Contents
The Textile Institute and Woodhead Publishing
Woodhead Publishing Series in Textiles
1. Introduction: Clothing for children and teenagers
1.1. Historical: manufacturing clothing for children and teenagers
1.2. Introduction: manufacturing clothing for children and teenagers
1.3. The social psychology of clothing for children and teenagers
1.4. The rise in consumption of clothing for children and teenagers
1.5. Conclusions and future trends
2. Size and fit of clothing for children and teenagers
2.1. Introduction: clothing sizing and fit
2.2. Physical growth of children and teenagers
2.3. Factors influencing the growth of children’s and teenagers’ clothing sizes
2.4. Existing sizing systems
2.5. The importance of clothing fit for children and teenagers
2.6. Conclusions and future trends
3. Conducting anthropometric surveys of children and teenagers
3.1. Introduction: anthropometry
3.2. Key issues in the body measurement process
3.3. Manual anthropometric surveys of children and teenagers
3.4. Computerized anthropometric survey for children and teenagers
3.5. Manual anthropometric analysis
3.6. Computerized anthropometric analysis
3.7. Conclusions and recommendations
4. Children and teenagers body sizes and shapes analyses
4.1. Introduction
4.2. Body shape and size in children and teenagers
4.3. Anthropometric data analysis for children
4.4. Categorical data results and analysis
4.5. Continuous data results and analysis for the sample population
4.6. Continuous data results and analysis for the sample population according to gender
4.7. Continuous data results and analysis for sample population according to gender and age
4.8. Conclusions
5. Selecting key body dimensions for the design of children’s and teenagers’ apparel
5.1. Introduction
5.2. The role of key body dimensions in apparel design
5.3. Analysis of key body dimensions
5.4. Principal component analysis
5.5. Summary
6. Clustering children and teenagers according to apparel size
6.1. Introduction
6.2. The importance of distinct apparel sizes for children and teenagers
6.3. Cluster analysis technique
6.4. The outcome of clustering in a sample population of children
6.5. The outcome of clustering in a sample population of teenagers
6.6. Body characteristics in male and female groups
6.7. Summary
7. Classifying the body shapes of children and teenagers for improved apparel fit
7.1. Introduction: classification of children and teenagers
7.2. Classification methodology
7.3. Classification results for variations in body shapes
7.4. The classification rules based on gender and age groups
7.5. Conclusions
8. Developing apparel sizing systems for children and teenagers
8.1. Introduction: developing sizing systems for children and teenagers
8.2. The importance of body sizes and shapes in sizing system for children
8.3. Sizing system development
8.4. Problems and solutions in selecting sizes for better fit
8.5. Size validation according to gender and age
8.6. Conclusions
9. Designation and validation of apparel sizes for children and teenagers
9.1. Introduction: size designation and validation
9.2. The importance of size designation—Mondoform labeling
9.3. Validation of sizing designation and number of sizes
9.4. Female size designation tables (ages 13–17)
9.5. Children sizing designation potential application to different groups of children and teenagers
9.6. Conclusions
9.7. Recommendations for future work
Index
Introduction: clothing forchildren and teenagers
1.1 Historical: manufacturing clothing forchildren and teenagers
Clothing was styled and designed only for adults throughout the 18th century. There were no clothes styled specifically for children during this time because children were considered as mini adults who wore the adult styles. Furthermore, the children’s clothing construction was much stronger than the adult clothing so that the clothes could last longer. The clothes were normally made bigger so they could be worn by multiple siblings.
Slowly, starting from the year 1800s until during the sewing machine Industrial Revolution in 1845, there was a change in how clothes were produced. During this time, the sewing machine was introduced and it became possible to mass produce clothes. With this new concept of production, design patterns were introduced for children’s clothing. From this point onward, there were different clothing classifications for adults and children. Clothing design for adults was according to the needs and wants of the adults and design for children was applicable only for children. Since style and fashion were just being introduced to children’s clothing, manufacturers mostly designed clothing for children as if they had no taste and desires. Generally, parents bought clothes for their children according to what they perceived was good and not because this was clothing that their children wanted.
The Industrial Revolution also initiated the development of factory-made clothes instead of custom-made or made-at-home styles. Mass production began when women started going to work and they no longer had the time to sew their own children’s clothes. Factory production also made children’s clothes much sturdier and more reliable by introducing different types of fasteners like zippers, buttons, and snaps to secure the clothing on the children. In addition, these new fasteners allowed children to become much more independent in being able to dress themselves.
Transformations were seen slowly in the beginning of children’s clothing manufacturing. But in time, changes began to occur rapidly because of better manufacturing technology. Children’s wear saw the transition from handmade clothes sewn at home to being produced in factories as ready-to-wear (RTW) clothing. Those factories made clothing that would be sold to anybody through catalogs; today clothing is sold online where customers can buy items using a computer or they can still order over the telephone.
In the next section, the discussion focusses on the different trends in clothing manufacturing for today’s growing children’s and teenagers’ clothing market.