Journal of the Korean Society of Costume (복식)

The Korean Society of Costume (한국복식학회)
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The Relationship between the State of the Economy and High Heel Height - Based on Pump Style Shoes on Fashion Editorial Section of US Vogue -

경제와 여성 구두 굽 높이 변화의 관계 - 미국 Vogue 패션편집란에 실린 펌프스타일을 중심으로 -

  • Ahn, Insook (Dept. of Fashion Design, Chung-Ang University)
  • 안인숙 (중앙대학교 예술대학 디자인학부 패션디자인)
  • Received : 2015.08.05
  • Accepted : 2015.10.09
  • Published : 2015.11.30
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Abstract

This study is to investigate the relationships between heel height and macro-economic factors - recession and unemployment; and to analyze the time lags reflecting economic factors on heel height index using U.S. data. The life-history evolution theory was applied to propose the relationships studied. The data for the heel height measurements of women's shoes - pump style only - were obtained from US Vogue fashion editorial sections on spring and fall editions from 1950 to 2014. I divided the heel height by the length of the shoes in order to standardize the data. Total of 1581 samples were used, and heel height data were aggregated to create a yearly average. To explore the relationships between macro-economic factors and heel height, this study used OLS of Stata 13 program. The main findings show that unemployment rates influenced heel height for three years in a positive direction. Furthermore, the effects of unemployment rate from two years ago on the current heel height were very close to being on a significant level.

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References

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