KOREASCHOLAR

As social media has become a part of daily life, new types of online opinion leaders are emerging, and in turn, changes in traditional fashion leaders and leadership are expected. Considering such changes, this study attempted to reexamine fashion leader types and influence characteristics from the perspective of college students as fashion followers. Students were asked to write an essay identifying their fashion leader and how and why they were influenced by him or her. Sixty essays entitled “My Fashion Leader” were collected and content-analyzed. A total of 78 fashion leaders were identified and categorized into four types including celebrities, social media influencers, friends/family/acquaintances, and people seen on the street in order of frequency. Influence characteristics of the identified fashion leaders included superiority, role model, similarity, and familiarity. Similarity was observed across all types of fashion leaders, while superiority and familiarity were identified for celebrities and friends/family/acquaintances, respectively. The results imply that celebrities, mostly those from the TV, movie, and music industries, are still important as fashion leaders in society regardless of their communication style, while friends/ family/acquaintances as opinion leaders within a consumer group are important to provide information, advice, and help. However, social media influencers between the two groups are expanding the influence.

Abstract
 I. Introduction
 Ⅱ. Literature Review
  1. Fashion leaders and characteristics
  2. Fashion leaders in social media
  3. Characteristics in the fashion leader influences
 Ⅲ. Research Method
 Ⅳ. Result and Discussion
  1. Types of fashion leaders
  2. Characteristics in the fashion leader influences
  3. Preferred fashion styles
 Ⅴ. Conclusion
 References

• Kyungae Park(Dept. of Clothing and Fashion, Yeungnam University) | 박경애 Corresponding author