A quantification of the preferred ease allowance for the men’s formal jacket patterns

The purpose of this study is to provide a quantitative reference required for the decision of ease allowance to draft men’s formal jacket patterns by quantifying the customers’ actual tendency regarding the preferred fit. The ease allowances of 62 male customers were investigated through the sensory evaluations, once in the initial fitting jackets which were designed using the graded sizing chart of ready-to-wear, and once again in the custom-made jacket customers ordered. The 5-point Likert scale was used for the sensory evaluation and the preferred ease allowance was defined as the ease allowance of respondents who responded “3_Suitable”. The regression equations were developed to estimate preferred ease allowance by inputting body size measurements which showed the highest correlation with the preferred ease allowances. The estimated ease allowance ranges by inputting the 5th to 95th percentile of the body sizes were 5.17–8.25 cm for the chest circumference, 6.90–2.09 cm for chest–waist circumference on the jacket, − 3.82 to 1.34 cm for the chest–hip circumference on the jacket, 1.58–5.86 cm for the upper arm circumference, − 1.80 to 1.95 cm for the bi-shoulder length, and 0.406–0.425 for the ratio of jacket length to stature. The actual tendency of the jacket consumers can be estimated by result of this study, which make the jacket pattern which conforms to current fashion trends can be produced minimizing the potential fit problems.