In order to ascertain appropriate clothing requirements for young children it is necessary to take into account their ongoing physical development. To this end, a lifestyle survey of infants was carried out (Okada 1990). This survey used a sample of 622 boys and girls under the age of 6 years and made particular reference to the youngsters’ clothing preferences.
  The following observations were made:
1) Hayashi’ s Quantification Method Ⅲ was applied to 24 motor skills related to the subject’s ability to get dressed and undressed. The data, plotted along two axes of a graph, resulted in a clear ‘U’ curve. A correlation was thus established between motor skills and scores. This study provided useful data with respect to clothes’ design for young children.
2) With the exception of tying and untying drawstrings, Okada’ s data suggests that children show more dexterity (dressing and undressing themselves) at an earlier age than suggested by Yamashita (1935). Socio-cultural factors reflecting the time span between the two sets of data may account for this difference. In other respects, both sets of data show a number of similarities; for example, their developmental stages are in regular order and girls were proven to have higher levels of dexterity at an earlier age than boys.
3) In order to foster a sense of independence it is necessary to encourage youngsters to dress and undress themselves at the age correspond with their developmental stage. With this in mind, we hope the results of this research will better help mothers and carers make more appropriate clothing choices for their children.

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  Detergency of textiles by low-water laundering was assessed with a drum-type washing machine called a Wascator. An artificially soiled cotton fabric (Sentaku Kagaku Kyoukai) and three mechanical action fabrics (WAT cloth, Poka-Dot®306 and MA test piece) were attached to cotton ( 920×920 mm² ) and polyester ( 200×200 mm² ) load ballasts and then washed in aqueous alkaline detergent solution with a different bath ratio. The washing procedures used were normal, gentle and hand wash in accordance with ISO 6330. At the extremely low bath ratio of 1:3, both detergency, D, and the mechanical action value, ΔL^*, decreased for all washing procedures. The magnitude and the deviation of D and ΔL^* were dependent on the load ballasts used, indicating that soil removal was prevented and that uneven washing was promoted for large clothes. The relation between D and ΔL^* for all experimental data was plotted on almost the same line in the high ΔL^* region. In the low ΔL^* region, the relation was dependent on the bath ratio, i.e. detergent bulk concentration. For low-water laundering, it was suggested that the detergency performance decreased as a result of the reductions of the mechanical action and detergent bulk concentration.

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  We conducted a survey of 392 university students in order to ascertain young people’s image of “fast fashion” and the connection between their lifestyle attitudes and their approach to “fast fashion.” In connection with the image of “fast fashion,” we found that subjects placed a relatively high degree of importance on attributes such “low-priced,” “casual,” “approachable” and “fashionable.” We extrapolated four factors on the basis of analysis of factors related to approaches to “fast fashion,” namely “approach to dressing,” “interest-provoking,” “dubious quality” and “disposable.” On the basis of analysis of factors related to lifestyle attitudes, we extrapolated the following three factors: “enjoyment of everyday life,” “concern for the environment” and “steady orientation.” The subjects were then divided into a high group and a low group in accordance with factors regarding lifestyle attitudes and we examined the connection between attitudes and “fast fashion.” Among our findings were that people who tend to enjoy everyday life wear “fast fashion” because it has become a focus of interest and also that they pay attention to how they dress when wearing such clothing.

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  For clothing and body design that fits the body shape, posture and actions of elderly women, an investigation was made into the body trunk shape changes in standing and sitting postures, and the body shape characteristics in sitting posture were ascertained. Subjects were 30 elderly women aged 65-80. Three-dimensional (3D) scan data was used for analysis. From the dimensional changes of the body trunk according to posture, it was shown that, compared to standing posture, elderly women in sitting posture have a tendency to be more inclined and bent forward, and have a larger abdominal region. From the results of principal component analysis of the shapes, more than 80% of the body shape characteristics of elderly women in sitting posture could be explained by a forward bending of the back, abdominal protuberance, a balance between height dimensions and circumference/width dimensions, and fatness. It was clarified that there are major differences in abdominal shapes between standing posture and sitting posture.

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  Food gifts used as offerings for Confucian seasonal rites (33 times in both spring and autumn) and occasional rites (9 times in irregular seasons) mainly organized by Shunsui Rai (1746-1816), a Confucian of the Hiroshima feudal clan in the later Edo era, were investigated. These were presented by 14 blood and marriage relatives and 146 acquaintances. Two brothers of Shunsui contributed the most among the relatives. The acquaintances were pupils, colleagues in the Hiroshima feudal clan, and Confucians contacted by Shunsui during alternate-year visits to Edo city. One-third of the gifts were food products (sake, sweets, and tea) which could be kept for a while before consumption. More than half of the sea food and poultry was salted or dried for keeping longer than perishable products. Ducks and sweetfish presented by the Hiroshima feudal lord were also salted for more than two months before the rites. The fact that the number of gifts was maintained after Shunsui’s death indicates that the relationships were carried through to the subsequent generations of the Rai family.

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