Abstract
This research is aimed to develop the functional clothing designs for disabled women in the manner of investigating design preferences among them by means of questionnaire and interview with 150 disabled women as respondents and interviewees. The findings of this research are summarized as follows: 1. Regarding satisfaction with ready-made clothes, the respondents answered 'very satisfied' (1.6%), 'usually satisfied' (14.1%), 'moderate' (20.3%) and 'unsatisfied' (53.1%), suggesting that they had been generally unsatisfied with ready-made clothes. 2. There were more disabled women preferring to ready-made clothes with one-grade bigger (loose.) size than the actual one (53.1%) instead of completely fitted size (43.8%) when they purchased such clothes. This result indicates that they prefer to ready-made clothes with bigger size than the actual one because most of such clothes are made up of non-elastic materials which may be unfavorable for wearer's activities. 3. It was found that primarily worn upper garment among them was T-shirt (59.4%). The reason may be that T-shirt is favorable for using prosthesis and orthotics such as wheelchair, walking stick and crutches thanks to its remarkably high activity as well as simple to maintain, compared with other kinds of upper garments. 4. Regarding preferences to functional clothing designs, the primarily worn lower garment among them was trousers (85.9%); the reason was easiness to move. The main reasons of avoiding to wear a skirt included 'difficult to move' (40.6%) and 'exposed disabled region' (30.3%). Accordingly, functional clothing for disabled women should be developed in consideration for their individual characteristics of disability associated with the disabled region such as wheelchair user, crutch user or brace user, In addition, the designs should be made so that they are not different from those for non-disabled people.
