Perceived Body Size Affected by Garment and Body Mass Index

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of garment size on perceived body size. The perceived body sizes of nine Chinese men, with Body Mass Index between 17.0 and 37.1 kg/m(2), wearing five sizes of white T-shirts were assessed using Thompson and Gray's Nine-figural Scale. Garment sizes on perceived body sizes were different for those of different Body Mass Index. A backpropagation neural net model was used to model the nonlinear relationship between the perceived body size and the body's BMI, body chest girth, and garment ease (difference between garment and body chest girth). When the BMI was less than 20, wearing larger-sized T-shirts tended to increase perceived body size. For large chest sizes and for taller persons (BMI of 20 to 28) large garments made the wearer look thinner. However, for small persons (BMI of 20 to 28) effect of garment size was relatively small. Obese persons (BMI of > 28), wearing garments too tight or too loose were perceived as larger. Minimum perceived body size was found for garment ease of 2 to 3 cm.

Applications of artificial intelligence in fabric and garment engineering

“…From the point of view of beautifying the body image, there may be different optimum garment fi ts for people who have different body shapes. Liu et al 72 demonstrated that an ANN model can be trained to identify the optimum garment ease for wearers of different sizes. For a thin person, garment ease should be larger, in order to be perceived to have a close to average body size.…”

Tailoring Garment Fit for Personalized Body Image Enhancement: Insights from Digital Fitting Research

“…In 2003, Fan et al [17] conducted an experiment on the body image perception of three Chinese male models wearing different sizes of white T-shirts and showed that the effect of garment ease on body image perception is different for people with different body builds. Subsequently, a backpropagation neural net model was established to map the nonlinear relationship between BMI, bust girth, ease of T-shirts, and perceived body sizes [19]. It was found that for thin males, the effect of garment ease on body size perception is relatively small, for tall males with a large chest girth, wearing larger size T-shirts would make them look bigger, and for males with a high BMI (obese), wearing a too tight or too loose T-shirt would both cause overestimation of body size.…”

“…Although previous research identified some body ratios [e.g., body mass index (BMI), waist-hip ratio (WHR), and volume-height index (VHI)] and garment measurements which are potentially related to body image perception [16][17][18][19][20][21][22], no systematic quantitative relationship has been established to provide effective guidelines for customized apparel pattern making for body image enhancement.…”

Research on the image design of clothing patterns

“…As the trend of product development is changing towards being consumer-oriented, the application of Kansei engineering in the field of fashion is also gradually increasing. At present, the research of clothing consumption perception mainly focuses on the style elements such as suits [11], shirts [12], professional female vests [13], as well as clothing fabrics [14][15][16], colors [17] and size [18][19]. However, there are few perceptual studies on clothing patterns.…”