Scaling Femininity: Production of Semiotic Economy in the South Korean Cosmetics Industry

Abstract

The practice of attaching inventive labels for things with a wide spectrum of selections to choose from is a widespread marketing practice. This article examines how unusual “fancy” color names are used in the South Korean cosmetics industry. Selecting and comparing the semiotic composition of color names of four companies operating within a single cosmetics corporation, this article reveals how fancy color term formations ideologically constructed in order to represent color function so as to lay the ground for social semiosis. Color terms in contemporary mediatized interactional settings work to mark and distinguish shades but, further, to provide basis for the characterization of commodities. What is shown is that commodity color terms for female cosmetics entail a scaling of femininity and that this scaling also relates a rescaling of those who can purchase such verbalizable colors.