This crosscultural study was aimed at correlating color emotions and preference for persimmon-dyed cotton fabrics known as Galchon. Cotton fabrics were dyed with persimmon powder, in a range of shades, and in some cases were also iron mordanted. Textile and fashion students from Jeju National University in Korea and North Carolina State University (NCSU) in USA participated in the visual assessment of dyed samples and were asked to scale their visual experience and state their emotion and preference for the terms Bright, Heavy, Soft, Strong, Deep, and Like. Korean observers used Strong for iron-mordanted Galchon, and American observers did not associate Bright or Deep with weakly dyed fabrics. In addition to the subjective terms described, the color preference for samples was quantified using their CIE colorimetric attributes. For Korean observers, the results indicate a correlation between L-* and Bright, whereas for Americans a stronger correlation was obtained against Soft. American observers' results also show a relationship between C-* and the term Warm, especially for dyeings of Galchon at high concentrations. It was also found that iron mordanting affected responses from both groups but only influenced the color preference of Korean observers. (c) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 40, 592-604, 2015