Fabric Attractiveness Using Four Sensory Evaluators

This work was supported by the Slovenian Research Agency (Research Programs No. P2-0213, Textiles and Ecology, and P5-0110, Psychological and Neuroscientific Aspects of Cognition).

All senses elicit emotional responses to goods, services, and the environment. They also play an important role in the process of fashion design and its evaluation. This research is a continuation of several preliminary studies we conducted online to define three attractive and three unattractive colors, textures, smells, sounds, and tastes. In the present study, a sample of textile engineering and fashion design students and experts (N = 54) assessed four groups of 6 fabric samples (sensory evaluators) selected based on the results of the preliminary studies. Each group of fabrics was assessed in one of four sensory modalities (except taste). Two semantic differentials were used to assess each sensory modality: attractive/unattractive and boring/interesting in the case of color, insensitive/sensitive in the case of texture, disturbing/calming in the case of sound, and cheap/luxurious in the case of smell. We found that among the fabrics in six different colors, the pink fabric was the most attractive. Of the six textures presented, the knitted rib texture was found to be the most attractive to touch. The scent of lemon essential oil was perceived as the most attractive among the six scents used, and the friction sound of suede leather was perceived as the most attractive among the six friction sounds of fabrics. Cluster analysis showed that the attractiveness of scents and colors of six fabric samples was highly differentiated and (almost) each sample was perceived as unique, while the attractiveness of the texture and sound of different samples was less differentiated and the samples were divided into only two groups. This suggests that discrimination of fabric attractiveness may be better in some sensory evaluators/modalities than in others. The results of this study will be useful for further research on the integration of different sensory modalities in fabric perception and garment preferences.