39—THE APPLICATION OF MULTIPLE FACTOR ANALYSIS TO THE ASSESSMENT OF FABRIC HANDLE

Abstract

The technique of multiple factor analysis has been used to study the factors that affect the ‘handle’ of suiting materials. Unskilled observers describe the feel of these fabrics mostly in terms of smoothness, softness, coarseness, thickness, weight, warmth and stiffness. The relationship between these qualities and objective measurements of stiffness, weight, thickness, hardness and cover factor has been examined. A three-dimensional model can be used to display the relationship between the tests, which implies that there exist three physical tests that will give a description of the handling quality of a fabric. These can be identified tentatively as smoothness, stiffness and thickness. Satisfactory measurements of stiffness and thickness can be made, but no measurement of smoothness has yet been found which correlates well with the subjective impression of smoothness. Further work needs to be undertaken to discover if these factors can be identified in other sets of fabrics. Other types of fabric might show quite different factor patterns.