10/29/2002

AU Researcher Focuses on Made-To-Order Ready-To-Wear

AUBURN, Ala.— Finding clothes that fit and flatter is the most frustrating part of clothes shopping for most women.

But a major revolution in the apparel industry is about to change all that by bringing you ready-to-wear clothing that’s virtually custom-made for you, said Lenda Jo Connell, associate professor of apparel product development in Auburn University’s College of Human Sciences.

Through research supported in part by the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station (AAES), Connell is helping lay the groundwork for that transformation in the highly competitive clothing industry.

“Clothing manufacturers are realizing that giving customers clothes that actually fit them and that keep them psychologically happy, too, is the key to winning market share,” Connell said. And those companies are realizing, too, that mass-produced clothing is falling far short on both counts.

“It (mass production) doesn’t take into account that everybody has a different shape and different, individual preferences,” Connell said.

Thus, the slow but sure move from mass production to what’s known as mass customization, where manufacturers produce one-of-a-kind garments tailored to meet individual consumers’ exact specifications.

Some companies, most notably Lands’ End, already offer customers customized clothing on a limited basis. Customers send in their measurements and their style preferences, and the manufacturer produces jeans or other garments tailor-made to those specifications. Those made-for-you items, however, typically cost from 30 to 45 percent more than their off-the-rack counterparts.

In her research project, which is co-funded by the AAES and the U.S. Department of Commerce, Connell is studying the technology that will make mass customization possible and affordable. That technology is body scanning, a digital imaging process that yields precise, three-dimensional measurements. Emerging computerized pattern-making programs will use body-scanned measurements as “patterns” for making customized clothing, thus ensuring a level of fit that would be extremely time consuming and expensive to duplicate using the traditional manual body measurement processes.

As one major component of the study, Connell is scientifically analyzing the body scans of hundreds of women.

“Body scans don’t just give exact measurements,” Connell said. “They also provide information about posture and body shape, factors that measurements alone can’t give but that you need to know if a garment is going to be a perfect fit.”

As clothing manufacturers increasingly are realizing, however, there is more to fit than size. There’s also a psychological aspect — what Connell called “the softer side” — of fit.

All of the women who have body scans for Connell’s study also must complete a questionnaire developed by Connell’s research team. The questionnaire gives insight into such factors as the subjects’ perceptions of their bodies; whether fashion, comfort or camouflage is the most important aspect of clothing to them; and what styles they prefer.

Connell is convinced that soon, women will be able to encode their body scan and fit preference data on credit card-like “smart cards” and to send their clothing specifications via the Internet to the manufacturer for made-on-demand clothing. Consumers say they are willing to pay 12 to 15 percent more for custom-made clothing, if it means avoiding the hassles of shopping for clothes that fit well, are comfortable and look good.

“More and more women today don’t want the frustrations of spending their evenings or weekends fighting mall crowds, standing in line for the dressing room and trying on one thing after another, trying to find the right size in something they like,” Connell said.

But while customers may be willing to pay more, Connell believes that, once the technology is in place in the apparel industry, customized clothing should be comparable in price to mass-produced items.

“Manufacturers and retailers will benefit from mass customization,” Connell said, “because they won’t have tremendous losses on all those items that they mass produce but that just don’t sell.”

Connell’s research is limited to fit in women’s clothing because, she said, men’s clothing is sized based strictly on measurements.

“Men’s shirts have a 15-inch neck and a 34-inch sleeve, or pants have a 30-inch waist and 32-inch length — exact measurements,” Connell said. “But when it comes to women’s clothing, there are no mandatory standards.”

The standards that do exist, she says, are voluntary and outdated, established, as they are, on a 1942 study of women in the military.

“They are based on an ‘hourglass figure,’ which assumes that all women have a defined waist, which they don’t,” Connell said.

The lack of set standards is why, in today’s apparel industry, you can’t judge a garment by its size tag. In fact, in an effort to please their target markets, many manufacturers today are engaging in a concept known as “vanity sizing.”

“They’re taking a size 10, for instance, and labeling it a size 8, because if a woman can wear a size 8 in one line of clothing but has to buy a 10 in another, she’s going to feel better about the 8, and that’s the one she’ll buy,” Connell said.

Connell’s research findings also likely will be used by clothing manufacturers to improve the fit and style of their mass-produced garments.

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News from:

Office of Ag Communications & Marketing

Auburn University College of Agriculture
Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
3 Comer Hall, Auburn University
Auburn, AL 36849
334-844-4877 (PHONE) 334-844-5892 (FAX)

Contact Jamie Creamer, 334-844-2783 or jcreamer@auburn.edu
Contact Lenda Jo Connell, 334-844-3789 or anderl1@auburn.edu