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The main purpose of this paper is to identify, screen and prioritize customer requirements (CRs) for men’s denim jeans. Moreover, the effect of demographic factors on the primary evaluation criteria has been examined.

The study was initiated by the growing complaints about denim jeans products of a local manufacturing company. First, 24 CRs were identified from the literature and customer complaints. Then, a survey was conducted to rate the identified CRs and solicit more CRs through closed-ended and open-ended questions, respectively. From the survey, 368 usable responses were collected while the participants were shopping in 14 local retail shops. After analyzing the data using factor analysis, univariate and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), and content analysis, the resulting 15 criteria were prioritized by experts’ pairwise comparisons employing the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP).

Factor analysis extracted six components (primary criteria) including design cues, pocket design, comfort, size and fit, fashionability, and extrinsic cues from the CRs included in the closed-ended questions. MANOVA showed that age and frequency of purchasing denim jeans significantly affected the primary criteria, while educational level and frequency of wearing denim jeans did not. The weights from the fuzzy AHP revealed that colour fastness, price, durability, fabric weight, workmanship, side pocket design and fit as the most important CRs. Moreover, consumers preferred regular fit, stitched round side pockets, patch back pockets and stretchable denim fabric.

The limitations of the study are discussed in the body of the paper in Section 7.

The paper presents exploratory findings on denim jeans evaluation criteria in a developing country’s context. Moreover, the application of fuzzy AHP for prioritizing denim jeans’ CRs is unique.

This study considers the importance of fashion involvement in the interpretation of brands of jeans as measured by Snyder’s revised self‐monitoring scale, which discriminates between people who are highly motivated to respond to social cues and those who remain “true to themselves”. Over 650 people in the UK aged 14‐34 were shown either a branded or unbranded stimulus. They were asked to record their attitude to 27 pairs of bipolar adjectives using a semantic differential scale. At the same time they completed Snyder’s scale. It was found that self‐monitoring is a significant mediator of meaning with regard to unbranded, but not branded, jeans. A model of choice by elimination of the unacceptable is suggested by high self‐monitoring responses. It has implications for the amount of advertising required to support a fashion brand.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the importance of functional, hedonistic and ethical attributes of denim jeans attributes and the trade‐offs young adult Australian consumers made within these attributes when making a purchase decision.

A two‐stage mixed‐method approach was used to explore the importance of denim jeans attributes and the trade‐offs made within these attributes. First, focus groups were used to identify attributes that were important to young Australian adult consumers. In the second stage, conjoint analysis was used to estimate the relative importance of the product and ethical attributes that were identified in the focus groups and the trade‐offs made within this attribute set.

Focus group participants identified style, price, brand, country of origin and ethics as attributes that they used to evaluate denim jeans. In the conjoint analysis respondents identified price as having the highest relative importance, followed by brand, country of origin, style and ethical attributes. It was clear multiple attributes were valued and, although the ethical attributes that were included were not as important as garment attributes, respondents appeared to make trade‐offs between garment and ethical attributes when purchasing denim jeans.

The paper identifies attributes of denim jeans that are valued by young Australian adult consumers. That product attributes were more important than ethical attributes suggests a focus on ethical credentials may not be effective. Denim jeans are more likely to be purchased by young Australian adults if they are reasonably priced, made in Italy and have a designer brand.

The purpose of this paper is to compare a set of product specifications to evaluate appearance and performance characteristics of denim jeans at three price categories, and identify any relationships between price and product quality.

This research is as a quasi-experimental laboratory study. The product specifications of jeans are identified. Next, the appearance and performance characteristics of jeans are examined initially and after one and five repeated laundering cycles. The data are analyzed within and between each price category to identify any possible relationship between price and product quality.

The price category of jeans does not necessarily reflect different dimensions of product quality. Although higher priced jeans had superior product specifications and visual appearance, they did not show superior performance with respect to all elements of fit, durability, and color performance when these three factors were measured through laboratory testing.

The limitations of this study from a research perspective include a small sample size, gender-focused sample selection. and the focus on only three retail categories. These limitations impact the generalizability of the results but could serve as a basis for similar studies. The evaluated product quality attributes were limited to intrinsic/measurable characteristics. Future studies should consider the extrinsic attributes of quality, especially as they are related to consumer’s purchasing decision.

Retailers in moderate and budget price categories can benefit from educating consumers about the quality attributes of jeans that would ultimately influence their post-purchase experience and are not necessarily related to the product’s price category. Educators can use this information to assist in teaching students about the multiple dimensions of materials and assembly choices, and how this will impact their final products as they are learning the apparel product development process.

The focus of this study on the quantification of intrinsic product attributes is unique and provides measurable data for product evaluation by consumer researchers and industry. The results of this research identify the strengths and weaknesses in the appearance and performance characteristics of jeans in different price categories, and how those may affect consumers’ purchase intention.

Purpose – To provide marketing and managerial insights to western companies selling denim jeans in China, specifically in Shanghai. Understanding consumers' perceptions of Western‐branded jeans in a cultural‐specific marketplace is the primary focus. Design/methodology/approach – Combined methods included observation of shoppers wearing jeans in two malls in Shanghai and an anonymous survey. A total of 219 surveys were analyzed and consumer‐perceived jeans attributes or related concepts were tabulated. Findings – About one third of the observed shoppers were wearing jeans, which signified a relatively high popularity of jeans as casual wear in Shanghai. The design and fashion of jeans were deemed highly critical but were superseded by comfort and fit. Shanghai consumers distinguished brand origins only between the West and the East instead of by specific countries. Dissatisfaction with price and fit were identified. Research limitations/implications – Questions were designed to screen out respondents who had not purchased and had no desire to purchase western denim jeans brands. Limiting the sample in this way offered some control for behavioral patterns, but conclusions are limited. Practical implications – Content analysis of an open‐ended question about consumers' perceptions of western‐branded jeans helped discern attributes of jeans that consumers deemed most important. Marketers of western jeans can develop effective marketing strategies in tune with consumer preferences. Originality/value – This paper researched consumers' perceptions of western denim jeans, a type of world dress, in a booming but foreign market in western eyes. The open‐ended question solicited consumers' free responses, which in turn helped pin‐point attributes of jeans that Chinese consumers value the most.

Apparel product attributes on which consumers place importance may change as a country's economy progresses. Built on Kano's theory, this paper seeks to categorize important apparel attributes in USA (developed country) and India (developing country) and compares the results to predict the pattern of change.

The research involved questionnaire surveys from a sample of 670 college students in two countries: the USA (335) and India (335). Data was collected from a Midwestern university in the USA and from colleges affiliated with a university in southern India.

The attributes assigned to Kano's categories of must‐be, performance, and attractive were found to be different by respondents from the USA and India. For example, “fitting” is classified as a must‐be category for US consumers while it belongs to performance category for Indian consumers. “Brand” was an indifferent category in the USA while it was classified as an attractive category for Indian consumers.

The findings provide US apparel companies with more definitive information on effective marketing strategies for the Indian market and similar developing countries. For example, companies seeking to do business in India must understand that important attributes for Indian consumers will change as the country progresses.

Though previous studies on consumer evaluation of apparel product attributes exist, they failed to examine how important attributes for consumers’ purchase decision changes. This study makes a new contribution to the discipline by providing means to anticipate future important attributes.

This paper reports on the effects of laundering on physical properties (pilling and edge abrasion) of washed denim fabrics.

Garment washed denim blue jeans were subjected to repeated launderings; the effects of the cycles on pilling and edge abrasion were determined. Data were collected by means of a laboratory experimental factorial design. Analysis of variance was used to determine significant differences in the three garment washed treatments; pre‐washed, stone washed and enzyme treated blue jeans. Duncan's test of multiple range determined the source of significance.

The pre‐washed jeans were more prone to pilling than the enzyme and stone washed jeans. On the other hand, the pre‐washed jeans experienced the least amount of edge abrasion while the stone washed experienced the most.

The results can be used by the denim garment manufacturers to design and engineer their products to suit the customer demands.

Jeans are an important part of a consumer's wardrobe and a large portion of denim garments are manufactured with some type of garment wash treatment. Results of this study will provide denim garment manufacturers with pilling and abrasion information regarding garment washing treatments to allow them to utilize the garment treatment that best meets their needs.

The purpose of this paper is to set up a women’s jeans knowledge base between consumer profile and jeans profile. The result of study could be applied to jeans recommendation system for a special consumer.

Women’s jeans are chosen as research objects. The sensory evaluation technology and intelligent data fusion methods are applied in this research.

Eight pairs of words were selected to set up normalized sensory evaluation criteria in the study for describing both consumers’ expectations and products. The relation between consumer profile and jeans profile could be quantified according to the principle of sensory evaluation technology.

Four experiments are designed for setting up this knowledge base by sensory evaluation technology, and set up the women’s jeans knowledge base by intelligent data fusion methods.

The theory of sensory evaluation technology is applied for building women’s jeans knowledge base that can be used for consumer-oriented intelligent garment recommendation system.

This work highlights the optimization of the consumed amount of sewing thread required to make up a pair of jeans using three different metaheuristic methods; particular swarm optimization (PSO), ant colony optimization (ACO) and genetic algorithm (GA) techniques. Indeed, using metaheuristic optimization techniques enable industrialists to reach the lowest sewing thread quantities in terms of bobbins per garments. Besides, the compared results of this research can obviously prove the impact of each input parameter on the optimization of the sewing thread consumption per pair of jeans.

To assess objectively the sewing thread consumption, the optimized sewing conditions such as thread composition, needle size and fabric composition are investigated and discussed. Hence, a Taguchi design was elaborated to evaluate and optimize objectively the linear model consumption. Thanks to its principal characteristics and popularity, denim fabric is selected to analyze objectively the effects of studied input parameters. In addition, having workers with same skills and qualifications to repeat each time the same sewing process will involve having the same sewing thread consumption values. This can occur in some levels such as end of sewing, the number of machine failures, the kind of failure and its complexity, the competency of the mechanic and his way to repair failure, the loss of thread caused by threading and its frequency. Seam repetition due to operator lack of skill will obviously affect clothing appearance and hence quality decision. Interesting findings and significant relationship between input parameters and the amount of sewing thread consumption are established.

According to the comparative results obtained using metaheuristic methods, the PSO and ACO technique gives the lowest values of the consumption within the best combination of input parameters. The results show the accuracy of the applied metaheuristic methods to optimize the consumed amount needed to sew a pair of jeans with a notable superiority of both PSO and ACO methods compared to experimental ones. However, compared to GA method, ACO and PSO algorithms remained the most accurate techniques allowing industrials to minimize the consumed thread used to sew jeans. They can also widely optimize and predict the consumed thread in the investigated experimental design of interest. Consequently, compared to experimental results and regarding the low error values obtained, it may be concluded that the metaheuristic methods can optimize and evaluate both studied input and output parameters accurately.

This study is most useful for denim industrial applications, which makes it possible to anticipate, calculate and minimize the high consumption of sewing threads. This paper has not only practical implications for clothing appearance and quality but also for reduction in thread wastage occurring during shop floor conditions like machine running, thread breakage, repairs, etc. (Kawabata and Niwa, 1991). Unless the used sewing machine is equipped within a thread trimmer improvement in garment seam appearance cannot be achieved. By comparing and analyzing the operating activities of the regular lock stitch 301 machine with and without a thread trimmer, a difference in time processing can be grasped (Magazine JUKI Corporation, 2008). Time consumed in trimming by a lockstitch machine without a thread trimmer equals 3.1 s compared to 2.6 s by a thread trimming one. Hence, the reduction rate in the time processing equals 16.30%. This paper aimed to implement the optimal consumption (thread waste outstanding number of trials). Unless highly skilled workers are selected and well-motivated, the previous recommended changes will not be applied. The saved cost of the sewing thread reduction can be used to buy a better quality of fabric and/or thread. However, these factors are not always the same as they can vary according to customer's requirements because thread consumption is never a standard for sewn product categories such as trousers, shirts and footwear (Khedher and Jaouachi, 2015).

Until now, there is no work dealing with the investigation of the metaheuristic optimization of the consumed thread per pair of jeans to minimize accurately the amount of sewing thread as well as the sewing thread wastage. Even though these techniques of optimization are currently in full development due to some advantages such as generality and possible application to a large class of combinatorial and constrained assignment problems, efficiency for many problems in providing good quality approximate solutions for a large number of classical optimization problems and large-scale real applications, etc., are not applied yet to decrease sewing thread consumption. Some recent published works used statistical techniques (Taguchi, factorial, etc.), to evaluate approximate consumptions; conversely, other geometrical and mathematical approaches, considering some assumptions, used stitch geometry and remained insufficient to give the industrialists an implemented application generating the exact value of the consumed amount of sewing thread. Generally, in the clothing field 10–15% of sewing thread wastage should be added to the experimental approximate consumption value. Moreover, all investigations are focused on the approximative evaluations and theoretical modeling of sewing thread consumption as function of some input parameters. Practically, the obtained results are successfully applied and the ACO method gives the most accurate results. On the other hand, in the point of view of industrialists the applied metaheuristic methods (based on algorithms) used to decrease the amount of consumed thread remained an easy and fruitful solution that can allow them to control the number of sewing thread bobbin per garments.