Comfort fit and functionality of clothing in the current century: An analysis

Pages: 1887-1890
Vijay Pal Singh and Divya Hiran (Faculty of Fashion Technology, Public Academy of Higher Education and Research University, Udaipur, Rajasthan)

Sportswear is among the most versatile performance clothing. Lifestyle changes, increasing participation in sports and health conscious activities have created demand for comfortably functional sports apparel. Accordingly, a range of value-added clothing with properties like temperature regulation, moisture management, stretch, odor reduction and light weight is available in the market for everyday sportswear. While these clothes may have multi-functional properties, they do not fall in the category of functional clothing. Sports-functional clothing is a class apart because it represents performance enhancing clothes. These clothes are at the cutting edge of athletic performance. Two principles primarily govern the design and constructing of sportswear following two cardinal principles. These are the principles of aerodynamics that help reduce the drag power of wind and the second is the application of compression for increasing blood flow on specific muscles. Another important design criteria is the aesthetics of the clothing. Factors considered for developing stretch pattern technology use digital quantification of the degree of fabric stretch for assessing stretch fit. The idea is to make the stretch pattern construction process more transparent in CAD applications. This ultimately offers better fitting and distinctly more comfortable garments to the customer.