Quality and Aesthetic of Wool Fabrics through Sensory Evaluation

Abstract

Value of fabric related to quality and aesthetic were investigated especially focusing on fabrics made from wool or from wool as the main material. Two sensory evaluations, comprising of a visual evaluation and visual with tactile (visual-tactile) evaluation were carried out in aspects of quality and aesthetic and also fabric hands using verbal expressions that people generally use. The visual and visual-tactile feelings of quality (high grade/low grade) and aesthetic (feels beautiful or fine/does not feel beautiful or fine) were found to be correlated well with the feelings of rough/smooth and coarse/fine; namely, the more smooth and fine the samples were, the more the subjects felt them as higher grade and more beautiful. On the other hand, quality and aesthetic feelings were independent from thin/ thick, strong/week and heavy/light feelings of the samples. This study also suggested the important physical and surface properties for the quality and aesthetic feelings. The surface property, SMD, found to relate to the quality and aesthetic feelings of both visual and visual-tactile evaluations. Prediction models were also introduced. The quality and aesthetic feelings were described well with the models by taking into account not only the surface property, SMD, but also the properties such as shear properties for the visual evaluation and the shear property, the air resistance property and/or the bending property for the visual-tactile evaluation.