Development of a Sizing System for Ghanaian Women For The Production Of Ready-To-Wear Clothing

Studies on anthropometric body measurements have intensified worldwide because of the numerous garment fit problems the ready-to-wear industry is facing. The absence of any publication of a national sizing system in Ghana, intended for clothing purposes has resulted in the need for a sizing system that will relate to Ghanaian women and satisfy their different body shapes. The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed procedure used for the development of a size chart based on anthropometric body measurements of Ghanaian women. A total of 842 Ghanaian women aged between 16-35 years were measured using manual measuring procedures. A quantitative approach was used to generate descriptive statistics from the raw data to obtain five sizes of a body measurement table. Correlations were used to determine the relationship between the body dimensions and the selection of key dimensions for the size chart. A step by step procedure used for analysing the raw data obtained from the anthropometric body survey is presented. Size codes, size limits, grading increment and verifiable size charts are generated. This study contributes greatly to knowledge of size chart by providing a detailed procedure involved in developing research based anthropometric data and will serve as the basis for other future research in Ghana and in West Africa. Further anthropometric studies should be conducted to cover all age categories of women in Ghana.