Abstract
We studied the longitudinal data from the first year of elementary school to the first year of college to clarify the relation between changes of clothing behavior with age and body development. The data was obtained from questionnaires given to 294 female college students in 1996 and 1997 born between 1975 and 1977. We divided the data into three groups (precocious g., average g., and late-maturing g.) using menarche age and considered the relation with clothing behaviors, analyzing the data through the t-test and χt-test. The main results were as follows : (1) The differences of body shape among the 3 groups were remarkable from the 2nd or 3rd year of elementary school to the 2nd or 3rd year of junior high school. (2) It was found that the more precocious their growth was, the more conscious they were of clothing behaviors such as “attitude to body shape, ” “relation between clothes and body, ” “fashion sense, ” “attitude to friends' clothes, ” and “dark and black clothes colors.” Thus, we thought these behaviors were connected to body development. (3) However, clothing behaviors such as “clothes which were often worn, ” “attitude to fashion, ” “method of obtaining clothes, ” and “red and blue clothes colors” showed the same results for all 3 groups.
