• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.704-712
• /
• 2013

Contemporary young men are consumption-oriented, pursue ideal male images displayed in commercials, and are highly interested in fashion, beauty, and appearance. This metrosexual tendency(which values appearance) is largely influenced by mass media. This study examines how men's media information utilization influences appearance awareness and metrosexual tendency as well as how these two variables influence cosmetics consumption and fashion product consumption behavior. The results are as follows. First, metrosexual tendency consists of four dimensions: fashion involvement, pursuit of individuality beyond sexuality, cognition of fashion taste, and preference of a high quality product. The sum of variance is 65.594%. Second, media information utilization influenced metrosexual tendency and metrosexual tendency influence cosmetic consumption, brand-sensitive consumption and commercial-sensitive consumption; however, it did not affect price-sensitive consumption. Third, media information utilization affected appearance awareness; however, appearance awareness did not affect metrosexual tendency. In conclusion, appearance management behavior for men in their 20s is clearly affected by media. This phenomenon is caused by the metrosexual desire to express identity through fashion. Men in their 20's do not take care of their looks because of the social perception of appearance (as related to showing off their competence or pursuit of social success); rather, they have a desire to express their individuality and personally enjoy grooming and maintaining their appearance. Therefore, we can expect increased beauty and fashion expenditures.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
• /
• v.60 no.7
• /
• pp.1-13
• /
• 2010

The purpose of this study is to review changes of gender identity of men as a sexual role changes and their cognition on fashion and to analyze changes and features of their fashion required in the diversified era and suggest implications for future men's fashion design. To understand a correlation between a change of men's gender styles and fashion and aesthetic features and differences by gender style, this study analyzed significant brands of the men's design market. The results of this study are as followings. First, metrosexual and uebersexual were mixed in the 1990's and the 2000's. The ratio of uebersexual in the 1990's was higher as three times as metrosexual. On the other hand, the ratio of metrosexual in the 2000's was higher than uebersexual by about 3.5%. It implicates that there were significant changes in design of men's clothes between the 1990's and the 2000's. Second, aesthetic properties and differences of metrosexual and uebersexual obtained from the survey. Metrosexual fashion uses almost all details and has no limit in using materials and accessories. The other side, uebersexual fashion rarely has details. In conclusion, this study showed that the relationship between male and fashion on the social and cultural phenomena. which have been recognized that there is a low correlation, is being newly established as a sexual role changes by gender.

• Journal of Fashion Business
• /
• v.10 no.3
• /
• pp.117-128
• /
• 2006

The purpose of this study was to understand changes of the current young generation's lifestyle, aesthetic attitude for an appearance, and way of thinking by making a close investigation into metrosexual, the recent mode, and find out its cultural and social implications. As a method of the study, the literature and the Internet data were reviewed. Articles from newspapers, magazines and the Internet were chosen roughly from the year 2000 to now because metrosexual mode remarkably boomed before and after 2000. Books related to the theory on the mode in a costume culture were referred. Also, articles in daily newspapers which dealt with cultural and social issues were reviewed, fashion magazines for men such as Esquire and GQ showing the new trend in men's lifestyle and fashion were examined, and the Internet providing us the latest news from cultural and social topics to fashion trends were investigated. The backgrounds of the rise of metrosexual mode were a collapse of stereotypes in various fields, spread of lookism in a visual image period, extension of commercialism, and expansion of men's character casual trend. Metrosexual was defined as an urban male with a strong aesthetic sense who spends a great deal of time and money on his appearance and lifestyle. His fashion style was characterized by slim and flowing silhouette, feminine and luxurious materials such as transparent chiffon, silk and cotton with a light and soft touch, and a knitted wear with a flowing line, a wide variety of vivid and pastel colors, floral and geometric patterns, and the decorative details like lace, beads, embroidery, and fur. From spread of this mode, two cultural and social implications were extracted. Firstly, the current young generation's aesthetic standards for the perfect man changed from macho man to considerate man who had a good appearance and this suggested that a conventional sex role broke down. Secondly, men began to explore for their own identity escaping from traditionally standardized masculinity that they had been forced to follow.

• Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.99-113
• /
• 2007

This study aims to investigate the concepts and characteristics of Metrosexual and Ubersexual image which are the recent fashion phenomena representing the lifestyles of comtemporary men, and to analyze the design of contemporary men's fashion based on the represented characteristics of these sexual images. To accomplish these ends, various related publications, articles and papers, divers serial publications, and numerous internet articles are collectively reviewed for theoretical studies, and design analysis are conducted for content analysis(style, color, material, detail, etc) using photo data taken from the collections from 2001 through 2006. The results of this study shows that recent appearance of Metrosexual and Ubersexual fashion image represents the change of aesthetic standards in the contemporary society. With the influence of sociocultural phenomena which allow the pursuit of individual personality, the contemporary men, instead of expressing the socialized sexual identity, came to acquire the freedom of sexual identity which represents their personal desires. As an expression of hmnan will to pursue unrestricted sensibility and aesthetic sense, these sexual phenomena of Metrosexual and Ubersexual will be reinterpreted and reappear in various forms as the social atmosphere and aesthetic standards changes.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.382-390
• /
• 2006

In the 21st century, men is expressing the femininity instead of the muscularity. And a boundary line between a man and a woman is not clear any more. A man is interested in the lifestyle of a woman, and he imitates her fashion styles, hairstyles, accessories, make-up, and plastic surgery. He is called as "Metrosexual" or "Crossexual". Nowadays, men as well as women can satisfy the wants for beauty. The beautiful appearance of a man has a good impact on the social relationships. The feminizing trends are generally accepted and are shown in the silhouettes, details, colors, fabrics and accessories. The feminizing trends in men's knitwear are shown in the various items. They have slim silhouettes and feminine details. Also they are made of bulky yarns or fancy yarns, and various stitches for texture effects. The most outstanding changes in men's knitwear are the vivid colors and flower patterns.

• Proceedings of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association Conference
• /
• 2005.06a
• /
• pp.72-76
• /
• 2005

• Proceedings of the Korea Society of Costume Conference
• /
• 2004.10a
• /
• pp.52-53
• /
• 2004

• Proceedings of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association Conference
• /
• 2005.06a
• /
• pp.77-78
• /
• 2005

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

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.13 no.7
• /
• pp.80-90
• /
• 2013

Despite the growing popularity of gay consumers as a fetching niche market, there has been little academic attention paid to the homosexual themes in print media, especially compared to research on gender, race, and sex imagery in ads. The present study aims to fill this void by examining advertisements with three different target audiences(homosexual, metrosexual, retrosexual consumer) through a comparative analysis of contemporary magazine advertisements. In this present study, we analyzed ads in three leading men's magazines (Out, GQ, and Maxim). Product (product category, price, and luxury brand) and human model (basic descriptions, sexuality, status, and masculinity) characteristics in ads were analyzed as the variables signifying the degrees of gay themes in ads across three magazines. The results showed that more expensive luxury brands were placed in GQ and Out than Maxim, and more male models were under-sexualized in Maxim than GQ and Out.