A Factor Analysis is presented of assessments of the handle of a range of 156 men's summer fabrics by a panel of 56 judges drawn from the textile and clothing industries of Japan, Australia, New Zealand, India, the United States and China and a panel of eight Australian consumer judges with no experience in these industries. The analysis has been extended to include KES-F data on the mechnical and physical properties of these fabrics. Expert judges of men's summer fabrics may be classified into two groups, according to their pattern of fabric handle assessment. One group constitutes the Japanese and some Chinese judges, and the other group is associated with “Western” judges. The difference between these two patterns of fabric handle assessment has been related to the mechanical properties of the fabrics.

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The effects of some factors on the dimensional parameters (U_s=C_u×W_u×l_u²=S_u×l_u², U_c=C_u×l_u, U_w=W_u×l_u, and U_c/U_w = C_u/W_u, where lu is the total length in the SKC, C_u is course units/unit fabric length, W_u is wale units/unit wide and the SKC is the smallest repeating unit of the structure) and t/l (where l_u is the fabric thickness and l is the loop length) of 1 × 1 rib knitted fabrics are investigated experimentally, using the cotton yarns (30s//3, 20s/2 or 30s/3) and the nylon sewing threads (from raw or textured filament yarns).
For the 1 × 1 rib fabrics knitted from the nylon sewing threads, U-values are approximately constant, but t/l increases with the increase of the fabric tightness (K = n√T/l_u, where n is the number of loop in the SKC and T is the yarn linear density in tex).
The results obtained for the cotton 1 X 1 rib knitted fabrics are as follows :
(1) For all fabrics after each relaxation treatment (DR, WR, BR, LR (1), (2) and (3) are the dry, wet, boil wash (1), (2) and (3) relaxation treatments respectively), U_c and t/l increase with the increase of K.
(2) For all fabrics after each relaxtion treatment espect for LR (2) and (3), U_c/U_w increases with the increase of K, but U_w and U_s decrease with the increase of K.
(3) For the fabrics knitted from 20s/2 or 30s/3 after LR (2) or (3), U_c/U_w and U_w show a similar tendency to those obtained after DR, WR, BR and LR (1).
(4) For the fabrics knitted from 30s//3 after LR (2) or (3), U_c/U_w and U_w over a range of K > 13 show a similar tendency to those obtained after DR, WR, BR and LR (1), but U_c/U_w and U_w over a range of K≤13 show a reverse tendency to those.
(5) After LR (2) or (3), U_s-values of the fabrics knitted from 20s/2 or 30s/3 are independent on K, but U_s for 30s//3 increases with the increase of K.

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