Clothes make the Man

“Fine feathers make fine birds.”

Widely understanding, this proverb has the same meaning as “Fine clothes make a man.” At the Fairy and the Woodcutter, one of the most popular of all Korean folktales, is telling a story about the wing clothes and the beautiful love of the two protagonists. +

“There once was a poor woodcutter who lived with his mother. One day, he helped a wounded deer escape from hunters.”

“As a show of gratitude, the deer informed the woodcutter of a nearby pond where fairies came down from heaven to bathe every month. According to advice of the deer, the woodcutter hid the fairy’s winged clothing and was able to marry one of the fairies.”

In this beautiful love story, the poor woodcutter lived happily with the fairy until he had two children. However, he forgot her deer’s advice to never return her fairy wings, which he had hidden before giving birth to three children, and gave them back to her fairy. Then the fairy returned to heaven.

In this way, the fairy and the woodcutter eventually became a story about sad love. As such a folktale, the clothes are worth more than anything. It is also not wrong to say that clothes are like wings.

Needless to say, the basic needs of human are clothes, food, and housing and so on. When Koreans say this term, they prioritize clothes over food. An American famous writer, Mark Twain said.

“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” ++

With regard to his words, which he put forth almost 100 years ago, people later interpreted the meaning differently. Someone said that in Shakespeare’s work Hamlet, it comes from the dialogue “Apparel oft proclaims the man.” Contrary to this claim, others have seen it mean people are judged according to way they are dressed.

On the other hand, it is clear that the clothes we wear affect our behavior, attitudes, personality, mood, confidence. Therefore, the quote that clothes make the man also means that dressing well helps people to be successful.

 

 


-Some of the popular Dongdaemun fashion items we exported last week, seoulclick.com-

 

We are now discussing for clothes, one of the basic human needs, and its fashion marketing strategies. Also, people believe that everything sells well when anyone advertises, and in fact we are accepting such discussions.

Fashion marketing should, however, not be a fade product, but a strategy to manufacture and sell better fashion products that fit a rapidly changing but widely favored trend. That better clothes make the man is truly a good fashion product.

Above all, fashion marketing should be a strategic means of producing and selling better products that enable consumers to stand out in their actions, attitudes, moods, personality and confidence.

A lot of buyers who have ever visited Dongdaemun market simply must have the latest this or that. In order to meet the buyers’ purchasing needs, Dongdaemun merchants should not be limited to simply supplying designers’ fast products at low prices.

Or rather, buyers who pursue consumer-satisfied trade should enjoy the satisfaction of purchasing Dongdaemun fashion products. They will be well aware of the fact that their consumers shop by thinking that clothes are like wings.

Therefore, Dongdaemun merchants will have to carefully make and sell the products their buyers want, so that many buyers come back. Unless there is any objection to this marketing strategy, Dongdaemun merchants should play their hand for all it is worth.

There is no two ways about it.

 

+ korea.net/NewsFocus/Culture. “The Fairy and the Woodcutter: tragic love, Korean style.”

++ www.brainyquuote.com/topics/clothes-quotes

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Bong Sul (Advisor, SeoulClick)

www.seoulclick.com

 

 Read more: Bong (Bong Sik) Sul, Dongdaemun Style, ebook.kstudy.com, Seoul, 2019.

 

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