Abstract
Korean prior studies on smart clothing seeking complete mixture of clothing and computer with diverse functions in the ubiquitous environment were so mere, while there have been aggressive activities to develop diverse smart clothing products led by the relevant industries and universities in foreign countries. Given prospective growth of the smart clothing market, there should be customers' evaluation of functions and utility of and sensitivity to smart clothing as well. This study conducted a questionnaire to Korean customers in their twenties regarding their perception and liking of and willingness to use smart clothing, and examined the needs of new functions of smart clothing. As a result, the customers in their twenties turned out to like well-designed and comfortable clothing, and be exposed to diverse and continuous computing environment. Also, they have relatively low perception but considerably high liking of smart clothing, indicating their high willingness to use smart clothing products. They cited 'selectable functions' and 'mobile and convenient ' as merits, and 'too expensive' and 'easy to wash' as demerits of smart clothing. In the respect, they proposed many interesting smart clothing ideas, such as 'clothing with automatic temperature-sensing function, which gets higher heat- insulating function by tightening the textile structure in winter and higher ventilating function by loosening the textile structure in summer.' We hope the results of this study will serve basic data for development of more efficient smart clothing in the future.
