Potential of Extending Lifespan of Prom Dresses

Among various sustainable clothing design strategies, transformable design can encourage people to adopt sustainable fashion behaviors; a versatile garment can be worn in many ways. However, there is a lack of research on prom dresses, which have one of the shortest lifecycles among clothing items since they are usually only worn once. This research investigated consumers\u27 expectations and preferences regarding the changeable design functions of transformable prom dresses related to their shopping orientations. Data were collected from U.S. female college students using an online survey tool. There were significant differences in the reasons given by consumers for the limited use of prom dresses, their design and functional elements, their preferences in the design elements of transformable dresses, and their intention to purchase transformable dresses. The findings can benefit apparel designers and fashion businesses when developing design strategies that can help encourage sustainable fashion behaviors in consumers and enhance their sustainable apparel consumption practices

Exploration of Transformable Garment Design Strategies on Dresses for Sustainability

Transformable garments involve technologies that can convert them into different styles or silhouettes, thus reducing the need to purchase new garments and extend the garment’s lifecycle (Fletcher, 2008). For example, a dress that can change its style, such as in length or silhouette, can be worn in different ways and in various contexts. Transformable garments have great potential to prevent and minimize waste in a product’s lifecycle by encouraging consumers’ natural engagement in sustainable fashion acts. However, there is an overall lack of research about transformable garments. The extant research only addresses a limited item compared to the various kinds of products worn by individuals. Thus, the purpose of this research is to understand consumers’ preferences and expectations for transformable dresses, focusing on the aesthetic aspects and exploring possible changeable design options for transformable dresses

Online Review Mining: Health and Environmental Concerns on Beauty Products

Scholars in advertising, communication, marketing, and public relations have used various text-mining techniques to assess sentiments about brands, social issues, products, and policies. Introducing large-scale text analysis as its method, this study investigated the trend of consumers\u27 interests or concerns over beauty products, focusing on health and environmental issues. A dataset of 249,152 reviews by 177,345 Amazon users on around 75,000 beauty products during the 2004-2013 period was analyzed for this study. The most frequently used words were natural , healthy , and chemical . However, contrary to our expectation, beauty product consumers did not demonstrate much interest in health or environmental concerns. The main topics of the reviews did not center on health or environmental interests; they were mostly dedicated to the descriptions of product, price, delivery, and satisfaction. These findings can help scholars obtain a better understanding of consumer perception and behavior on beauty products related to health and environment issues

Sustainable Fashion: Transformable Outerwear and Shopping Orientation

The purpose of this research was to investigate preferences and expectations for transformable outerwear and the differences between them based on consumers\u27 characteristics, including shopping orientations. The data were collected online with 273 U.S. consumers, who were asked about their shopping orientation, consumption behavior toward socially responsible apparel, preferences about transformable design options for outerwear, expected benefits, and expectations for transformable garments for sustainability. Using SPSS 23.0, the data were analyzed through descriptive analysis, Cronbach\u27s alpha, k-means cluster analysis, and a series of independent samples t-tests. These results are expected to be beneficial for designers and manufactures that are in the process of developing transformable clothing for sustainability

Job Expectations, Job Preference, and Learning Expectations of Apparel Merchandising and Design College Students

The majority of current college students represent Gen Y (born between 1977 and 1992). The current workplace population includes 42% of Gen Yers, 31% of baby boomers, and 27% of Gen Xers; Gen Yers will make up 75% of the American workforce by 2025 (Treuren & Anderson, 2010). As they are just starting to impact the workplace, it is critical to understand the characteristics of Gen Y that might influence workplace environment

Muscle Fatigue Analysis Using OpenSim

In this research, attempts are made to conduct concrete muscle fatigue analysis of arbitrary motions on OpenSim, a digital human modeling platform. A plug-in is written on the base of a muscle fatigue model, which makes it possible to calculate the decline of force-output capability of each muscle along time. The plug-in is tested on a three-dimensional, 29 degree-of-freedom human model. Motion data is obtained by motion capturing during an arbitrary running at a speed of 3.96 m/s. Ten muscles are selected for concrete analysis. As a result, the force-output capability of these muscles reduced to 60%-70% after 10 minutes' running, on a general basis. Erector spinae, which loses 39.2% of its maximal capability, is found to be more fatigue-exposed than the others. The influence of subject attributes (fatigability) is evaluated and discussed

Corporate Social Responsibility in the Apparel Industry: Linkage between consumer responses and the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act

customers’ desire to shop thrift struggle with knowing where to find the best selection of products and thrift stores generally have minimal budgets for advertising (Christiansen & Snepenger, 2005). To aid in these challenges, Christiansen and Snepenger (2005) identified the existence of a “thrift maven” as someone who encourages thrift shopping by passing on information of the thrift markets to other individuals. In this study, we explored any “thrift mavens” among fashion design students and their post purchase word-of-mouth behaviors regarding their thrift items and retailers

Baryonic Matter in the Hidden Local Symmetry Induced from Holographic QCD Models

Baryonic matter is studied in the Skyrme model by taking into account the roles of $\pi,$ $\rho$, and $\omega$ mesons through the hidden local symmetry up to $\mathcal{O}(p^4)$ terms including the homogeneous Wess-Zumino (hWZ) terms. Using the master formulas for the low energy constants derived from holographic QCD models the skyrmion matter properties can be quantitatively calculated with the input values of the pion decay constant $f_\pi$ and the vector meson mass $m_\rho^{}$. We find that the hWZ terms are responsible for the repulsive interactions of the $\omega$ meson. In addition, the self-consistently included $\mathcal{O}(p^4)$ terms with the hWZ terms is found to increase the half skyrmion phase transition point above the normal nucleon density.Comment: Contribution to SCGT12 "KMI-GCOE Workshop on Strong Coupling Gauge Theories in the LHC Perspective", 4-7 Dec. 2012, Nagoya Universit