Business Dress for Women Corporate Professionals

Abstract

The purposes of this study were (1) to determine any underlying considerations governing the perceptions of professional people as to the appropriateness of specific types of garment styles for female business dress and (2) to determine if a difference exists in the perceptions of appropriateness of garment styles by sex. Interviews were conducted with male and female professionals at 15 randomly selected com panies. Subjects responded by sorting a set of 36 garment‐photos. Preference data were sub mitted to analysis by multidimensional scaling. One photo from each of the twelve types of garment style categories was used to create a set of 66 ordered pairs which provided com parison data for multidimensional scaling analysis. For the preference data three interpretable dimensions are reported: Dimension one is a for mal to casual dimension which accounts for 50. 7 percent of the subjects' response variance. Dimension two is a dress versus coordinated outfit dimension which accounts for 10.9 percent of the subjects' response variance. Dimension three is a factor of the degree of bodice coverage and accounts for 6. 7 percent of the subjects' response variance. For the paired comparison data five interpretable dimensions are reported. Dimension one accounts for 53. 7 percent of the subjects' response variance and is a tailored versus casual or jacket versus no jacket dimension. Dimension two is a dress versus coordinated outfit dimen sion which accounts for 16.3 percent of the subjects' response variance. Dimension three is a factor of the amount of fit in the waistline area accounting for 7.1 percent of the subjects' response variance. Dimension four is a skirt versus pants dimension which accounts for 6.2 per cent of the subjects' response variance. Dimension five is a factor of surface interest of fabrics, accounting for 5.2 percent of the subjects' response variance. The only significant t‐test (α≤ .05) of sex group mean weights was for dimension one of the preference data, the formal, well‐tailored to informal, more casual dimension. Formality of dress may play a more significant role in the male's estimation of the appropriateness of a gar ment than it does for the female subjects.

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