard cold image, modern urban image and heavy luxurious image more than women, but women preferred bold unique image more than men. Lastly, for high involvement clothing product, subjects aged fifties showed stronger preferences than forties for modern urban image and heavy luxurious image, but for low involvement clothing product, modern urban image was more preferred.

• Journal of Fashion Business
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.100-116
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• 2008

This study aims to analyze the characteristics of deconstruction-ism expressed in the fashion of Alexander McQueen. The method and contents of this study are as follows. The three large categories for analysis are indeterminacy, decentralization, and intertextuality. The indeterminacy of meaning is divided into unstructured and unorganized factors in fashion, while decentralization can be categorized into cross-gender, subculture, and post-humanism. Lastly, inter-textuality is classified into factors of mixing mode and mixed styles. Materials for analysis were chosen from a total of 616 designs from the website, www.firstview.com, which carries McQueen's collection from 2000 S/S through 2007 F/W. My analysis qualitatively evaluates the frequency of each category and the characteristics of design. The result of this study is as followed. First, the avant-garde facets of inter-textuality are most prominent. In particular, McQueen has introduced retro fashion and ethnic factors of the third world, not to copy them but to create hybrid designs by using pastiches and mixing fashion styles. Moreover, he has enjoyed using two fabrics of different texture in order to inflict a shock and contrast, thus enriching his fashion. Second, the indeterminacy of meaning is the second most frequently shown facet of McQueen's fashion design. McQueen has employed unstructured expression techniques, which dismantle harmony and balance, the basic rule of design, and has presented unorganized images free from basic forms of design. He has made a new attempt to acknowledge clothing as an expressive artwork by allowing clothes to take a complete form when a person actually wears them. Third, the aspects of decentralization were also shown in McQueen's design. His trans-gender clothing dissolves the traditional division of men and women and adopts a mixed gender expression. Furthermore, he has even tried to express a fourth gender by connecting the human with machine or animal or by connecting the material with the non-material.