Cultural Reinvention: Design management for Korean cultural textile products

The subject dealt with in this thesis is to develop design management models for a translation from a traditional cultural product into a modern product to meet a relevant target market. This thesis provides a review of the basic disciplines of culture, cultural product and design management. Attention is focused on the concept of cultural reinvention as an effective design management tool for producing a successful cultural product, which can fit into a contemporary market. The focus of this research describes how to translate Korean traditional bojagi textile products into modern fashion products for young generation consumers. A cultural reinvention model is proposed for Korean traditional bojagi textiles, which includes the design and target marketing strategies and internet marketing for effective communication with target consumers. To understand the target consumer preferences, a colour experiment was conducted among the target consumers for the Korean traditional five colours (“obangsaek”), which are mainly used for bojagi. For using internet marketing, a Korean bojagi website was developed including an interactive bojagi design tool, which is designed through six categories; history, style, patterns, colours, fabrics of the traditional Korean bojagi and the ‘design your own bojagi’ component. It can be utilised for consumer preference, product development and the early promotion of Korean fashion bojagi fabrics. It also opens up an opportunity to be a research tool as an educational web based interface. Five focus group interviews were conducted among the young generation consumers to evaluate the usability and entertainment (enjoyable) values of the Korean bojagi website. Furthermore, to evaluate the commercial value of the fashion bojagi applications, a Korean bojagi sample book was produced and used for interviewing four fashion companies in the UK. The findings and results of the experiment and the interviews are described and the development of each part of the website and applications is explained and illustrated.