• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.147-155
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• 2013

The demand to complement the elderly body shape with comfortable clothing has greatly increased with the growing elderly population and their improved social-economic level. However, apparel industries have not provided significant production and sale strategies that reflect and consider elderly body shape characteristics. This study investigated the demand and complaints of current silver wear. This study was conducted on 100 elderly people 65 and over. The questionnaires were composed of Korean Activities of Daily Living (K-ADL) that reflect the general characteristics of the respondents related to clothing (clothing requirements and demands) and free comments on each question. Subsequently, we found that the most uncomfortable clothing parts were 'sleeve length' and 'crotch' in women and 'neck circumference' and 'pocket' in men when wearing shirts and pants respectively. Respondents felt that the button and zipper knob sizes were too small with the buttons too numerous. The results suggest that we should consider body shape changes caused by aging in order to develop elderly clothing patterns to improve the level of ADL. We anticipate apparel industries for the elderly to expand due to the rapid increase in the elderly population.