Kansei Evaluation of Tactile Response to New Leather Textile Made Using the NISHIJIN-ORI Technique

Abstract

Nishijin-ori is a traditional yarn-dyed fabric of the Nishijin district in Kyoto, Japan. Since 1975, the number of Nishijn-ori companies, looms, employees, and total shipments has been shrinking. To generate new demand, a dramatic shift towards delivering value-added fabric products is required. The Nishijin district is renowned for its traditional technique called hikibaku, whereby Japanese washi paper is cut to a thickness of about 0.2 to 0.3 mm, and woven with the yarn in a weft direction. We applied this hikibaku technique to develop a fabric that incorporates cut leather instead of washi paper. The purpose of this study is to clarify the texture and physical properties of the new leather-silk woven hikibaku-leather fabric and demonstrate its advantages to pure cowhide. A questionnaire on tactile sensations was conducted on 26 men and women to determine the perceived texture of the fabric. Physical properties relating to the tactile sensation were then measured and compared with the questionnaire results. In order to obtain a guideline for the direction of future textile development that matches the assumed user's sensibilities, we first verified the correlation between the factor scores extracted from the Kansei (subjective response) evaluation, and the physical properties of the textiles. Next, we discerned the physical properties that should be focused on for each of the extracted factors and clarified the newly developed textile material in the extracted factor space.

The Design of Automotive Interior for Chinese Young Consumers Based on Kansei Engineering and Eye-Tracking Technology

“…In the experiment for Kansei measurement, the semantic differential method is adopted to build a 7-point Likert scale by combining the representative Kansei words with experimental samples to construct Kansei image space. It is noted that Kansei measurement was conducted by combining both visual and tactile sensations to evaluate the product comprehensively, as reported by previous studies that the unique texture characteristics of interior materials influence human tactile sensation, and thus affects human psychological and emotional responses [23,24].…”

Creation of new textile utilizing Nishijin’s hikibaku technique and exploring new applications in other industries

“…From this perspective, we have developed an apparatus for the production of a new type of hikibaku textile using thinly cut cowhides instead of shredded Japanese paper, and have reported on the structure and physical properties of a new textile synthesized from natural cowhide and silk produced by the apparatus, as well as their effect on human tactile sensation. 4 This paper mainly describes the structure of the device. In addition, as the thickness and strength of the haku (thinly cut decorative foil) were not stable and the yield rate was not high with natural cowhide, we fabricated the textile using artificial leather, which is expected to have stable quality, and conducted evaluations.…”