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The purpose of this study was to explore the determinant factors of the adaptive clothing market for disabled customers and to identify the influential elements in the fashion industry, with the aim of establishing the influential factors that drive the adaptive apparel business in the local market. The study developed a path model of relationships incorporating the disabled consumer background, consumer purchase intention and demand and elements of the fashion industry. This model can be used as a reference for fashion practitioners.

A quantitative approach was adopted for this empirical study. A survey was designed to investigate the connections between the consumer-related and industry-related variables. A set of measurements was developed and validated for the survey. The data were collected from a sample of 175 local wheelchair users, with a response rate of approximately 6.6 per cent. The data were analysed using SmartPLS, and structural equation model analysis was applied to identify the relationships between the variables.

The results of this study demonstrated that consumer purchase intention for adaptive apparel was affected closely by environmental factors, and consumer demand was significantly related to industry aspects including the product complexity and the business operations along with all elements of the industrial practice. The findings also revealed that the disability level was related to the users' purchase intentions, but the financial capability of the disabled consumers did not affect the intention to purchase adaptive clothes products. These results could suggest that economic issues are not the consumer's prior concern when purchasing apparel, but rather the disability condition. Those who demand adaptive apparel require advanced performance levels of product design, technology application and service.

The study originated from the situation that the Hong Kong fashion market lacks an adaptive market specifically for the minority group of disabled consumers. Why such a niche market has not been developed is unclear to the practitioners. It is necessary to investigate from both consumer-related and industry-related factors. Specifically, the research explored the consumer background and industry elements to identify the factors that influence disabled consumers to purchase apparel, in order to inform fashion practitioners who are interested in the niche market of disabled consumers in Hong Kong. It is anticipated that the determinants of adaptive market development can be extended to wider areas of the Chinese or other Asian markets.

This paper studies the factors that motivate small and medium-sized clothing firms in Hong Kong to shift their production offshore, and identifies the interrelationships between these factors and firm-related characteristics, sourcing strategies, and buyer-supplier relationships. Using a multiple case methodology to study ten firms and a two-phase approach to collecting data involving, in-depth interviews and mail questionnaires, the two most important factors motivating the sourcing of production offshore are identified, as follows: (1) cost advantage of, and (2) availability of labour in, the host country. The results also show that industrial sector and firm size are the only firm-related characteristics that have an effect on the factors motivating offshore production. Furthermore, sourcing strategies and buyer-supplier relationships are sometimes influenced by these motivational factors.

In this study, the use of various clothing descriptors have been used to provide some insights into clothing perception for 88 female students. The use of clothing descriptors to categorize different aspects of clothing is a vital component of clothing selection, given the assumption that explicit use of clothing descriptors may reveal implicit clothing categories. Season, income per month, and total clothing descriptors used were shown to differentially affect the use of various clothing descriptors such as brand, colour, quality, quantity, and size. The results of this study have provided partial evidence for the effect of IT on the use of clothing descriptors, perceived clothing functionality, and effects of financial constraints on brand perception. Moreover, clothing descriptors seem to be useful in illuminating underyling schemas and processes for clothing selection. Implications for future research are discussed in terms of clothing selection and purchase.

This paper reveals an under researched phenomenon: the ways that export-oriented, original equipment manufacturing (OEM) clothing companies upgrade to original brand manufacturing (OBM), and the implementation challenges involved, especially at the high end of the market. In order to provide an in-depth understanding of this particular phenomenon, this research adopts a qualitative form of methodology and features a case study of recent business practice in Hong Kong.

The background of the Hong Kong clothing manufacturers is examined from the perspective of the global commodity chain (GCC). A review of OBM opportunities in Hong Kong is conducted and the possible explanations for initiating OBM are also identified.

The insights from the Fenix case study reveals the advantages of adopting an indirect path towards achieving OBM, factors governing decisions and actions during the transformation, inherent obstacles of branding in the high-end market and the synergies of running the OEM and OBM business models in one company. These insights serve as an example of success in both transforming the enterprise from OEM to OBM and diversification of markets to sustain OBM business activities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate which dimension of salespersons' service quality is of most importance for customer loyalty in a fashion chain stores setting. It also aims to assess the effects of two retail environmental factors (price level and customers' demographic variables) on the customer loyalty of salespersons service quality.

The study uses the SERVQUAL service quality instrument with modification in measuring the salespersons' service quality in the Hong Kong fashion retail environment. In order to measure customer loyalty in fashion chain stores, multi‐item measures were used to collect data on repatronage intentions, word‐of‐mouth intentions, and satisfaction. A total of 232 surveys were administrated to shoppers who were leaving a fashion chain store in Hong Kong.

The results showed that the empathy dimension of salesperson service quality is the most important for customer loyalty in Hong Kong's fashion chain stores but the empathy dimension of salespersons' service quality in fashion retail stores could not be affected by these two retail environmental factors. Furthermore, the salespersons' service quality in the reliability dimension is significantly impacted by the customers' demographic characteristics, but not by price level set by fashion chain stores.

The study was carried out in four popular retail districts of Hong Kong and the results obtained may not be generalized to the country as a whole. The findings that are relevant in a fashion retail setting may not applicable in other retail environments.

The findings can direct fashion retailers to improve the specific service dimensions and work to provide customers with more value through services which will consequently improve internal and external standards of quality and performances in fashion retail settings, thus bringing about repeat customers and increased profitability.

Fabric loss is a major contribution to material utilization. Minimizing fabric loss during spreading can reduce the total production costs for garment manufacturing. A traditional method of predicting the fabric loss during spreading is mainly based on the experience of domain experts or the historical data of production orders. Such method is subjective, not systematic and non‐repeatable. In this paper, assuming the spreading process is handled in a controlled manner and there are no flaws on the fabrics being spread, a mathematical model is constructed for predicting the total fabric loss in the spreading process. The total fabric loss includes the internal wastage (i.e. marker fallout), and the external wastage (including end loss, width loss, and splice loss). Other parameters such as marker length, number of splice lines, remnant, and roll length of fabric are also included in the model.

The problem of assembly line balancing is to assign different tasks to individual workstations for ensuring the sum of task times at any station not exceeding the station time. Standard minute time is generally used in the clothing industry as a predictor of sewing speed and production efficiency. In the clothing industry, the standard minute time derived from the work study methods is generally assumed as a constant for line balancing. However, a lot of factors cause variations on operational time of the same task such as the fabrics and sub‐materials, performance of the machinery, working environment and quality level of the product. With the aid of an illustrating example selected from a men’s shirt manufacturing factory, the effect of time variations for assembly line balancing has been studied in this paper.

Pressure garments are mainly made of elastic Lycra fabrics and tailor‐made to individual patients’ measurements to provide an appropriate amount of skin‐garment interface pressure for burn rehabilitation. However, the fabric tension would be different at various locations from the hem edges of pressure garments, and thus the skin‐garment interface pressure cannot be uniformly maintained over the interface surface. Aims to investigate the pattern of interface pressure changes caused by the different types of edge finish used for making pressure garments. The effect of garment sizes on the change of interface pressure was also examined. Experiments were carried out using two selected elastic Lycra fabrics, four types of hem finish and three different garment sizes. The results of the study provide a guideline for designing the edge finish of pressure garments, and a minimum margin from the hem edges of garments to the scar area is also recommended.

This paper aims to design and develop a learning‐based fuzzy colour prediction system for providing more effective apparel design in computer‐aided design system.

In this study, we propose using a fuzzy system integrated with preliminary knowledge of colour prediction for facilitating apparel design. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated in terms of its computational efficiency and robustness. In addition, the proposed system is evaluated by target group of customers.

It was found that the performance of the proposed system is better than the traditional approach.

Although the proposed system has some limitations, the outcome of this study could be used to produce a future breakthrough in providing an intelligent computer‐aided design system for apparel product.

Using such an approach, an apparel designer could predict the favourite colours of garment for a target group of customers. The system uses preliminary knowledge about the customers' profiles and evaluations. Such fuzzy approach for colour prediction is established, which is not used in a traditional way in apparel design.

This paper aims to explore one question: to what extent does urban rehabilitation impact the housing search cost of the low-income tenants.

This paper adopts the fixed effects time-on-market (TOM) model and pricing model to study the research question.

Urban rehabilitation lifts the subdivided units (SDUs’) prices by around 7%. For the SDU located in old districts, urban rehabilitation gives rise to the rental price up by 11%–12%. The SDUs in the area without urban rehabilitation experience a short marketing period of 16%–17%. The SDU located in the old district that is without urban rehabilitation would have a short marketing time.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the pioneering research to investigate the relationship between rehabilitation and low-income rental housing from the improved search theory. The improved search theory posits that under the circumstance of urban rehabilitation, low-income tenants’ options are limited and the search behavior will be restricted in the affordable areas, and then TOM will be shortened. With the concentration of SDUs in Hong Kong, the test of the search theory is broken down into two hypotheses. (H1) Urban rehabilitation leads to low-income housing prices increase. (H2) Low-income housing located in areas without urban rehabilitation has a shorter TOM.