Abstract
The outdoor apparel market has been growing very fast recently, and consumers are spending more time doing outdoor activities for their leisure. As the outdoor apparel market is growing, it has started to combine functionality with style to provide more diverse designs and colors for all ages. The increase of interest in heathy life-styles, outdoor activities, and leisure has lead to a rise in demand for outdoor apparel. Now outdoor apparel have become a part of people's daily casual wear in addition to being worn for outdoor activities. This study is focused on a outdoor jacket design which is used as down-alternative material and the purpose of this study is to design outdoor jackets using a down-alternative fabrics that improve the thermal and lightweight effects for clothing comfort, and increase the satisfaction of wearing down-alterative outdoor jacket. The research of this paper was done by using a questionnaire survey. The survey was used to examine the male customers' outdoor activities, purchase behaviors, place, expense and design preferences. Then, down-like fabric was used to make the prototype down jacket and its design, function, and satisfaction with wearing compared with other brands down jacket products were analyzed. Although duck down fabrics are representative of outdoor jackets, they have many problems that need to be solved such as feathers falling out or its vulnerability to moisture. They have competitive prices compared to down jackets so down-alternative jackets are able to gain more proportion of its market share.
