Introduction: Persons with a physical disability may need adapted clothing to facilitate their full participation in society; it is unclear what information designers use to create adapted clothing. ...Objective: Explore the perspectives of fashion industry representatives regarding adapted clothing and gauge their receptiveness towards academic inquiry. Methods: Semi-structured interviews with five female adapted clothing designers were conducted, transcribed verbatim, coded, and analyzed thematically. Results: Participants felt research (i.e. knowledge and guidance) could benefit the design process and spoke about industry barriers (e.g. time, manufacturing, human and material resources, marketing, level of importance) to designing adapted clothing. Conclusions: Strengthening collaborations with stakeholders (e.g. researchers, designers, consumers, health professionals, caregivers) may add credibility to future adapted clothing designs and bridge the gap between research and practice. Engagement from fashion design trainees could also contribute to growing a more socially responsible industry.
The purpose of this study is to investigate problems with clothing that people with motor impairments face upon dressing and undressing and to clarify the parts of clothes that must be adapted to ...allow them to dress and undress independently. In addition, the degree to which they desire ready-made clothes to be adapted was studied. Research was conducted on 66 women with motor impairments, aged from 20-65 years, and living in the Tokyo metropolitan area in 2001. The research was conducted using interviews and questionnaire forms. We found that persons who can dress and undress independently need to adjust fasteners and buttons to the movements of their fingers, as they commonly have difficulties moving their fingers at will. On the other hand, those who cannot dress and undress by themselves have difficulties passing their elbows and arms through sleeves. Thus, they require improvements in the design of clothes. Of the respondents, 83% indicated that they would like clothes to be adapted so that they are easier to put on, using the original ready-made design, while 53% indicated a strong desire for this. Moreover, persons who experienced greater ease of dressing and undressing using adapted clothes expressed a stronger desire to have clothing adapted than those who did not have such an experience. Considering the present condition, where approximately 90% of persons with motor impairments wear ready-made clothes, this study clarified the need to think about how clothes can be adapted.
