| Title |
Spatial Changes in the Department Stores related with Women |
| Authors |
Rieh Sun-Young ; Lee Ki-Eun |
| Keywords |
Department Store ; Consumption Space ; Women ; Gender |
| Abstract |
The department store is a typical consumption space of capitalism that projects social changes instantly into its space. This research investigate the spatial changes in the department store from 1930 to 2003 in Korea in terms of women, who gradually became the subject of consumption. Merchandising plan and vertical spatial organization is analyzed and conclusions are made as follows. Firstly, the nationality and the male gender were the major factor on the vertical spatial organization in early days, which was the Japanese colonization period. It is after 1980s when the Korean department stores became to focus on the women locating women related shops on the easily accessible levels??lifting up the men's store to the levels with lower accessibility. Secondly, the portion of the women related shops has been expanded extremely categorizing and segregating the women customer based on the purchasing capability. Thirdly, the portion of the separated independent shop is increasing and tends to be located in the street level representing the luxurious image and screening customer with less purchasing capability. Lastly, current tendency to transform the department store as a space exclusively for limited group of women with purchasing capability needs to be changed to recover the early days' spirit of 'public space' not only for ordinary women but also for general public. |