THE CONTEMPORARY FASHION DESIGN USING LADY PALM FIBER

Abstract

The contemporary fashion design using lady palm fiber aimed to 1) to investigate the approaches in improving fiber quality in producing woven fabric from Lady Palm which would be used in designing fashion products, 2) to design fashion products using Lady Palm fiber which could add value to the material as well as provide alternatives for product consumers, and 3) to conduct survey on consumers’ satisfaction towards the developed fashion products using Laday Palm fiber. The research instruments consisted of an interview form for interviewing fiber innovation, material and woven textile experts as well as a questionnaire of evaluating satisfaction of consumers including 100 people who were interested in the products, basic wisdom and handicrafts as well as were a customers in Silapacheep Prateep Thai OTOP at Challenger Building 1-3, IMPACT Arena, Exhibition and Convention Center Muang Thong Thani. The results of studying the properties of Lady Palm which was used in the experiment and combining its fiber to the cotton fiber by weaving using a traditional loom into fabric that had properties of fibrous fabric as well as good water absorbency and UV protection elucidated that 1) the woven fabric which had rough fiber texture was suitable for processing into bag and shoe products by employing  four-heddle weaving technique to strengthen the fabric. 2) the woven fabric which had fine fiber texture from weaving with two heddles was suitable for products that directly touch the skin without irritation effects, such as apparel products. For the consumers’ satisfaction towards the developed products, there was a high level of the overall satisfaction (x̄ = 3.84,S.D.=0.78) with a high level of satisfaction on apparel products (x̄ = 3.79,S.D.=0.79), a high level of satisfaction on bag products (x̄ = 3.84,S.D.=0.78) and a high level of satisfaction on shoe products (x̄ = 3.90,S.D.=0.83).