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No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Conventional pattern construction and pattern making methods typically require the size measurements of a range of standard mannequins or human bodies in order to construct the varying pattern blocks for garment design. These various methods and skills, in the fashion industry, factory or studio are performed by pattern makers or producers, and are refined through the garment sampling and wearer trial system (an uneconomical trial and error) used on woven garments or on woven stretch garments to produce varying garment designs. This is particularly true when fabric stretch and recovery properties and values are encountered. There is a strong alliance with the heuristic knowledge. The aim of the present work is to investigate the influence of woven stretch fabric properties on pattern construction. The stretch and recovery properties of woven stretch fabrics will be taken account for pattern reduction and alteration for the development of a suitable garment pattern to fit the body shape and to meet the comfort requirement during the body movement. The relationship between the degree of alteration and reduction and the relevant fabric stretch properties is to be established. In this thesis, the stretch and recovery properties of various woven stretch fabrics have been measured. The conventional pattern is reduced and altered based on the comfort requirement for body movement, fit to body shape and the extension and recovery properties of the woven stretch fabric. Wearer trial test of the altered garment pattern of woven stretch fabrics is carried out for subjective and objective evaluation in the reference of the traditional woven garment pattern. Their comfort and garment appearances are evaluated by a panel of judges and the wearer. The size and shape stability of garments after the wearing tests are assessed. The results demonstrated that the new pattern method was significantly better for woven stretch fabric. The garment pattern for fit and comfort can be predicated and produced according to the extension and recovery properties of fabrics.

This study was conducted to investigate the importance of dress in the implementation of hiring, promotion, and termination practices among female retail executives in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Appropriate interview and on-the-job dress for department and specialty store executives was studied. A questionnaire was used to obtain information from retail executives. Based on the data obtained, it was found that appropriate business dress was indeed important for female retail executives. Skirt suits or skirt and vest ensembles were considered most acceptable by the executives surveyed, both for interview and on-the-job situations.

This study investigated the clothing preferences of large-size women who shopped in selected large-size specialty stores in North Dallas. Questions were asked regarding the respondents' age, employment, income, dress size and degree of fashion-consciousness. Also investigated were preferences regarding apparel and shopping sources. A questionnaire was used to obtain the desired information. Based on the data obtained, it was found that large-size women have certain preferences concerning the clothing they purchase and the sources they shop.

British fashion is poised amidst a clutch of conflicting narratives, representations and ideologies. Through an examination of these rival encounters and the events that have gone to generate them, this thesis gives an insight into the culture of contemporary fashion, its dilemmas and the industry it supports. In particular, my discussion looks at the relationship between fashion and national identity. It posits fashion as a site central both to the re-branding of Britain and also to contestations over British identity itself, including the gendering of Britishness and its class relations. Using the cases of two iconic British fashion companies, Paul Smith Ltd and Mulberry Plc, I explore how the apparently straightforward and economically driven process of the globalisation of British fashion is, in fact, a far more culturally nuanced and locally embedded encounter than has previously been suggested. I unpack the different ways in which Paul Smith and Mulberry go about negotiating and sometimes even shaping and mobilising a sense of nationness in what is a rapidly globalising commercial marketplace. For in spite of their shared iconic national status both companies go about generating and deploying their self-confessed British character in exceedingly different ways. It is through an exploration of Paul Smith and Mulberry's contrasting corporate strategies, symbolic production techniques and product profiles that I investigate the different meanings afforded by the term Britishness. Indeed the thesis contends that, in the arena of fashion, Britishness is characterised less through some distinct essence or by a particular 'look' and more through its 'narratives of ambiguity'. In turn, it suggests that an understanding of these narratives goes some way in problematising and disrupting commonly imagined notions of Britishness borne out of Anglo-centric, androcentric and bourgeois tradition and, still further, it looks at how such notions might be re-worked in more multiple and complex ways.