Design requirements for female boomer activewear: A sequential exploratory mixed methods study

The emerging phenomena of active aging brought new challenges for professionals to respond to female boomers’ demands on special needs for fit and styling of activewear. Since this market is not well understood, a holistic research that integrates both consumer behavior and product development is needed. Thus, this study explored and analyzed design requirements for female boomer activewear for indoor fitness through a sequential exploratory mixed methods research. This method consists of three phases that begins with the collection and analysis of qualitative data and builds from the qualitative results to a quantitative phase. In the first phase, 15 in-depth interviews were conducted to explore female boomers’ functional, expressive, and aesthetic (FEA) needs based on FEA Consumer Needs Model (Lamb & Kallal, 1992). In the second phase, themes and preferences found in the first phase were translated into garment engineering details in terms of design features and textile properties: interaction matrix and design problem-approach analysis were conducted. The fit issues were addressed by comparing two parametric avatars of missy and female boomer figures and the data were further transferred to visual representations by 3D virtual prototyping. In the third phase, online survey was conducted where 321 female boomers across the United States evaluated the developed 3D prototypes. Specifically, FEA attributes of the activewear were evaluated and the relationship between FEA needs and wearing intention were examined. The results of the 3D virtual comparisons showed that there is difference in body shapes between the female boomer and missy figures that influence design requirements. Based on the results, this study proposed a conceptual model that illustrates the