As fashion has concentrated increasingly on inner values, it has become more directly connected with human life and society. This study analyzed anti-fashion, a movement that resists mainstream society and culture, which it views as causing inner conflicts such as competition, mammonism, consumerism, and egoism by fixating solely on the pursuit of growth and improvement. The study examined Kinfolk, an independent lifestyle magazine, to determine the essential values and principles that comprise this movement’s refusal of mainstream modern society. The analysis of Kinfolk identified the following characteristics of, the Kinfolk lifestyle: essentialism, nature-friendliness, retro sensibilities, socio-ethical awareness, and diversity. Essentialism refers to the pursuit of essence, brevity, innovation based on tradition and slow life. Nature-friendliness involves communion with nature and humanity, animal-friendliness, de-industrialization, de-urbanization, and nomadic behavior. The components of the retro sensibility include nostalgia, and interests in vintage culture, and handcrafts. Diversity encompasses commonplaceness, various subcultures, agelessness, genderlessness, acceptance of other cultures, and new understanding. The analysis identified the tendencies of anti-fashion in Kinfolk magazine as simplicity, naturalism, resistance to novelty, ethics, and inclusiveness. Anti-fashion pursues the essential values of human life that have been lost or forgotten in modern society. It is important to pay constant attention to the values of minority, non-mainstream and indie cultures that represent anti-fashion. It exerts considerable influence and has great potential as an area for the development of various style-based paradigms rather than as a single fashion direction.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the meaning of soul fashion in American pop culture. This study was conducted using a literature research method based on the prior theses, journals and relevant books. Soul as a concept, originated in African-American communities and evolved from the ideology of Black Power, which prompted Black Nationalism. Soul fashion, which took on two styles in African American culture began to embody black resistance and community pride in the late 20th century. One of these, hip-hop style represented the message of resistance and a sense of beauty outside the mainstream. The other, African–inspired fashion, which utilized a look inspired by African tradition, rejected white supremacy by expressing a proud dignity. As a result, the meaning of “soul” in soul fashion represented by American pop culture resulted in contrasting appearance due to different elements. First, one of its meanings is ironic and sarcastic, and it expressed historical trauma, cultural stereotypes, self-hatred, and self-degradation and, the self-mutilation of African-American by cynically distorting their silhouettes and, using modified materials and patterns, fantastic colors, and extraordinary accessories. Second, the other meanings is the pride and dignity of Black Power, which visualized the concentration of ideas implied by the tradition of African-American, through soul fashion by using fierce traditional of African costumes, unique patterns and accessories.

The areas of fashion research and fashion design aesthetics & fashion history have been studied under a common research heading as a Humanities subject in the UK and the USA, and as Clothing and Textiles Studies in Korea. The purpose of this paper was to analyze the 2004~2013 research tendencies in terms of reporting methods and contents from 181 world-renowned Fashion Theory research papers within the UK and USA fashion research corpus, and 359 Korean research papers from The Research Journal of Costume Culture related to fashion design aesthetics & costume history field. The subject areas, periods, methodologies, and differences in the topics of the studies were examined. The results of the research are as follows. Regarding the research authorship and length of the research papers, in Fashion Theory most papers were written by a single English-speaking or other foreign language-speaking author and were on average longer than 21 pages, while in The Research Journal of Costume Culture, many papers were jointly written by two Korean researchers and were between 11 and 20 pages. Regarding the content, Fashion Theory was connected to relatively wide and diverse periodical and regional boundaries including the body, clothing, the fashion media, and the overall fashion system, while The Research Journal of Costume Culture revolved around the body and clothing, textiles, the fashion media, and costumes. In addition, since the late 20th century, the studies appeared to be related to the current Western world overall or to the country of the author. Regarding the research methodology, Fashion Theory used diverse research subjects and methodologies, and research was conducted on topics relating to fashion culture or fashion aesthetics. On the other hand, The Research Journal of Costume Culture featured relatively more dynamic studies aimed at suggesting developments or solutions to problems. It was found that a large share of that research focused on detailed style analyses and suggestions for aspects such as design elements and design developments. Such differences are considered to be caused by the inherent differences between the academic departments for the Humanities, and the Human Ecology. The above research results are expected to provide fundamental information in setting a direction for future research to assist the globalization of domestic research.

In modern society as people adapt to social and cultural changes, people prefer high-scarcity designed products rather than standardized ones. Consequently, this adaptation lays a foundation in art and cultural domains to express uniqueness and individuality. The purpose of this study is to develop fashion designs by fusing fashion painting and handicraft techniques through creative and various artistic expressions. The researchers studied the sociocultural background of modern handicraft fashion using document-based research methods. Based on the characteristics of modern handicraft, we produced six garments that applied fashion painting techniques. In this study, the origin of fashion painting was found in ornaments such as tattoo or body-painting. We determined that modern designers were using various fashion painting techniques and motives as unique and advanced ornamentary skills. Harmonizing various handicraft techniques(dyeing, embroidery, quilt, patchwork, beads, fashion painting, etc.) centered on fashion painting enabled creation of unique fashion design through varieties of artistic expressions.