The Relationship Between the Fashion Behavior of Female Students and the Women\u27s Magazines They Read Based on Structural Equation Modeling: Focusing on Trends from 2008 Through 2010

This paper examines the trends in women\u27s fashion magazines read by female students (vocational schools, junior colleges, and universities) during a three-year peiod from 2008 through 2010.Magazines characterized as gyaru-kei(gal style), such as ViVi and JELLY, were more popular among university students and junior college students than they were among vocational school students, while those characterized as mohdo-kei(mode style or high fashion), such as Soen and FUDGE, showed the opposite tendency (p＜ 0.001). ZIPPER, Sweet, Soup, and PS did not show any significant differences in their popularity among the three types of schools.The 2010 top ten popular women\u27s fashion magazines included JELLY and BRENDA(judai-gyarukei or gal style for teens), Soen and FUDGE(mohdo-kei), ViVi(o-nee-kei or older sister style),Non-no, and Soup.(nachuraru-kei or natural style), Sweet(otona-gyaru-kei or gal style for adults), and Zipper(sutoriito-kei or street style), proving the validity of classifying these magazines into six groups.Structural equation modeling revealed that the lower a female student\u27s consciousness of fashion behavior was, the more she preferred magazines characterized as nachuraru-kei, while the higher the consciousness, the more she preferred gyaru-kei magazines