As the number of North Korean refugees increases in South Korean, their acculturation to life in their host country is coming to be an important social issue. This study explores some clothing-related barriers experienced by North Korean refugees and their moderating effects on acculturation to South Korea. Data were collected using a self-administered survey of 163 female and 37 male North Korean refugees in South Korea aged 20 to 69 years. Descriptive analyses, t-tests, ANOVA, Duncan tests, and moderated multiple regression were conducted using SPSS 20.0 and Process Macro v.3.3. The results show that the North Korean refugees who participated in the study had experienced clothing-related barriers regarding fashion terminology and shopping rituals in South Korea. In particular, those in their 60s perceived more clothing-related barriers than those in their 20s and 30s. Next, the clothing-related barriers experienced by North Korean refugees have a negative moderating influence on the relationship between self-esteem and acculturation in South Korea. This study provides a deeper understanding of the relationship between fashion and the acculturation of North Korean refugees to South Korea. The results of the study can be also helpful of government policy makers, practitioners, and academics to develop education programs for North Korean refugees.

This research aims to shed a light on the benefits and perceived risks to the willingness to use perceived by consumers, centering on design-customizing service catering to individuals’ tastes and needs, and to study their impacts on the use of a design-customizing service. The validation of how benefits and perceived risks affect the intention to use showed that only aesthetic and self-expressive benefits had significant impacts on the willingness to use. However, only time/economic loss and self-design risks had negative impacts on the willingness to use a service. By gender, there was no difference in benefits and perceived risks to willingness to use for the benefit factors, whereas in terms of perceived risks to willingness to use factors. By age, there were also differences in the effects of benefits and perceived risks to purchase on the willingness to use a rash guard customizing service. There were variations in the perceived risks to the willingness to use and benefits depending on age. In particular, it was found that there were no perceived risks to the willingness to use for the age group of 10s. As design-customizing services based on individual tastes have drawn more attention recently, this research on the benefits and perceived risks to purchasing a rash guard design customizing service, as well as their effects on service use (particularly backed up by comparative analysis by gender and age), is expected to provide insights into design-customizing service strategy development.