Prepurchase decision making process was investigated for the female high school students grouped by fashion leadership. Differences in the fashion leadership were also investigated among the groups determined by demographic characteristics. Data were obtained from 600 female students attending at 4 different high schools in Seoul by self-administered questionnaires, and 430 were used for the data analysis. Respondents were divided into 5 groups by fashion leadership: innovators(6.3%), early adopters(29.8%) , early majority(43.7%) , late majority(16.9%) , laggards(3.3%) , The groups with higher monthly allowances and monthly clothing expenditures showed higher fashion leadership. At the problem recognition stage, students with higher fashion leadership felt buying needs more often than those with lower fashion leadership. At the information search stage, students with higher fashion leadership tended to use higher number of information sources and mass media, visited stores more often, spent more time and collected new information more often, and tended to show higher satisfaction levels with searched information than students with lower fashion leadership. Leaders tended to search information at bonded goods stores and small shops in the area, and laggards prefered to visit small stores in the market. At the alternative evaluation stage, students with higher fashion leadership reported to use higher number of evaluative criteria and consider brand name, acknowledgment of others, becomingness with wardrobe as important criteria for evaluating apparel products; those with lower fashion leadership thought utility, comfort, size, sewing quality an6 fit as key criteria.