Designing Thai Fabric Fashion for Exporting to Japan

Abstract

Attires, in addition to a protection of human body, are non-verbal language of a kind which can reflect personalities, tastes and status. The different tastes for fashion are influenced by different factors, which can be classified into 2 types: natural and non-natural ones. The former includes the climate, terrain and body shapes. The latter includes the culture, tradition and believes. This preliminary study found that Japan is a country, which is unique in terms of the fashion and attire culture. Japanese women prefer products with creative designs as reflected in handicrafts. Internationally, Japan is recognized as a country, which gives priority to the fashion. Therefore, various fashion products are prevalent for different consumer groups in Japan and, thus, Japan is a promising market. In this article, cultural and non-cultural factors to japanese attires of urban women are discussed. These include body shapes, bodypart lines and weather. From the analysis, it is found that these factors have influence on the fashion design on personalities, lengths, silhouettes and color schemes.

Thai woven fabrics as handicraft products are internationally well-known and exported for years. However, the market share has still been limited because of its designs. This paper aims at investigating the factors that influence on Japanese women’s preferences for fashion products and at proposing designs, which are suitable for Japanese women.

This paper is expected to contribute to the fashion design courses offered by various institutes in Thailand and current students in this field and to the fashion and fashion-related, textile, garment entrepreneurs whose market is Japan and those who are interested in Japanese market.