The Relationship Between Women’s Body Satisfaction And Aesthetic Preferences In Dress Style

Body not only has the physiology, anatomical significance, it is multidimensional, multi-level. From this century since1980s, the interdisciplinary research of body has had great development. Sociology, cultural anthropology and psychoanalysis regarded it as a main task, and the body exploration by increasing people’s attention from the psychological layer facing. The body is the important part of self, and clothing is one of the "second skin" or "visible human self. Body satisfaction is an important part of physical self; it’s studied in the field of psychology with self-esteem, self-esteem, eating disorders, the appearance of the management, media effects and mental health. And it’s studied in the field of clothing and dress aesthetics with motivation, the purchase of clothing and other issues. This research adopted the method of questionnaire and analysis the relationship on different age groups of women’s body satisfaction and dress style preferences. The body satisfaction using revised Berscheid compiled in1973and body image satisfaction measurement scale, dress style preferences using self-designed questionnaire.348female subjects were carried on the questionnaire survey in this investigation, through statistical analysis of data, reached the following conclusions:1. In the aspect of body satisfaction,neck, shoulder and overall were the most satisfaction(mean value≥3.6) of women, and the abdomen, legs and body weight were the most dissatisfied(mean valued3.1).2. women who dress and like dress accounted for more than80%, but in fact the frequency of often dress is less than50%.3. Women most preferences for the part and the whole:the lower semicircle sleeve, collar, waist, waist skirt to the knee, in general, medium skirt size and X whole skirt.4. For parts and the overall style women preferences with the growth of age are more inclined to conceal the body, but also more inclined to intermediate models (extreme reduction) features.5. Women who more satisfied with her arm (correlation coefficient of-0.152, P<0.05) and weight (correlation coefficient of0.194, P<0.01) more preference of a short-sleeved long dress, who more satisfied with her waist (correlation coefficient of0.143, P<0.05) more preference waist tight dress; who more satisfied with her height (related to coefficient of0.243, P<0.01) more preference skirt long dress6.18-25old female who more satisfied with her chest more preference waist tight dress (correlation coefficient of0.201, P<0.05);26-35old female who more satisfied with her abdomen (correlation coefficient of0.266, P<0.05) and hip (correlation coefficient of0.270, P<0.05) more preference for waist lower dress;26-35old female (correlation coefficient of-0.322, P<0.05) and36-45old female (correlation coefficient of-0.325, P<0.01) who more satisfied with leg more preference shorter dresses;46-55old female who more satisfied for her abdomen (correlation coefficient of0.332, P<0.05) more preference for tighter-waist dress;46-55females and females over56years who more satisfied with her leg (correlation coefficients were0.294and0.347, P<0.05, P<0.01) and height (correlation coefficients were0.538and0.323, P<0.01) more s preference for longer dress skirt.The value of this study:in theory, combined with the psychology of body image research, clothing, aesthetics of multiple disciplines, enrich physical self-concept and clothing behaviors study. In practice, This research is from the clothing psychology perspective,study the relationship between different body satisfaction of five female groups and their dress style preference. On one hand, provide guidance to clothing manufacturers and designers, make it grasping the different groups of female characteristics more clearly and producing targets clothes to meet female group, on the other hand, provide basis and reference to psychological therapy which use the dress.The innovation of this study:(1) from the psychology, esthetics and apparel perspective, explores the relationship between the concept of self and clothing of behavior;(2) the study chooses dress for this particular type of clothing, adopted the method of questionnaire to explore women on the dress style of aesthetic preference more specific and detailed;(3)for the first time have dress style with hand painted outline drawing way, trying to find a balance point between abstract and concrete, not only has a more comprehensive cover of dress style and let subjects intuitive visual experience. Strengthen the attention to detail, widen the apparel and richen clothing styles detailes is a direction for future research.