Abstract
This paper examines the trends in women’s fashion magazines read by female students (vocational schools, junior colleges, and universities) during a three-year peiod from 2008 through 2010.
Magazines characterized as gyaru-kei (gal style), such as ViVi and JELLY, were more popular among university students and junior college students than they were among vocational school students, while those characterized as mohdo-kei (mode style or high fashion), such as Soen and FUDGE, showed the opposite tendency (p ＜ 0.001). ZIPPER, Sweet, Soup, and PS did not show any significant differences in their popularity among the three types of schools.
The 2010 top ten popular women’s fashion magazines included JELLY and BRENDA (judai-gyarukei or gal style for teens), Soen and FUDGE (mohdo-kei), ViVi (o-nee-kei or older sister style), Non-no, and Soup. (nachuraru-kei or natural style), Sweet (otona-gyaru-kei or gal style for adults), and Zipper (sutoriito-kei or street style), proving the validity of classifying these magazines into six groups.
Structural equation modeling revealed that the lower a female student’s consciousness of fashion behavior was, the more she preferred magazines characterized as nachuraru-kei, while the higher the consciousness, the more she preferred gyaru-kei magazines.
