CLOTHING COMFORT

DEFINITION

 There are a number of definitions of clothing comfort

coined by researchers and scholars.

 “Comfort is defined as the absence of perceived

pain- and discomfort as taught by Prof. Lubos Hes.

 Mine et al. (2009) explain “Clothing comfort is a state

of satisfaction indicating physiological, psychological
and physical balance among the person”.
 INTRODUCTION

 Clothing is one of the fundamental needs of the

human being.
 It serves various and diverse purposes.
 Clothing selection is based on the needs and desires
of the people.
 It may be to satisfy some aesthetic needs or to fulfil
any particular demand of human being.
 People’s selection of clothing depends upon their
perception and feeling about the clothing.
 In some cases it is recommended to wear certain
clothing and selection is not possible, for example
dress of a fire fighter, military uniform, etc.

 However, it is very common that there is a

dynamic and fundamental changes in the
preferences of people with the change in the
context; season, climate, age, type of activity, etc.
 It is highly linked with the core requirement why a
person is wearing any particular clothing.

 Moreover, clothing requirements are rather different

depending upon the type of activities of any person.

 However, comfort is a basic and introductory

prerequisite of the people in all situations and is
considered a threshold in selecting the clothing.
 Comfort is difficult to explain since it is a complex and
interdependent combination of physical, psychological
and sensorial perceptions and highly depends of
subjective evaluation of the individuals.

 It is not possible that comfort level of every one sitting in an

office could be same, even temperature, air velocity and
other parameters, which they are experience are same
and comparable, even then comfort sensation is quite
diverse.
 However if more than 80% people feel comfort, then
it can be said that such environment provides a
comfort (ISO). Same is the case with clothing
comfort.
 Clothing comfort parameters, all three;
physiological, psychological and sensorial are now
market tools. More over people are also considering
the ecology.
 comfort depends on many factors such as:

› The temperature of the environment,

› The relative humidity,
› The wind velocity,
› The metabolism of the wearer and, of course,
› The characteristics of the clothing materials,
 e.g. materials’ thermal comfort properties, which display their
abilities to transport heat and moisture from the human body’s
surface into the environment.
 The measuring values that reflect this ability are clothing’s
thermal resistance or thermal insulation, and water vapour
resistance.

 Many other factors such as colour, fashion, a person’s

physical and psychological state also influence the feeling of
comfort (Mecheels, 1998 as cited by Celcar; Meinander
andGersˇ, 2008).
There are three broad categories of comfort;

 Psychological,
 Sensorial and
 Physiological
 Psychological comfort: