• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.34 no.8
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• pp.1392-1402
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• 2010

This research studied the development of high functional wear that reflects the various needs of an aged population. A survey of the life style, body functions and body changes, cognition, and preference of high functional wear with a subject group of 342 women aged 50's-60's was conducted. The results show that these women showed a high interest in clothing, challenged to new tasks, and enjoyed social meetings. Women aged 50's and 60's showed a relatively vibrant and active tendency, with no difference between them. They had the most interest in health and diet. The development of various clothing items and designs for women in their fifties and sixties are required because exercise was the most favored leisure activity. Meanwhile, they showed indisposition according to body type changes and the decrease in body functions. There was also some discomfort due to changes in visual power and trouble in controlling the body temperature. Therefore, the need to develop high quality smart wear that can help improve these problems was raised. Women aged 50's to 60's did not fully understand smart clothing; however, they showed some interest in high quality smart wear designed to improve health conditions after they heard detailed explanations about the clothing. They perceived the matter of laundry or managing he clothing more important than the price or rejection to mechanical device in regards to smart wear.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.398-408
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• 2023

Smart clothing products can experience a decrease in performance and reliability due to various mechanical, biological, and chemical stress factors that occur throughout their life cycle. These issues can hinder consumer acceptance of the products. This study aims to enhance the reliability of smart clothing and facilitate quality control by analyzing and identifying the current status of international standardization for smart clothing and electronic textiles (e-textiles). The focus of this analysis was on the durability test methods in the use environment. Furthermore, similar standards published by different standardization organizations for durability tests were compared in depth. The study showed that a total of 27 international standards have been developed or are currently under development. The current standardization efforts mainly aim to develop functionality and durability test methods for smart clothing and e-textile products. A detailed comparison was made between two international standards (IEC 63023-204-1:2023 and AATCC TM210:2019) specifically in relation to the washing durability test method and the electrical resistance measurement standards (BS EN 16812:2016 vs AATCC EP13-2021), before and after the environmental exposure tests. Based on this comparison, several suggestions have been made and discussed for the future revision of these international standards.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.24-36
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• 2012

This study examines consumer's acceptance intention of sensor-based smart clothing empolying the extended TAM. Technology innovativeness, information innovativeness and trust were used as external variables and perceived palyfulness was included in the extetended TAM. Data were collected from the adults over 20 years old living in Daegu from March 14 to 18, 2011. 193 useful copies of data were analyzed to investigate a structural model and test research hypotheses using AMOS 7.0. The study results showed that the extended TAM for smart clothing was validated empirically in predicting the individual's acceptance of sensor-based smart clothing and 10 hypotheses among 12 hypotheses were supported. Technology innovation, information innovation, and trust were confirmed as antecedent variables in affecting extended TAM. Perceived usefulness and perceived playfulness directly influenced acceptance intention and indirectly influenced acceptance intention mediating attitude. Perceived usefulness affected perceived playfulness and attitude affected acceptance intention. This study will help marketers and managers of fashion companies devise effective tools in planning marketing strategies related to smart clothing.

• Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.89-111
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• 2008

Due to the development of digital technology, studies regarding smart wear integrating daily life have rapidly increased. However, consumer research about perception and attitude toward smart clothing hardly could find. The purpose of this study was to identify innovative characteristics and perceived risk of smart clothing and to analyze the influences of theses factors on product attitudes and intention to adopt. Specifically, five hypotheses were established. H1: Perceived attributes of smart clothing except for complexity would have positive relations to product attitude or purchase intention, while complexity would be opposite. H2: Product attitude would have positive relation to purchase intention. H3: Product attitude would have a mediating effect between perceived attributes and purchase intention. H4: Perceived risks of smart clothing would have negative relations to perceived attributes except for complexity, and positive relations to complexity. H5: Product attitude would have a mediating effect between perceived risks and purchase intention. A self-administered questionnaire was developed based on previous studies. After pretest, the data were collected during September, 2006, from university students in Korea who were relatively sensitive to innovative products. A total of 300 final useful questionnaire were analyzed by SPSS 13.0 program. About 60.3% were male with the mean age of 21.3 years old. About 59.3% reported that they were aware of smart clothing, but only 9 respondents purchased it. The mean of attitudes toward smart clothing and purchase intention was 2.96 (SD=.56) and 2.63 (SD=.65) respectively. Factor analysis using principal components with varimax rotation was conducted to identify perceived attribute and perceived risk dimensions. Perceived attributes of smart wear were categorized into relative advantage (including compatibility), observability (including triability), and complexity. Perceived risks were identified into physical/performance risk, social psychological risk, time loss risk, and economic risk. Regression analysis was conducted to test five hypotheses. Relative advantage and observability were significant predictors of product attitude (adj $R^2$=.223) and purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.221). Complexity showed negative influence on product attitude. Product attitude presented significant relation to purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.692) and partial mediating effect between perceived attributes and purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.698). Therefore hypothesis one to three were accepted. In order to test hypothesis four, four dimensions of perceived risk and demographic variables (age, gender, monthly household income, awareness of smart clothing, and purchase experience) were entered as independent variables in the regression models. Social psychological risk, economic risk, and gender (female) were significant to predict relative advantage (adj $R^2$=.276). When perceived observability was a dependent variable, social psychological risk, time loss risk, physical/performance risk, and age (younger) were significant in order (adj $R^2$=.144). However, physical/performance risk was positively related to observability. The more Koreans seemed to be observable of smart clothing, the more increased the probability of physical harm or performance problems received. Complexity was predicted by product awareness, social psychological risk, economic risk, and purchase experience in order (adj $R^2$=.114). Product awareness was negatively related to complexity, meaning high level of product awareness would reduce complexity of smart clothing. However, purchase experience presented positive relation with complexity. It appears that consumers can perceive high level of complexity when they are actually consuming smart clothing in real life. Risk variables were positively related with complexity. That is, in order to decrease complexity, it is also necessary to consider minimizing anxiety factors about social psychological wound or loss of money. Thus, hypothesis 4 was partially accepted. Finally, in testing hypothesis 5, social psychological risk and economic risk were significant predictors for product attitude (adj $R^2$=.122) and purchase intention (adj $R^2$=.099) respectively. When attitude variable was included with risk variables as independent variables in the regression model to predict purchase intention, only attitude variable was significant (adj $R^2$=.691). Thus attitude variable presented full mediating effect between perceived risks and purchase intention, and hypothesis 5 was accepted. Findings would provide guidelines for fashion and electronic businesses who aim to create and strengthen positive attitude toward smart clothing. Marketers need to consider not only functional feature of smart clothing, but also practical and aesthetic attributes, since appropriateness for social norm or self image would reduce uncertainty of psychological or social risk, which increase relative advantage of smart clothing. Actually social psychological risk was significantly associated to relative advantage. Economic risk is negatively associated with product attitudes as well as purchase intention, suggesting that smart-wear developers have to reflect on price ranges of potential adopters. It will be effective to utilize the findings associated with complexity when marketers in US plan communication strategy.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.51 no.8
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• pp.185-194
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• 2014

In this paper, we proposed the clothing management system using the smart hanger. Proposed system consists of smart hanger, base module, and server, and the smart hanger consists of MCU, LED, RFID reader, RF chip, ring sensor, and battery. The smart hanger reads the RFID tag attached to the clothes and wirelessly transmitted to the server. The server associated base module communicates with the smart hanger and transmits information to the server. The server manages clothing through the DB, and can display various information through the web page and the smart phone. In order to verify the usefulness of the proposed system, we did experiment with the management system for clothing store and laundry where using a lot of hangers. Performance tests of the smart hanger are applied to check the current consumption and can be predicted the battery life with the proposed low power algorithm. The clothing store management system can be increased sales and convenience of the consumer. The laundry management system can be increased the efficiency of laundry category and convenience of the consumer.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.9 no.12
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• pp.477-484
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• 2009

It is important for the strategy of service to provide the weather information in the environment that the smart clothing has been changed focusing on the consumer center. Recently, the various applications of smart clothing concept have been presented by researchers and developers. Among them, the smart clothing based on the sensors is most likely to gain the highest demand rate in the market. In this paper, we proposed the life weather index monitoring system using the wearable based smart cap. By wearing the proposed smart cap, the weather status is gathered and its signals are transmitted to the connected UMPC. It can be easily monitored in real time. To provide the life weather index according to the sensors, the weather index was analyzed in terms of 6 factors, such as, the heat index, the food poisoning index, the discomfort index, the ultraviolet index, the water pipe freeze possibility index, and the windchill temperature index. Ultimately, this paper suggests empirical application to verify the adequacy and the validity with the life weather index monitoring system. Accordingly, the satisfaction and the quality of services will be improved the smart clothing.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.893-903
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• 2009

Smart clothing represents the future of both the textile/clothing industry and electronic industry and has an effort to make electronic devices a genuine part of our daily life. The researches about technologies innovation and application of smart clothing can be found in previous studies. But consumer researches about perception or attitude toward smart clothing can be hardly found. Therefore, we proposed a conceptual framework that explores the impact of perceived risks on perceived attributes to adopt smart clothing. In addition, we compared differences of this framework among three counties. Korea, U.S. and Spain. Based on the literature review and hypotheses development, a research model was constructed. After data analysis using Amos 7.0, the results can be concluded as following: First, the influences of psychological risk among Korea, U.S. and Spain are same. Psychological risk has negative effect on relative advantage and complexity, but has positive effect on trialability. Second, loss risk was found to have nothing to do with relative advantage. But it negatively influences complexity for Korean consumers and positively influences trialability for both Korean and American consumers. Third, the influences of performance risk for different consumers are different. At last, based on our discussion, some implications were also concluded.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.395-407
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• 2008

As global interest in clothing spreads over the smart clothing which arouses high added-value in the apparel industry, this study is to develop a smart jacket with an electrically-vibrating device maintaining excellent appearance and comfort. The vibrating device has a massage function that could relieve muscle pain near shoulders and neck. The purposes of this research are to develop jacket pattern for men in their thirties considering body shapes and fashion trend, to develop a wearable device that is composed of motor and controller and integrate it into a jacket, and to assess the external appearance and functional satisfaction of the smart jacket through the wearing test. The results are as follows: 1. In order to develope an appropriate jacket pattern for men in their thirties, several patterns were assessed for their fitting comfort. The final pattern was completed after making alterations some parts, and showed high satisfaction as 3.6(on a five-point scale) in all categories. 2. A vibrating device was developed by connecting motor, controller, battery and switch. Developing this device, focus was maximizing the strength of motor and minimizing the heat generated from motor and controller. Snaps were placed between inner and outer cloth of jacket so that the vibrating device could be easily attachable and detachable. The motor was located around Trapezius where muscles often get stiff. A switch was designed to be used in selecting the modes of Strong, Weak, and Cross Tapping. 3. The wearing test was conducted to examine outer appearance, comfort for motion, and functionality of the smart jacket. The results of assessing outer appearance showed that the location for attaching the vibrating device was not noticeable but looked natural, and there is almost no change in outer appearance when the vibrating device operates. The result of assessing comfort of action revealed that wearer's satisfaction was high in all categories about activity, wearer's comfort, etc. The result also showed that wear's satisfaction for effects of vibrating massage, easiness in using the device, heat generation was not less than 3.5 in all categories except a category about noise.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.213-220
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• 2005

The purpose of this study is to develop a modular model of smart clothing which can integrate various digital devices in clothing, maintaining the inherent attribute of clothing. For achieving this purpose, several technological devices for the smart clothing for listening to music, bio-monitoring, and environment monitoring were developed, through multidisciplinary cooperation. As the result, total four design prototypes of smart sportswear(trekking wear, jogging wear) for the application of entertainment and health care were suggested.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Clothing and Textiles
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.123-136
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• 2023

To develop smart sportswear capable of measuring biometric data, we created a close-fitting pattern using two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D, respectively) methods. After 3D virtual fitting, the tightness of each pattern was evaluated using image processing of contact points, mesh deviation, and cross-sectional shapes. In contact-point analysis, the 3D pattern showed high rates of contact with the body (84.6% and 93.1% for shirts and pants, respectively). Compared with the 2D pattern, the 3D pattern demonstrated closer contact at the lower chest, upper arm, and thigh regions, where electrocardiography and electromyography were primarily carried out. The overall average gap was also lower in the 3D pattern (5.27 and 4.66 mm in shirts and pants, respectively). In the underbust, waist, thigh circumference, and mid-thigh circumference, the cross-section distance between clothing and body was showed a statistically significant difference and evenly distributed in the 3D pattern, exhibiting more closeness. The tightness and fit of the 3D smart sportswear sensor pattern were successfully evaluated. We believe that this study is critical, as it facilitates the comparison of different patterns through visualization and digitization through 3D virtual fitting.