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For "centuries" manufacturers have been using marketing tools to disseminate information to customers regarding their products. The development of internet has forced companies to use digital technologies to interact with customers and tell them about their products. The purpose of this study was to analyse the impact of digital marketing on brand awareness among the customers of sportswear in Dar es Salaam City, Tanzania. This study applied analytic crosssectional design to analyse quantitative collected from sportswear customers that were selected using simple random technique. The data was gathered using structured questionnaire from 250 sportswear customers in Kigamboni and Kinondoni districts. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression model. The findings of this study indicate that, five marketing tools namely, content marketing, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, paid advertising marketing and pay-per-click marketing have positive and significant impact on brand awareness. On the contrary, e-mail marketing was found to have non-significant impact on brand awareness. This study has informed customers that searching for information regarding sportswear products is less time consuming and low cost. Moreover, this study informs sportswear manufacturers have to use more paid advertisements marketing since they capture more customers. Based on the findings, this study recommends that sportswear to invest heavy and continue to improve their paid advertising and pay-per-click marketing campaigns and to combine digital marketing and traditional marketing strategies for effective ad wide coverage in order to achieve higher brand awareness. The two-marketing media can create a synergy that is more beneficial than using either medium separately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sportswear industry has experienced substantial development as a result of the increasing demand for products that are both performance-oriented and lifestyle-oriented. This study examines the influence of economies of scale on the development and profitability of this dynamic sector. Despite the fact that industry leaders exhibit robust production efficiencies that are indicative of economies of scale, they face difficulties in managing the escalating operating and SG&A expenses. The study emphasizes the importance of stringent cost control measures and continuous innovation in order to maintain a competitive advantage and profitability in the sportswear industry amidst the changing market conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s, most athletics federations have undertaken sponsorship negotiations with private shoe/apparel corporations. While these deals bring great sums of cash into the sport, some of which trickles down to the athletes, a great deal of it is used to leverage both hard and soft power in different regions of the world. The sponsorship regulations of national athletics federations have been recently politicized because of the ways that they conflict with their individual sponsorship agreements with other companies. Few, however, have examined the historical lineages and concerns for Ethiopian and Kenyan athletes – who come from some of the most cash poor and talent rich regions of the athletics world. This paper charts the historical relations and implications of the changes to commercial development and sponsorship as it pertains to Ethiopia and Kenya to broaden the geopolitical scope on this issue. Drawing on archival material and interviews with athletes and agents, it becomes clear that sponsors had their eyes on far more than outfitting the world's top distance runners with their logo. Rather, they were after soft power that would enable them greater control in the flow of goods and capital to and within these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Trying on clothes in sportswear stores is a very time-consuming and tiring task. Virtual fitting rooms provides conditions where the online consumer can try on the clothes he wants before shopping. This technology has recently received much attention due to its commercial potential. However, this technology has not arrived to Iran yet, and it is obscure if the Iranian consumers accept it. In this research, the researcher is trying to investigate the factors affecting the acceptance of this technology by online sports consumers. Methods: This is an applied research. The mixed method was used, in which the Delphi technique was employed between experts of sportswear industry in the qualitative phase. In the quantitative phase, online consumers of sports products were selected as a sample. The snowball method was used to collect the subjects. The manager of Hafez store, a leading store in terms of providing online sport products in Shiraz, was asked to introduce 10 who often bought their sportswear online and were familiar with the newest technologies in this field. The subjects were requested to answer the questionnaire online and send it to other friends and acquaintances who bought most of their sportswear online and were familiar with the newest technologies in this field. Finally, 420 questionnaires were collected. The validity of the instrument was confirmed through the opinions of university professors and convergent validity. Cronbach's alpha and composite reliability were used to check the reliability. SPSS26 and Amos24 software were used for data analysis. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses and evaluate the overall fit. Results: The results showed the positive effect of all the factors including perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, pleasure, arousal and dominance on the adoption of virtual fitting room by online sport consumers. Conclusion: The results of this research have practical implications for sports managers and retailers in relation to adopting the best management and marketing strategies to use virtual fitting rooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Virtual fitting rooms allow online sportswear consumers to try on clothes before shopping. This technology has recently received much attention due to its many benefits to sports consumers and commercial potential. Still, it has not yet entered Iran, and there is no information regarding its adoption by Iranian consumers. This research investigates the adoption of this technology by Iranian online sportswear consumers. Methodology: This research is applied and developmental in terms of purpose and exploratory in terms of implementation method. In this research, a mixed method (quantitative, qualitative) has been used, in which the Delphi qualitative method precedes the quantitative method. In the qualitative phase, 20 experts in the sportswear industry were selected through snowball sampling. In the quantitative phase, a survey of 394 online shoppers of sportswear products was conducted on social networks. Structural equation modelling was used to test the hypotheses. SMART PLS and SPSS 23 software were used for data analysis. Findings: The results supported the positive effect of the factors perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, and fashion leadership, as well as the negative impact of technology anxiety on adopting this technology. The results have practical implications for sports managers, retailers, and sportswear industries regarding adopting the best management and marketing strategies for virtual fitting rooms. Originality: This study examines the innovation of virtual fitting room technology among Iranian sportswear consumers for the first time. Virtual fitting rooms play a significant role in saving time, energy, and money for sports consumers and protecting their privacy. Also, this technology is a fantastic promotional device for sports industries and retailers if Iranian sportswear consumers accept it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brand communication is an effort done by a brand to promote their unique traits or superiority against other brands, using many kinds of strategy. One of successful examples of brand communication is from lululemon athletica; a brand which focuses on athletic garments from America-Canada that centered in Vancouver. Lululemon is a company that swear and commit on developing sustainability and humane development through their natural and human resources, to the point where lululemon is known as an ideal model of brand for sustainability fashion. This scientific article is written to evaluate and to analyze lululemon athletica’s brand communication strategy using AISAS (Attention, Interest, Search, Action, and Share) analysis model. This research is using the method of qualitative. Data were collected through various sources. Primary data was obtained from observation via internet in the form of posters, videos, and social media activity about lululemon athletica. Secondary data was obtained through literature reviews. Lululemon athletica’s brand communication is focused on transparency, and also the health of both environment and their users; where this strategy resulting in successful trust from their users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To solidify itself as a socially progressive global brand, the U.S.-based sports apparel corporation Nike produces and distributes advertisements featuring women from around the world as empowered, independently motivated athletes, capable of transcending all boundaries through their pursuit of athletic excellence. Some advertisements feature celebrity non-Western athletes such as South African track and field star Caster Semenya as part of an overall marketing message founded on the purportedly universal ideal of "girl power." This article argues that Nike's global pro-women advertising can be understood as a Western-centric, neoliberal, postfeminist branding strategy that reinforces existing social inequalities and reproduces the economic exploitation endemic to contemporary capitalism. The article analyzes three of Nike's advertisements from 2018 featuring Caster Semenya, focusing on how each universalize and normalize particularly Western, neoliberal, postfeminist ideals. Attention is given to the advertisements' reliance on the specific neoliberal postfeminist themes of individual empowerment and Western-centered gender norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of the research was to analyze the role of documenting the co-creation of customer brand value based on the perceived risk in the sportswear industry. Methodology: Qualitative analysis was used. So, eleven interviews with ecommerce experts in Iran have been done. They were selected purposefully and collected data through semi-structured interviews. After analyzing the data, 62 basic themes were extracted, and six comprehensive themes were obtained. Findings: We showed that the antecedents of co-creation of customer brand value based on the perceived risk in the sportswear industry include six comprehensive themes. They have customer-building behaviors, corporate branding, customer emotional perception, value creation, communication marketing, and expected risk. We argued that different dimensions of customer value co-creation could be influential in developing online businesses, especially in the sportswear industry. Originality: This research discusses the analysis and documentation of customer brand value co-creation based on the time risk of online brand communities in the sportswear industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem definition: In brick-and-mortar fashion retail stores, inventory stockouts are frequent. When a specific size of a fashion product is out of stock, the unmet demand might not be completely lost because of spillovers to adjacent sizes of the same style or to other styles. Little research has been done to study consumer response to stockouts of fashion products because researchers had limited access to proprietary data of fashion retailers and because it is challenging to estimate stockout-based demand spillover patterns using existing approaches due to the enormous number of stockkeeping units (SKUs) and frequent stockouts in fashion retail stores. To fill this void in the literature, we empirically estimate the stockout-based demand spillover effect in a fashion retail setting. Methodology/results: We obtain a large-scale data set from a fashion retail chain selling world-renowned sportswear brands. The retail stores in the sample are dedicated to products of a single brand. Using around 1.5 million granular and real-time sales and inventory records of 217 stores, 503 men's footwear products, and 4,024 SKUs over a two-year period, we develop a difference-in-differences framework to estimate the stockout-based cross-size demand spillover effect. We demonstrate the validity of this framework by conducting a pretrend test and a placebo test. We find that roughly 51.7% of the unmet demand of an out-of-stock SKU spills over to adjacent sizes of the same style when they are in stock: 25.1% to the adjacent-larger size and 26.6% to the adjacent-smaller size. The cross-size demand spillover effect is larger in regular stores than in flagship stores, larger for casual sports shoes than for specialized sports shoes, and larger for low-price products than for high-price products. Adapting an existing attribute-based demand model to our setting, we estimate that roughly 20.2% of the unmet demand of an out-of-stock SKU spills over to different styles when they are in stock. Taken together, these estimations suggest that about 28.1% of the unmet demand of an out-of-stock SKU becomes lost sales. We further find that when stockouts are widespread among SKUs, stockout-based demand spillovers are significantly reduced, resulting in much increased lost sales. Managerial implications: First, we empirically quantify the stockout-based cross-size demand spillover effect and its impact on lost sales in a brick-and-mortar fashion retail setting. Second, our simulation analysis shows that incorporating the cross-size demand spillover effect into the sportswear retail chain's proactive transshipment decision can substantially reduce its transshipment cost and improve its profitability. Funding: S. Li and S. Huang were supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant 72188101] and the Center for Data Centric Management in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Tsinghua University. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/msom.2022.1135. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities across the United States are increasingly implementing branding into their strategic plans. Several municipalities are finding creative ways to do so, paced by New York City's 2019 licensing agreement with sportswear giant, Nike. The city (via NYC & Company) and Nike entered into a 2‐year agreement that is claimed by Nike as the first known partnership of its kind. The contract allows the sportswear company to produce footwear and apparel with nearly all the city's likenesses, with product release subject to the city's approval. Buoyed by an analysis of relevant public and place branding literatures, this Viewpoint analyzes the cultural ties that serve as the foundation of the relationship between the two entities and the potential impact of non‐financial elements to consider within the agreement. The article offers questions that practitioners should ponder when deciding to enter licensing agreements when opportunities become available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gaining exclusive sponsorship rights to international football club apparel has become increasingly competitive, resulting in larger deal values. The first objective of this study was to analyze the effect of kit sponsorship announcements on the underlying value of sponsoring firms. Utilizing event study analysis, we found that firms announcing kit sponsorships experience negative abnormal returns. This finding may not be surprising given the fierce competition for obtaining valuable, scarce marketing space and the well-known winner's curse. The second objective was to shed further light on the value of kit sponsorship deals by conducting a novel test in which we analyzed a subset of sample observations where the kit sponsorship changed to a new sponsor. We found that firms may be willing to overpay for sponsorships to pre-empt their direct competitors from obtaining valuable, scarce marketing space. Firms losing a pre-existing sponsorship to a direct competitor experience large negative abnormal returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports within the issue on topics, including the origins of mass production of sporting goods, the history of sportswear and sports equipment as technology, and how the emergence of mass markets for sporting goods in the 1970s turned retailers into innovators.

As the United States economy shifted to post-Fordist production models in the late twentieth century, the athletic apparel industry (specifically the brands Nike, Adidas, and Reebok) modified its promotional strategies. Whereas the industry traditionally touted the materiality and functionality of its products, the 1980s saw a substantial increase in marketing that aimed to inculcate products with symbolic characteristics and popular cultural associations. In particular, the industry deployed Black culture, and competed to associate their products with Black athletes, styles, and cultural signifiers. While this modification in promotional tactics yielded unprecedented growth for the industry, the images and messages communicated in this marketing served to exploit Black communities and reinforce the rampant biological and cultural racisms of the Reagan era. Engaging primary accounts from newspapers, magazines, interviews, advertisements, archival catalogues, and oral histories, this paper traces the historical shift towards racialized marketing through the athletic apparel industry's quintessential commodity: the athletic sneaker. Overall, I argue that scholarly analyses of technology must critically engage how goods are promoted and distributed in order to holistically comprehend the social, cultural, and political implications of sporting technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Net Promoter Score (NPS) has been widely adopted by managers as a measure of customer mindset and predictor of sales growth. Over time, practitioners have evolved the use of NPS from its original purpose as a transaction-based customer loyalty metric, towards a metric for tracking overall brand health which includes responses from non-customers. Despite enduring managerial popularity, academics remain skeptical of NPS, citing methodological issues and ongoing concerns with NPS measurement. This study re-visits the use of NPS as a predictor of sales growth by analyzing data from seven brands operating in the U.S. sportswear industry, measured over five years. Our results confirm—within the context of our study—that while the original premise of NPS is reasonable, the methodological concerns raised by academics are valid, and only the more recently developed brand health measure of NPS (using an all potential customer sample) is effective at predicting future sales growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Federal trademark registration helps protect the hundreds of billions of dollars of brand value that trademarks can represent. Recently, interest in the failure-to-function doctrine, which prevents registration of proposed trademarks that consumers do not perceive as marks, has surged at the appellate body of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB). This Note is the first in-depth, focused critique of the TTAB's recent failure-to-function jurisprudence. It argues that, as the TTAB currently uses it, the failure-to-function doctrine is incoherent and lacks clarity. On a more granular level, the doctrine rests on inconsistent multifactor tests whose factors the TTAB adds, subtracts, modifies, reconceptualizes, and weighs differently across cases, giving the USPTO little meaningful criteria by which to decide what marks merit registration. This inconsistency risks increasing costs for the USPTO, brands, and consumers by creating uncertainty as to what proposed trademarks the USPTO will approve. In response, this Note proposes combining failure to function with a different trademark doctrine: the doctrine of aesthetic functionality. Replacing failure to function's unwieldy multifactor inquiries with aesthetic functionality's narrow focus on competition promises to increase clarity and, in so doing, mitigate or avoid costs to the USPTO, brands, and consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study eco-friendly antimicrobial finish was developed by Azadirachata indica, Butea monosperma and Litchi chinensis and then applied on 100% silk fabric. The effectiveness of antimicrobial finish was checked up to 25 washes. The antimicrobial finish was extracted from leaves of these plants and applied on silk fabric by using pad dry cure method. It is true experimental study with pre-test and post-test control group design. FTIR and SEM tests were used to observe the presence of antimicrobial finish on silk fabric. The antimicrobial finish was fixed on silk fabric by the use of poly urethane binder. The antimicrobial activity of treated and untreated fabric and durability to successive washes were assessed by using ASTEM E2149 shake flask method. The treated fabric with A. indica and B.monosperme showed 100% reduction in microorganism presence while L. chinensis revealed 60% reduction against microorganisms. The antimicrobial finish showed 100% reduction after successive laundring up to 25 washes. This fabric is beneficial for home furnishing, sportswear and footwear industry as well as in apparel sector such as in formal wear and making matching face mask against COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to identify the relationship between materialism, brand loyalty and self-brand congruity. In this context, effects of materialism on brand loyalty and self-brand congruity will be examined in the research. The data of the study were collected face to face from a total of 313 people through a structured questionnaire. The surveys were applied to university students due to their high consumption trends. The obtained data were analyzed and reported with SPSS 20 package programs. According to the results of the study, it was observed that there is a significant relationship between materialism and brand loyalty, between materialism and self-brand congruity, and between brand loyalty and self-brand congruity. The study has two main limitations. First, the research was carried out in Konya. Second, it was carried out in the context of the sportswear industry. Materialism and brand loyalty have been investigated in different studies with different variables. This study aims to contribute literature by analyzing two variables with brand-self congruity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buoyant swimwear is becoming more common in recreational swimming use, so the performance of buoyant fabric is important when designing functional swimwear. In this study, potential buoyant inlaid knitted fabrics for buoyant swimwear are investigated. Three types of knitted structures, half milano, full milano and 1 × 1 rib, are selected and various kinds of tubes and foam rods in different diameters are prepared for inlaying during the knitting process by using a 7 G hand-knitting machine. The mean differences among the levels of three independent variables, (1) inlaid material, (2) yarn and (3) knitted structure, on three dependent variables (net buoyant force, compression and tensile properties) are analyzed by using a multivariate analysis of variance. The result shows that the net buoyant force and mechanical properties of the fabric are significantly different due to the inlaid material and knitted structure, but not the yarn. The net buoyant force increases with fabric thickness and the outer diameter of the inlaid material. The inlaid fabrics are less compressible than the control fabric and show better recoverability with an increase in the diameter of the inlaid material. For the tensile properties, the inlaid material reinforces the fabric in both the wale and course directions, in which the stiffness in the course direction is significantly increased. The inlaid fabric is stronger and resistant to breakage in the course direction when the diameter of the inlaid material is increased. The findings of this study contribute to developments in the textile and sportswear industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of children's buoyant swimwear has become more common. However, its bulkiness and hardness restrict the wearer's movement. For better fit, comfort and mobility, a knitted buoyant swimming vest is developed. It is compared with two market samples using subjective evaluation according to the Functional, Expressive and Aesthetic (FEA) Consumer Needs Model and laboratory tests of objective measurements. The results of a paired-sample t -test show that a tightly fitting buoyant swimming vest should be worn out of water, as the vest becomes a perfect fit in water. Tests on the knitted buoyant swimming vest demonstrate improved functionality and higher buoyancy than that of two market samples conforming to British Standard EN13138-1:2014. The results of repeated measures analysis of variance show an overall significant higher satisfaction level in the knitted buoyant swimming vest than two market samples in terms of fit, comfort and mobility. The results of this study are significant for both the textile industry and the fast-growing sportswear industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The purpose of this study was to examine consumers' brand avoidance behaviours toward sportswear brands in the Chinese sportswear market. A theoretical framework was proposed regarding the influence of motivational drivers as well as the moderating effect of country of origin on consumers' brand avoidance behaviours. A focus group study and a web-based survey were used to collect data to test the relationships proposed in the theoretical framework. The results suggested that avoidance toward sportswear brands existed among Chinese consumers. Motivational factors including negative shopping and consumption experience, negative brand identity, and unpleasant advertising had significant influences on Chinese consumers' avoidance behaviours toward sportswear brands. Additionally, brands' country of origin moderated the relationships between brand avoidance drivers and Chinese consumers' brand avoidance toward sportswear brands. This study fills a gap in the literature on brand avoidance, and provides great insight for the sportswear industry in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates brand loyalty and other brand performance metrics in the UK sportswear market. It utilises consumer purchase data kindly provided by Taylor Nelson Sofres. The study finds that empirical regularities discovered by Andrew Ehrenberg and colleagues apply to sportswear brands - including iconic brands such as Nike and Adidas. The main findings are that: (1) sportswear brands enjoy polygamous loyalty from their buyers; (2) the market exhibits the classic double jeopardy pattern whereby smaller brands have slightly lower loyalty; (3) consumers switch between sports brands approximately in line with their market share; and (4) a brand's performance with respect to any demographic- based consumer sub-group is approximately the same as it is in the population generally - that is, sportswear brands tend not to have markedly different appeal to particular demographic segments. Therefore, even iconic brands and self- expressive, emblematic product categories show predictable patterns in brand performance. These well-documented empirical patterns should be used by research providers and brand managers to contextualise brand performance.

The Starter Corporation, the industry leader in the sports licensed apparel business in the 1980s and 1990s, declared bankruptcy in 1999. This case study examines Starter's rise and fall, focusing on the interaction between management decisions made over the years and the profound changes that were taking place in the sports licensing industry. It was found that Starter's dependence on professional leagues for licensing agreements, a flood of new entrants into the licensing industry (especially large footwear manufacturers), the threat of substitute products, dependence on overseas and other suppliers, and players' strikes and lockouts created a volatile business environment in which Starter had to compete. The major question raised in this case concerns the relative importance of environmental factors and strategic choices by management in Starter's demise. Michael Porter's (1980) "five forces model" of industry competition provided a theoretical starting point for this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent case involving a figurative trade mark consisting of three parallel stripes applied in any direction, the General Court confirmed that the registration was invalid andfound that Adidas hadfailed to prove that distinctive character had been acquired throughout the European Union based on the use made of the mark. This comment considers the judgment and its implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate differences in taste in women’s sportswear t-shirts, between Japanese and French people.Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire survey on the impression of the appearance of t-shirts was conducted using three-dimensional simulations that the authors created. A sensory test was carried out for 24 designs (having varying types of sleeves, bodice length and fitting) on 51 examinees (26 Japanese and 25 French) who voluntarily participated.Findings Results show that both Japanese and French people most appreciated very short t-shirts and considered sleeveless and tank top shirts to be the most appropriated for exercise. Participants liked a cool, modern, showy, short, special, elaborate and feminine design. Additionally, Japanese people considered that casual clothes that are suitable for exercise are not suitable for wearing outside the gym, whereas this was not notable for French people.Originality/value The results of the present study will allow the sportswear industry to better target clients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strategic foresight among middle managers is crucial, considering their responsibilities and authority vested in them in directing everyday organising. Emphasising practices as the locus of strategic foresight, we argue that imposed organising processes and bureaucratic routines may interact to dissipate the cultivation of strategic foresight among middle managers in their situated practice. Building on an explorative case analysis of a European sportswear retail company, our study highlights how top-down changes in organising processes may induce the dissipation of organisational ‘foresightfulness’. We identify four dimensions emphasised by the new organising processes and their associated routines (rhetoric of legitimation, instrumental rationality, suppression of creative freedom, and the formulations of solutions in search of problems) which typify the observed patterns of foresight dissipation among middle managers. The study and its findings extend our understanding of contextual antecedents that could lead to the dissipation of strategic foresight among middle managers in organizing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the thermal insulation and water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) according to the type of the filling material, and compared the thermal insulation in the dynamic state considering actual wearing conditions.Design/methodology/approach The thermal insulation and WVTR were evaluated in a standard state depending on the type of filling material (goose down (GD), duck down (DD), Thinsulate700 (T700), Thinsulate600 (T600) and Polyester (PET)), and the changes in thermal insulation were examined by measuring the microclimate in the case of an environmental change from a high temperature to a low temperature. In addition, the clumping of filling material and the changes in the thickness/weight depending on the laundry process were observed, and the relationships with the thermal insulation were analyzed.Findings The results showed that for natural filling materials (GD and DD), the thermal insulation deteriorated significantly due to changes in the thickness/weight after laundering ten times, and water washing was more appropriate than the dry cleaning. On the other hand, the artificial filling materials (T700, T600 and PET) showed a relatively smaller difference, except for clumping, when they went through more dry cleaning or water washing cycles compared to the natural filling materials.Originality/value The results showed that the laundry methods have different effects on the damage to the filling material, the change in thermal insulation, and the change in the comfort-related physical property. Therefore, it is important to select the optimal laundry method depending on the filling material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose Clothing must also assist the body’s thermal control function under changing physical loads in such a way that the body’s thermal and moisture management is balanced, and a microclimate is created next to the skin. One of the factors which affect moisture transport in a fabric is a fibre type. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to blend the natural hollow and low density fibre, milkweed, with cotton fibre at different proportions and to analyse and compare the influence of milkweed blend proportion on moisture management properties of rotor yarn fabrics with 100 per cent cotton fabric.Design/methodology/approach In the present study, cotton/milkweed blended rotor yarns were produced by using S-4 cotton variety and milkweed fibres in three different blend proportions such as cotton/milkweed 80/20, 60/40 and 40/60 along with 100 per cent cotton yarn with yarn count of 20 Ne. The single jersey knitted fabrics were produced with similar constructional parameters and then the fabrics were then scoured, bleached and neutralised as per the standard procedure. The fabrics have been analysed for its various moisture management properties using moisture management tester (MMT) and are statistically analysed.Findings The results indicate that, all the C/M blended fabrics have been classified as “moisture management fabric” and 100 per cent cotton fabric has been classified as “Fast absorbing and Quick Drying Fabric”. The overall moisture management capacity of C/M 40/60 fabric is excellent and could be used for summer, active and summer wear applications. One-way ANOVA analysis carried out at 95 per cent confidence level showed that the results are statistically significant. The pair-wise strength and association between various moisture management indices was analysed using Pearson correlation coefficient and observed that OWTC and OMMC was found to be positively and linearly related to each other.Originality/value The authors are confident that the cotton/milkweed blended yarns can be used as an inner wear and sportswear applications owing to the higher moisture regain and hollowness of milkweed fibre combined with the low packing density of C/M blended yarns which leads to overall improvement in moisture management properties of fabrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

. Los autores investigan las posibilidades de «mejora social impulsada por los trabajadores» a través de iniciativas de RSE en cadenas mundiales de valor (CMV). Aplican la teoría de Wright sobre el pacto de clase positivo al análisis del Protocolo de Libertad Sindical concluido en el sector de prendas deportivas de Indonesia, ampliándola para adaptarla a la complejidad de las CMV. A partir de entrevistas, fuentes académicas y periodísticas y observación participante, concluyen que, para que dichas iniciativas impulsen el trabajo decente, se requiere la participación de organizaciones de trabajadores fuertes y, como catalizador, una necesidad de cooperar con ellas por parte de los compradores o los productores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is thought that the social environment (friends, favors) has an important influence on the shaping of consumption behaviors and that young consumers are influenced by the person(s) whom they role models in the early period of adolescence. In this context; the aim of the study was to examine the role modeling behaviors of the famous athletes of young consumers, to determine the effects on WOM and buying intentions and to examine the interactions of brand commitment. The data of the research were obtained from 1234 participants by using face-to-face interview technique with the research convenience sampling method. The results showed that role modeling behavior positively affects young consumers' WOM and repurchase intentions. Moreover; research findings reveal that brand commitment has a partial mediating effect on the relationship between role modeling behavior and WOM and repurchase intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our purpose in this study was to examine the structural relationships among the perceptions of college-aged millennials of brand globalness, brand-cause fit, firm motive, and purchase intention in regard to cause-related marketing (CRM) of a product in the sportswear industry. A convenience sample of college students (N = 382) at two universities in a metropolitan city of South Korea participated in the study. Results showed that the college-aged millennials' perception of brand globalness influenced their perceptions of brand-cause fit and firm motive and, subsequently, their purchase intention of a CRM product. In addition, we found that college-aged millennials' perceived brand-cause fit had a positive influence on both perception of firm motive and purchase intention toward the CRM product, and, that firm motive perception partially mediated the relationship between brand-cause fit perception and purchase intention. Consequently, the findings extend previous studies on CRM effectiveness and provide a useful rationale for making managerial decisions when implementing a CRM campaign in sportswear firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The activewear industry would benefit from an evidence-based understanding of how activewear is incorporated into women’s lives and their changing participation in physical activity. Activewear brands may be missing the trend of women moving from organised sport to non-organised and individualised sport and recreation. The purpose of this paper is to explore the degree to which academic and industry research understood patterns and influences on female’s activewear consumption and identified what significant gaps are evident in understanding the drivers and industry trends that pertain to female consumers of activewear.Design/methodology/approach The systematic literature review sought academic and industry research papers. Articles were selected if they included female participants; and/or addressed consumer related information; and focussed on active wear. Article findings were thematically analysed.Findings Most literature exploring activewear consumption fails to take gender into consideration or explore unique female consumer profiles. Females are bringing activewear into other parts of their wardrobe and place more value on fashion, even for sports attire. Research identified the need for activewear brands to consider lifestyle, emotional and personality elements of consumer behaviour. However a specific focus on women’s branding was absent. Women’s age and generation influenced their activewear consumption. Although some industry reports discussed the shift in use of activewear, no studies explored the impact of the critical shift in women’s physical activity patterns on the activewear industry.Originality/value This review identifies the gap in knowledge regarding women’s activewear consumption patterns and needs, and the importance of reflecting the changes in female physical activity participation. It also links marketing and design of women’s activewear to the needs of female consumers based on their actual patterns and trends in physical activity. The findings are relevant to activewear researchers, brands, marketers and producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multinational corporations are operating in complex business environments. They are confronted with contradictory institutional demands that often represent mutually incompatible expectations of various audiences. Managing these demands poses new organizational challenges for the corporation. Conducting an empirical case study at the sportswear manufacturer Puma, we explore how multinational corporations respond to institutional complexity and what legitimacy strategies they employ to maintain their license to operate. We draw on the literature on institutional theory, contingency theory, and organizational paradoxes. The results of our qualitative longitudinal study show that managing corporate legitimacy is a dynamic process in which corporations adapt organizational capacities, structures, and procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article features Matt Saunders and Seadon Baker, owners of the actions sports clothing brand ilabb. The brand is said to have been established in Auckland, New Zealand in 2007 out of the two owners' desire to create cool aesthetics around the action sports industry. Saunders and Baker have been using mentors to gain necessary skillsets. Other topics include the business' approach to customer service and employee management, and its so-called inspiring collaboration strategy.

Purpose – This paper explores the process of mutual value creation in a component co-branding relationship between an unknown component supplier and a well-known Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). In particular, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the antecedents of parties’ willingness to engage in mutual value creation, thus enriching Grönroos and Helle’s (2010, 2012) model of mutual value creation. Design/methodology/approach – An in-depth longitudinal analysis of a single case study in the cycling wear industry is presented based on data gathered from several sources, including long interviews with managers of a component supplier and an OEM, promotional materials, press releases and articles in cycling-related publications and on web portals, and online conversations among amateur cyclists. Findings – Four antecedents of the willingness to engage in mutual value creation are identified: mutual trust; the perceived easiness of alignment between the supplier’s and OEM’s processes and resources relevant to value creation; the expected creation of a substantial level of additional mutual value; and the expected value gains for each party. Research limitations/implications – The study analyses only one case in a single industry and adopts a dyadic perspective. Practical implications – This study suggests that – contrary to the traditional view – when specific antecedents for mutual value creation are present, the component co-branding strategy is available to many innovative small- and medium-sized firms without strong brands. Originality/value – Beyond enriching Grönroos and Helle’s (2010, 2012) model, this study explains why co-branding relationships can be established even in the absence of a strong component brand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Commercially available compression garments (CGs) demonstrate the enhanced recovery from exercise in some, but not all studies. It is possible that in some cases the degree of compression pressure (ComP) exerted is not sufficient to produce any physiological benefit. The aim of this investigation was to identify the levels of ComP exerted by commercially available CGs. This study was composed of two parts. In part A 50 healthy, physically active individuals ( n = 26 male, n = 24 female) were fitted with CGs according to manufacturer's guidelines. ComP was measured in participants standing in the anatomical position with a pressure measurement device inserted between the skin and the garment. Data were compared to 'ideal' pressure values proposed in the literature. In part B, ComP in three different brands of CG was compared in a population of 29 men who all wore a medium-sized garment. A one-way ANOVA indicated that there was a significant difference ( P < 0.05) between observed pressure and ideal pressure at the quadriceps for males and females and in the calf for the female population. There was no significant difference ( P > 0.05) between observed and ideal pressures in the calf of the male population. No significant differences in pressure ( P > 0.05) were observed between CG brands at the quadriceps or calf. In conclusion, a large number of individuals may not be experiencing an adequate ComP from CG, and this is true for all the three major brands of CGs tested in this investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The football shirt is of iconic significance, defining a club's visual identity through its role as sporting uniform and fan identifier, providing a canvas for commercial interactions and increasingly acting as the focus of nostalgia and collector culture. In this article we focus on the football shirt's extension from sportswear to a replica product worn as cross-generational leisurewear. We first consider how a replica's authenticity, its principal attribute, exists in objective, constructive and existential contexts. We then demonstrate how the subsequent focus of kit manufacturers and clubs on satisfying these differing interpretations of authenticity has influenced football shirt design. For two decades, replica kits were marketed as sportswear to children, with attempts to enhance the football shirt's authenticity through distinctiveness and exclusivity leading to copyrighted designs, manufacturer's logos and increased patterning. However, as the replica football shirt became adult leisurewear, the changing customer base led to retrospective and recycled shirt designs proclaiming a club's distinct identity through its heritage, fulfilling fans' nostalgic interpretations of a club's authentic kit, and reflecting fans' use of replica shirts to display their authenticity as a genuine fan. These ideals have also inspired a parallel retro-replica industry and, we argue, caused stagnation in the development of the aesthetic elements of contemporary kit design, which had previously demonstrated innovation interspersed with periods of consolidation, but had taken few retrospective turns. Genuine innovation in football shirt design has increasingly become restricted to technological advances and marketing strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The robust design of the mass-produced British football boot from the late nineteenth century onwards appeared to evolve rather slowly compared with subsequent lightweight, flexible ‘continental’ fabrication. However, with careful reading we can identify considerable overlap and influence between manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Boot and shoe manufacturing was an intensely competitive industry and it was in the interests of entrepreneurs to pioneer advances in order to promote a particular brand. In developing football boots for the mass market this may have included much pseudo-science but even small innovations sought to improve performance and market share. Design ambiguities were also inherent because footwear manufacturers routinely borrowed and appropriated successful design elements for their own products. With more choice and consumer demand, football boots became increasingly less adapted from other outdoor footwear owned by the participant, to specialised models manufactured as part of the flourishing sporting goods industry. The internationalisation of the mass market for football boots is here explored though the distinct but related case studies of two family firms; Manfield from Northamptonshire, England and Adidas from Herzogenaurach, Germany. Arguing that there was much continuity between the designs and manufacturing processes of the two firms, the article explores how the design of the football boot became increasingly influenced by the fashion industry as items of conspicuous consumption. By 1954 the launch of the training shoe saw sportswear become a style trend worn on the street, rather than on the pitch. This in turn, influenced football boot design as both a highly technical item of elite sportswear and an expensive, aspirational essential in an everyday kitbag. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports the results of brand loyalty and brand personality of 345 accepted questionnaires from 370 answered questionnaire by tourist in Kish Island that is the most tourism city in Iran so that can be expand the research to all over the Iran. This paper explores brand loyalty and brand personality behavior on sportswear and examines key brand loyalty factors include of brand name, product quality, price, style, store environment, promotion, and service quality and too another part of research is about brand personality dimensions that identified as Big Fives in terms of (D. A. Aaker, 1997), such as Sincerity, Excitement ,Competence, Sophistication and Ruggedness for 8 kind of sportswear brands such as Adidas, Nike, Puma, Reebok, Fila, Levi's, Umbro, Sauconey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case study describing how Xtep, a Chinese sportswear brand, succeeded in building a strong position in second and third tier cities. The topics discussed include development of second and third tier cities in China, information on Chinese sportswear industry, and pricing and marketing of sportswear.

With the introduction of Toyota's lean thinking, lean logistics as a new method has been widely used in supply chain management. Known as a customer demand-oriented approach, lean logistics is an effective management mechanism that helps companies to reduce logistics cost and shorten inventory turnover. Taking Sports Company A as a case, this paper provides a detailed analysis of its problems in supply chain management, its implementation of lean logistics to achieve cost reduction, and the improvement of supply chain operations and related financial indicators after its supply chain optimization. Moreover, the actual effects of application of lean logistics on cost management are also explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women workers across Asia and throughout the world continue to face long hours, low wages and discrimination when they try to organise into unions within garment and footwear factories. Millions of young women are making products for companies Nike and Adidas. Over the past decade, under considerable public pressure, these companies have developed standards on workers conditions for their supplier factories. Despite this, there is still a considerable gap between sportswear companies’ policies and the actual conditions inside factories. This article explores a process in Indonesia from 2009 to 2011 which brought together Indonesian factories, international sportswear brands and Indonesian unions to develop a protocol in an attempt ensure that workers’ human rights are upheld inside factories. Women union leaders were instrumental in the development of this protocol and will be integral to the implementation of these new guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Sport in France began an important chapter in its history during the inter-war years. As a ubiquitous witness that has often been overlooked by historians, sportswear offers a totally new perspective on changes taking place within the sports movement and in French society generally. First of all, changes in clothing reveal a constant quest for improved comfort and hygiene for the benefit of performance. Worn primarily as ceremonial dress and aimed more at enhancing an individual's social origin or gender, costumes of the post-war period took on a sporting dimension and, following the example of institutional reorganisation of sport, became more specialised and appropriate to the activity for which they were worn. In addition to growth in its clothing industry, France also witnessed a boom in the sports-related textile industry, which initially drew inspiration from foreign models, especially from Anglo-Saxon countries, before going on to develop its own tastes and products. However, the period was additionally marked by the impact of the sports entertainment industry on the rules of games and, more particularly, on the attire worn by sportsmen and -women. Colour, cut and other clothing evolutions bore witness to the new challenges linked to the growing spectacularisation of sport. Through transformations in clothing worn by sportsmen and -women during the inter-war years, the new French sports scene came to the fore, oscillating as it did between a quest for performance and the enhancement of sporting entertainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Product design is a creative decision-making process that aims to satisfy human needs by releasing good products that can appropriately meet the preferential requirements of customers. In the development of new products, the designer must identify the preference and attitudes of customers toward certain products, ascertain the factors that make products popular in the market, and devise optimum design plans for those products. Biking has become a popular activity due to its contribution to maintaining health. Bicycle-related clothing is known to play an important role in comfort level and safety. Unfortunately, there is hardly any research or designs that consider customer preferences in the bicycle-related clothing design process. Many manufacturers mainly focus on the improvement of the material properties of clothes instead of clothing design to meet the customer requirements. This study uses conjoint analysis in bicycle-related clothing design to provide designers with an efficient approach to identify customer preferences. The lifestyles of users are examined through a massive amount of collected data used to design an attitude measurement chart/questionnaire. Customer requirements are subsequently categorized through factor analysis, and critical requirement attributes are identified for conjoint analysis. Finally, conjoint analysis is used to obtain the optimal design combination for bicycle-related clothing that adheres to the preferences of customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the wide variety of sports, a new sportswear is under extensive development based on design and functions especially from the viewpoint of ventilation, dry texture, 3-dimensional cutting, and reduction in weight. The authors investigate football wears since football occupies 29.0% of teenagers playing sports and its share is the largest. Presently little number of underwear are offered particularly designed for football. Thus we shall pursue wears' functions desired by the football players themselves. The authors choose six universities from the university football association to send questionnaires to football players of these universities to investigate how to use football wears ordinarily. 445 replies were received The replies in which players long for inner-wear specifically designed for football amounts to 82% in all the replies. Generally smooth movement is desired for shirts, short pants and inner-wear. Fitting is most demanded as the function of inner-wear. Wear functions were quested in the order of lightweight, elasticity, joints protection, compressibility and shock absorption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main problem of the Latvian textile companies are the unequal conditions in competition with foreign companies, since the latter ones can enjoy tax policy advantages. Wherewith, the company managers have to think about constant operational improvements to raise competitiveness. Today's real economy drives the enterprises to develop the implementation of management and information technologies into the working processes. The increasing competition and present economic conditions force the companies to seek for new ways to improve business efficiency and reduce production costs, thus finding the inner resources for further business development. The market offers more and more working time expenditure measurement tools - production process design and management systems which greatly facilitate and accelerate the determination of working time expenditure, the technological sequence and the distribution of labour. One of the best known and available for use in RTU is the SSD (Standard Sewing Data) system, which determines the working time expenditure with the macroelement method. The manuscript reflects a comparative evaluation of the working time expenditure. The labour-intensity data of the company has been used for the evaluation and it has been compared with the working time expenditure data, obtained using the production process designing and management system SSD. Static data processing methods have been used for the comparison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the importance of movement to the representation and understanding of New York sportswear fashions during the 1930s and 1940s. It examines the cultural contexts of the first decades of the twentieth century, which spawned New York department store ranges and designers including Claire McCardell and Mildred Orrick. The sportswear they created crystallized ideals of modern ready-to-wear, which was designed to be streamlined and flexible to move with the body. It was directly inspired by dance and exercise and the toned bodies such activities created, as well as by the fluid lines of Madeleine Vionnet's work, which emphasized the wearer's every movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to establish the significance and diversity of sportswear styles designed and manufactured in New York during the 1930s. It will assert that the 1930s was a crucial period in New York sportswear's evolution. This decade tends to be overlooked by fashion historians, who either make generalisations about American fashion in the 1930s or focus on developments in the 1940s. This article will demonstrate that the Depression era was central to sportswear's emergence as a key form of affordable, mass-produced clothing, which comprised simple, interchangeable garments that could be worn in a variety of settings. This article will establish the importance of the 1930s as a period when New York sportswear was crystallised as a design and marketing ideal. This was due to both the economic pressures of the 1930s, which made cheaper mass-produced clothing more appealing, and to shifts within the fashion industry, which saw more co-ordinated attempts to promote indigenous design. Sportswear will be discussed in terms of three key categories: active sportswear, town and country wear and resort wear. Surviving dress from American and British collections will be analysed to demonstrate the importance of these categories, and the ways in which they came to form an ideal of Americanness through their design aesthetic, as well as the way they were advertised. Garments by manufacturers such as Davidow, and designers such as Clare Potter, will be contrasted with examples from London and Paris to show how New York was gradually to evolve its own distinct styles, which would in the following decade be characterised by the term the 'American Look'. The clean lines and machine aesthetic of this style were mythologised as an expression of American national identity — as practical, rational and authentic. As the 1930s wore on, New York sportswear was increasingly linked to modern lifestyles, and thus was portrayed as ideal for women who were active, whether as college girls, housewives, career women, or through travel. The notion of femininity that it evoked linked to white, middle-class ideals, and existing assumptions about American fashion's 'democratic' approach that eschewed the élitism of European fashion therefore need to be questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In view of the interest in wicking as an alleged comfort feature for active and leisure wear an analysis of the wicking and liquid retention properties of nylon 6.6 continuous and textured filament yarns commonly used for lightweight high performance woven fabrics was carried out taking into consideration the effects of yarn structure and static tension. The yarn wicking performance was significantly affected by the tension applied and the twist inserted. The heterogeneity of pore size, shape and orientation affected the penetration of the liquid into the yarn structure and hence its liquid retention properties as exhibited by the textured continuous filament yarns. Microscopic examination of the yarns showed unsaturated, saturated and dry zones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose ? Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.Design/methodology/approach ? This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.Findings ? If you are Nike, Reebok or Adidas and want to grow the business beyond its core sportswear products, you would not even consider stair lifts or walk-in baths for the elderly or infirm would you? That much underrated management tool called commonsense would, hopefully, persuade you otherwise.Practical implications ? Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.Originality/value ? The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to digest format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]