A Study on the Characteristics and Fashion Images of Female Political Leaders

Abstract

: Woman leadership has been remarkably highlighted with women's accelerating entry into society. Domestic and overseas interests about political leaders began with the age of media and they are rapidly spreading worldwide with the development of internet, SNS and blog. Along with this phenomenon, exposure of images has been remarkably increasing and fashion has been also used as a political strategy. However, the research on woman political leaders has been insufficient so this study selected Geunhye Park, Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton as representative woman leaders for the research. 149 pictures of Geunhye Park, 171 pictures of Michelle Obama and 124 pictures of Hillary Clinton from the articles containing their pictures from Jan. 2002 to Dec. 2013 were analyzed, focusing on their gender. The three woman political leaders' typical images of femininity, masculinity and androgyny were categorized respectively and the period and works in which those images had been expressed were reviewed. Also, fashion styles of the images pursued by each gender were analyzed through their color, material, silhouette, design point, items and accessories. As a result, Geunhye Park had femininity image at the beginning and had masculinity image when she did election campaigns, which led to her current image of androgyny. Michelle Obama uses the image of femininity, masculinity and androgyny simultaneously. It was found that Hillary Clinton emphasized the image of masculinity and androgyny but she emphasizes femininity image these days.