Service quality defined by the customer is an important element in satisfying customers and may determine retail survival. The SERVQUAL instrument measured desired and minimum expectations and perceptions of service quality in a small apparel specialty store. Factor analysis with varimax rotation resulted in three dimensions of service quality for both desired and minimum levels of expectations and perceptions: (a) Personal Attention, (b) Reliability, and (c) Tangibles. Regression analyses determined the relationship between overall service quality (OSQ) and various predictor variables. Based on gap scores between desired expectations and perceptions, the Personal Attention and Tangibles dimensions were significant in predicting OSQ. SERVQUAL is a managerial tool that small apparel retailers may use to improve service quality.

The purpose of this study was to better understand the role of design in the product development process in the apparel industry in the United States, looking for variations in how design is used in the industry. In order to obtain a snapshot of the fashion design industry, creativity, originality, innovation, and product development were examined, as well as corporate culture and strategic orientation. The study also sought to examine pedagogical strategies based on these findings. A mixed methods approach, consisting of an on-line survey and interviews, was employed. The findings suggest variations in the role of design based on the time design-department employees spent on creative tasks. These variations were examined and industrial and pedagogical implications are explored. The significance of this study relates to the findings of the importance of creativity in the product development process of the apparel industry in the United States, as well as considerations for pedagogical strategies.

M.Com. / The South African apparel industry is growing tremendously with a sales value of R129.9 billion expected by 2019 (Marketline, 2015). This is due to the growth in the middle class, the increase in disposable income, and the fact that the South African economy is focused on technology, finance, and e-commerce (online shopping) (Marketline, 2013:2). Consumers are being exposed to various shopping channel options, both offline and online, which has been found to influence their purchase intention (Voinea & Filip, 2011:17). Retailers should therefore aim to understand how the offline and online shopping channels they offer are affecting consumers, and, in particular, they need to understand consumers’ reasons and motivation for selecting one channel over another. The literature on the subject has found that there are two main factors influencing shopping channel choice: shopping channel attributes – cost, time, convenience, and customer service – and perceived risk factors – delivery risk, product risk, and security risk (Al-Hawari & Mouakket, 2012:641; Lin & Sun, 2009:461; Martin & Camarero, 2008:629; Huang & Oppewal, 2006:347; van Dijk, Laing & Minocha, 2005:1). Thus, by understanding the two sets of factors influencing shopping channel choice, retailers will understand why consumers select one channel rather than another – which will allow retailers to design appropriate shopping channels for their goods. This will improve their efficiency and engagement as they will be offering consumers shopping channels that appeal to them...

Introduction: Entrepreneurial fashion businesses are very important due to the employment, income, products and services they provide. The South African government has identified small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) to address the economic challenges in this country. Entrepreneurship development is a means to economic development, which implies developing an entrepreneurial population. Aim: To acquire an integrated perspective on fashion entrepreneurs, their businesses and the technological environment in which they function, in order to understand the maintaining of a successful fashion business and to offer recommendations for the training and development of potential and existing fashion entrepreneurs. Method: A convenience sample of 100 fashion entrepreneurs in the Vaal Region was selected. A self-administered, structured questionnaire was compiled and used to gather the information. Section A focused on demographic background information, section B investigated entrepreneurial attributes, section C investigated the start-up and functioning of the business and section D concentrated on the technological environment. The instrument was tested for validity and reliability. Results: There were more female than male respondents, which corresponds with recent global statistics. The age distribution of these fashion entrepreneurs was quite balanced between younger, middle and older groups. Nearly three-quarters of the respondents were married, mostly with children aged older than 19 years. The majority of these fashion entrepreneurs had a tertiary qualification, but only a fifth had formal business training while negligibly few had formal training in business management or other business training. Six desirable entrepreneurial attributes were investigated and ranked in the following order: Leadership; Commitment and determination; Motivation to excel; Creativity, self-reliance and ability to adapt; Customer service; Tolerance of risk, ambiguity and uncertainty. All the attributes except the last one were scored quite high. They possessed most required entrepreneurial skills and knowledge, but lacked training in specific areas. Most ran their businesses as a sole career, employing one to four people and relied on the word-of-mouth advertising method. They used computers and information technology to a moderate extent and industrial equipment to a low extent.

M. Tech. (Fashion, Department of Arts and Design, Faculty of Human Sciences): Vaal University of Technology / Criteria used by fashion consumers to assess the quality of apparel products during the decision-making process are a good indication of what considerations to keep in mind for customer satisfaction. Evaluative criteria of concern to apparel customers are intrinsic attributes, involving physical features such as design/style, materials and construction and performance features such as aesthetic and functional aspects and extrinsic attributes such as price, brand, store image, label, country of origin and appropriateness for the occasion, in this case casual day wear. The broad research aim of this exploratory study was to determine which evaluative criteria were used by female fashion consumers in the Vaal Region to determine apparel quality when purchasing casual daywear, and to what extent the various criteria were applied. A self-administered, structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. Sections 1 and 2 measured the importance of intrinsic and extrinsic clothing evaluative criteria. Section 3 investigated the frequency with which the respondents bought casual daywear at various store types, namely specialty, department and discount stores, while section 4 gathered the demographic information of the respondents. A representative sample was chosen from the academic personnel of all seven tertiary institutions in the Vaal Region. The majority of the lecturers (38.00 percent) were between the ages of 31 and 40, which can be described as relatively young, constituting a group sometimes referred to as baby busters or Generation X. Although the predominant population group was white (65.71 percent), a quarter of the respondents were black. They all had a tertiary qualification, indicating a relatively high educational level, and an average income. These espondents were predominantly married, either by orthodox or customary marriage. Regarding the application of evaluative criteria for quality assessment, these respondents used intrinsic apparel attributes to a greater extent than extrinsic attributes. Three functional performance aspects namely durability, comfort and fit were rated equal and most important for judging quality, followed closely by an extrinsic attribute namely appropriateness for casual daywear. Three clusters of respondents could be distinguished, each with a specific disposition towards the evaluative criteria. The most popular store type for clothing was Department stores, followed by Discount and Specialty stores.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management (August 2016) / The purpose of this research paper is to explore the proposition around the factors influencing fashion choices for teenage girls which include attitude, impulse consumption, peer pressure, self-congruency and socialisation agents which all lead to their intention to purchase fashionable clothing brands. The research problem was to identify whether the factors influencing teenagers’ attitudes and decision making styles actually affect their intention to consume fashionable clothing brands. The design approach and methodology was the gathering of qualitative data from conducting five focus groups consisting of six female respondents each. The respondents were teenage girls aged between 13 and 19 years old, from different social backgrounds. Findings showed relatively high levels of consumption of fashion brands among the respondents, but not necessarily conducted in the traditional consumer decision-making processes. The manner in which teenage girls consume fashion brands creates a clear distinction and gap in the market of how to connect with this age segment. Key findings of the research show that teenagers no longer conform to typical adolescent ways, and it is through their consumption behaviour that marketers need to identify ways in which retail marketers can engage with them. / MT 2018

Thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Master of Architecture (Professional) to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017 / The home dressmaker is a figure so constant in domestic history that one would be hard pressed to find, even today, somebody who cannot recall a woman from their family sewing at the dining room table. Within a highly industrialised world people rely more than ever on the industry of the machine and it’s endless whirring of fast consumption production. In the process, we have lost the respect for both the process and the product of the hand-made object. The fast-food, fast-living, immediate-access and instant-gratification of a post war America and Europe began an erosion of the morals-of-making which people have relied upon for centuries. Growing industries of cheaply produced clothes, shoes and fabrics from India and China have decimated these formerly strong South African industries. This dissertation aims to address the continued role of home sewing- historically undocumented- as an ‘invisible’ economy and define its position as a driving force for change through a ‘Skills Revolution’. Using the lens of a South African born, Johannesburg based and family run dressmaking and sewing teaching business, Italian Dressmaking School, this thesis aims at addressing the pressing social and economic needs of South African creative industries by providing a platform for personal and community skills development and learning. Italian Dressmaking School was founded in 1961 by my grandmother Irene Sansalvadore, and today continues to provide the tools for women to learn the craft of home sewing. This dissertation aims at providing both the space for women, in particular, to gain a skill in a craft that has historically been considered ‘women’s work’ alongside aligned crafts of weaving and textile dyeing within the historic fabric trading area of Fordsburg. South Africa no longer produces much in the way of textiles, bar traditional shweshwe, which is produced solely in the Eastern Cape and a handful of smaller mills scattered around the country. While pure cotton and linen is hard to come by, increasingly expensive and highly desirable, South Africa on a whole imports all of this fabric from China, Russia and India amongst others. The aim of this project is to build onto an existing nucleus already to be found in Johannesburg, providing South Africas’ residents with the skills to start their own micro businesses centered around the production of cloth, the dyeing/colouring and/or printmaking of produced fabrics and the final garment construction with its dual phases of patternmaking and sewing. This thesis does not aim to compete with industries like China but rather to re-establish a formerly successful craft based industry. The autonomy of people in establishing their own identity is arguably one of the most essential needs after the most basic; survival. This dissertation is not for the fashionista but rather for the woman who has used her hands, for time immemorial, making the cloth that shrouds us all. / XL2018

A thesis submitted in full fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Marketing) at the University of Witwatersrand, 2017 / With the rise of globalisation, consumers are increasingly faced with having to make purchase decisions between domestic and foreign products or brands. Therefore, it is important to gain a better understanding of what factors influence consumer decisions when considering a local or global product or brand. Although a number of studies have explored similar topics, a lack of research remains regarding a comprehensive theoretical model that provides a holistic view of factors influencing the decision to buy a global product. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate those factors that influence the purchase decisions of global fashion brands among black middle-class women in South Africa. More specifically, by means of a conceptual model, the present study proposes that ethnocentrism, price, brand knowledge (comprising of brand awareness and brand image), self-image, fashion involvement, brand love, attitude, and perceived quality influence consumers’ buying decisions. The findings of this study seek to fill the gap in literature regarding how emerging black middle-class consumers in South Africa make buying decisions with regard to (global) fashion products. An empirical study was undertaken, in which 500 black middle-class females were asked to complete an online survey to determine which factors influence their choice of global fashion clothing. The obtained data was analysed by means of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using Partial Least Squares. The findings support all proposed hypotheses, but not all hypotheses were found to be significant. The strongest relationships were found between brand knowledge and perceived quality, brand knowledge and attitude, and self-image and attitude. The weakest relationships were between ethnocentrism and purchase intention, price perception and perceived quality and finally brand love and purchase intention. Furthermore, the findings revealed that quality is the main reason for consumers to consider buying global fashion-branded clothing. On the other hand, price is the biggest drawback of sales of global fashion brands. This study is of significant importance to fashion marketers since it provides adequate insight into how global fashion brands can position themselves and influence consumers’ decisions to buy global fashion products. This study further provides a comprehensive model, adds to knowledge gaps, and provides several managerial implications and directions for future research. / XL2018

This thesis focuses on the task of dexterous manipulation of deformable objects, and in particular, clothing and garments. The task of manipulating deformable objects such as clothing can be broken down into a series of sub-tasks: (1) perceive and pick up garment, and then identify garment and recognize its pose; (2) using a manipulation strategy, regrasp the object to put it into a canonical state; (3) scan the surface of the object to find wrinkles, and use an iron to remove the wrinkles; (4) starting from the wrinkle-free state, fold the garment according to pre-planned sequence of manipulations with optimized trajectories; In this thesis, we will address all the phases of this process. A key contribution of the work is innovative use of simulation. We use offline simulation results to predict states of deformable objects (i.e. cloth, fabric, clothing) that are then recognized by a robotic vision/grasping system to correctly pick up and manipulate these objects. The recognition will use the simulation engine to deform the models in real time to find correct matches. The simulation will also be used to find the optimized trajectories for the manipulation of the garments, such as the garment folding.

This document is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree: Master of Architecture (Professional), Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2016 / This thesis examines a number of issues that exist in Johannesburg across a series of scales, the urban, the architectural and the programmatic intervention. The project, situated between Fordsburg and Newtown, examines the East-West city connections and aims to provide an identity for the lost inbetween fabric of Burghersdorp. The project is made up of four themes, Disconnection, Memory, Textiles and Recycling, within a scope that examines the present based on themes from the past: The city fabric is fragmented, mainly due to city spatial planning and city politics. There is the potential and need to physically stitch or darn city fabrics through urban planning. The project looks at an urban regeneration scheme that incorporates urban devices as the tools used to stitch the street back together. There is potential to darn the programmatic functions in the city, potentially weaving local communities together, and provide a platform for the exchange of knowledge and skills.The thesis also examines the need for buildings as mnemonic aids. Historically, city fabric was erased for the building of the Oriental Plaza. The memories attached to these buildings and spaces were lost. There is a possibility for regenerating a space for memory in the city, re-weaving this forgotten city fabric into a new node and identity for Burghersdorp. The area is defined by the activities of the community that surround it. Textiles are a significant part of defining the area’s identity. A substantial amount of textiles are discarded. Waste is a valuable commodity, evidently seen from the existence of the informal waste collectors. There is an opportunity to connect these communities while closing the loop, a proposal for a circular economy for textiles in the city. / MT2017