2002 Volume 45 Issue 2 Pages 69-75
All human behavior is self-presentation and it can be said that it has symbol meaning. However, way of self-presentation is thought to vary according to a person's socio-economic conditions. That is because people have different life-styles and life conditions, which greatly influence how they think behave.
Therefore, clothing behavior, which represents one way of self-presentation, is also thought to vary according to a person's socio-economic conditions. Furthermore, it may be thought that differences in socio-economic conditions produce difference in clothing behavior. If the difference in socio-economic conditions is social s tratification, it can be said that clothing behavior is different by social s tratification.
Moreover, clothing behavior has symbolic meaning. Therefore, it can be said that a person's character can be determined from the person's clothing behavior.
Is a difference in clothing behavior according to the social stratification seen in modern Korean society? And what kind of difference is seen if there is a difference in clothing behavior? This research investigated these questions and attempted to discover the relationship between fashion and social stratification.
Korean women's college students were divided into three social stratifications. Then, their clothing behavior was extracted according their social stratification, and common characteristics or types of clothing behavior by social stratification were then looked for.
As a result, it became clear that clothing behavior was different according to social stratification. And, types could be prescribed from these results. Therefore, fashion is differed by condition, life-style, value, attitude, individual socio-economy. Also, fashion is deeply concerned with the occupation which becomes the index of the social s tratification, income, education level, property, and so on. In other words, a fashion is a symbol which shows the individual social stratification like a function in the materially rich modern Korean society.
