FABRIC MECHANICAL AND PHYSICAL PROPERTIES RELEVANT TO CLOTHING MANUFACTURE

In Parts 1 and 2 of this series of papers, we have investigated the important mechanical and physical properties of fabrics which determine their performance during tailoring especially fabric tensile, shear, bending and dimensional properties. The conditions for structural balance of seams has been quantitatively evaluated as well as the relationship between the degree of fabric overfeed during sewing and the natural curvature or curling couple of the seamed fabric assembly. Fabric forming and draping behaviour is strongly dependent on fabric bending and the fabric membrane properties of extension, longitudinal compression and shearing in the fabric plane. In this paper, the influence of these basic fabric mechanical properties on subjectively assessed garment appearance is also studied. These mechanical properties can be used to distinguish between fabrics which make up into suits of good and poor appearance. The investigation of the bending properties of overfed fabrics has established an empirical relationship between the level of fabric overfeed and the natural curvature of the overfed seamed fabric composite for three different fabric configurations.