A Study On Adaptability Of Clothing Structures For Disable People With Dressing Difficulties And Clothing Designs For Such Purposes

This paper, based upon researches on clothing design for the disabled, gives a full detailed description of people with dressing difficulties, and offers an innovative classification for the disabled, from the perspective of clothing structure designing. Several surveys were conducted in Shine Home, where people with mental disabilities live in, so a lot of information about their daily life, as well as difficulties for the nurses, was obtained, which gave important insights in meeting the need of more comfortable clothing for the disabled.In this paper, according to the information collected previously, some factors, such as safety, comfort, function, convenience for dressing and undressing, aesthetics and cost, which influence the clothing design for the disabled, were analyzed and summarized. Special requirements were suggested to contribute to the clothing designs for the people with dressing difficulties, by specifying the classification of a particular disability. As far as clothing design theory was concerned, physical and psychological analyses were conducted for disabilities of different classifications, which gave a pretty systematic result in figuring out some shared features of their needs. Then researches on the styles, dress structures, fabrics and processes were conducted, and some styles were applied to real making in normal sizes. After trying on these sample clothing by people with dressing difficulties, their functions were tested, which showed ideal results.This paper offered a detailed discussion about shared features in the need for clothing from the disabled, summarized a relatively general theory of clothing design for the disabled with dressing difficulties. However, further efforts are needed in order to realize a systematic clothing design for the disabled, which could help the development of clothing design for the disabled.