Experts’ views on sports clothing quality

ABSTRACT

This study investigated experts’ understanding of sports clothing quality, the quality attributes they consider, and their views on the evaluation process. Twenty-two experts working in different sports clothing development and evaluation functions participated in semi-structured expert interviews. A thematic analysis highlighted three different views on quality, real-world problems in the evaluation process, and facilitated a sports clothing quality framework. Experts saw sports clothing quality as the fulfilment of use-case requirements, an immediate impression, or an individual perception. With the established sports clothing quality framework, it was possible to break down the overall quality impression in attributes and assign evaluation methods to it. Several challenges and suggestions for the evaluation process were detected. This ranged from the lack of measurability of attributes to solutions such as digitalisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Sports clothing quality
• attributes
• evaluation
• industry experts
• real-world problems

1. Introduction

To stay competitive, clothing companies strive for their products to be perceived to be of excellent quality. However, it is difficult to define what excellent perceived quality is. Quality is multidimensional and can have different meanings in different industries, potentially causing confusion in the approach to quality management. Hence, individuals working in sports clothing development and evaluation must build up an understanding of quality and its dimensions (Garvin, 1988). This requires knowledge of what sports clothing quality means, how it is composed, and how it is evaluated.

1.1. Quality

Quality and perceived quality are multidimensional terms for which various definitions exist. Generally, a distinction can be made between subjective/user-based and objective/product-based definitions (Garvin, 1988; Lieb, Quattelbaum, & Schmitt, 2008; Mitra & Golder, 2006; Zeithaml, 1988). Conventionally the subjectively perceived quality is considered unmeasurable. However, recent papers present approaches to operationalise subjectively perceived quality in the automotive industry. These suggested approaches try to close the gap between subjective customer perception and objective product characteristics. The first step of all these approaches is to break down the overall impression of a product’s quality into smaller parts (Lieb et al., 2008; Quattelbaum, Knispel, Falk, & Schmitt, 2013; Stylidis, Wickman, & Söderberg, 2020).

1.2. Clothing quality

A diverse range of research has been conducted on specific attributes and their influence on clothing quality. Among the investigated attributes are price, care properties, and country of origin. An overview of studies carried out before 1988 is provided by Eckman, Damhorst, and Kadolph (1990). Later studies were carried out by Swinker and Hines (2006) and Preez et al. (2018). Using interviews and open field questionnaires, it was investigated what attributes are considered by the consumers. From this, a wide range of attributes was identified and described. Examples are colour, comfort, durability, fit, price, and service (Abraham-Murali & Littrell, 1995; Eckman et al., 1990; Hines & O’Neal, 1995; Lennon & Fairhurst, 1994). Eckman et al. (1990) and Abraham-Murali and Littrell (1995) focus on relevant attributes for product development, similar to the present study. Ghalachyan and Karpova (2021) reviewed research on clothing evaluation attributes and observed and criticised inconsistencies between studies in the approach to defining attributes. Based on their analysis, they introduced the Apparel Product Evaluation framework, which uses clearly defined and mutually exclusive categories and dimensions. The present study seeks to consider the critique by Ghalachyan and Karpova (2021) and create clearly defined sports clothing attributes that reflect the previous literature.

1.3. Sports clothing quality

Due to sportswear’s functional nature, it is questionable whether the same quality understanding and attributes defined for casual wear also apply to sports clothing (Bartels, 2005; Gill & Prendergast, 2015). Only a limited amount of sports clothing quality studies exist (Fowler, 1999; Rogers & Lowell Lutz, 1990; Wilfling, Havenith, Raccuglia, & Hodder, 2021; Zhou et al., 2018). The studies that use questionnaires with preselected attributes like ‘comfort’ fail to define these terms. This leads to the problem that the respondents might not understand the attributes or have different understandings of these. The selection of attributes is usually arbitrary as it is not based on sports clothing-related qualitative studies (Fowler, 1999; Rogers & Lowell Lutz, 1990; Wilfling et al., 2021). Zhou et al. (2018) identified attributes and related benefits of activewear brands by interviewing female Australian consumers’ focus groups. Product-related attributes were introduced but from a marketing view rather than a product development view, such as functional design, colour, and size and fit.

Most existing research focuses on consumers. However, experts’ views can provide essential insights, as not all quality aspects are obvious to the consumer. In this context, the present study investigates the following research questions:

1. What is the general (perceived) quality understanding of textile experts?

2. Into which quality attributes do textile experts break down quality?

3. What do textile experts think of the current sports clothing evaluation process?

2. Method

2.1. Research design

Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with textile experts working in different sports clothing development and evaluation departments. The stated objective of the interviews was to gain an understanding of sports clothing quality and its evaluation. The interviews were guided by an interview schedule (Table 1). One day in advance, the guiding questions were sent to the participants. This is common practice for expert interviews as some information could be sensitive (Gillham, 2005, Chapter 8). As not all participants were native English speakers, sending the guiding questions in advance allowed the interviewees to consider them in their own time and thereby helped reduce the impact of language barriers. The interviews were conversational and open-ended, typically between 7 and 30 min in duration. Interviews were conducted by the first author (an environmental ergonomics doctoral researcher holding an MSc in textile technology, whose research focuses on sports clothing quality perception) via Microsoft teams, audio-recorded (with the knowledge and informed consent of the participants) and fully transcribed verbatim. Before the study, two pilot interviews with textile experts were conducted, and minor changes were made to the interview schedule.

Table 1. Interview schedule.

Content	Topics for discussion
Introduction and orientation	Introduction of interviewer, topic, purpose, process of the interview, and anonymisation measures Open questions Agreement on the recording of the interview What is your function in product development?
Quality understanding	How would you define perceived quality for sports clothing? Is perceived quality in sports clothing relevant for your work?
Breaking down sports clothing quality	What are the attributes that you pay attention to in sports clothing during your work? Can you please define the attributes you mentioned in your own words? Can you assign technical parameters to the attributes you mentioned?
Sports clothing evaluation	Are the tools and methods that are currently used in the product testing adequate to build excellent perceived quality? What methods and tools do you wish to have besides the existing ones to build excellent perceived quality?
Closing statement	Well, I think we have covered already quite a lot. Do you think we have missed anything, or would you like to add a comment in general?

2.2. Sample

Interviewees were 22 textile experts employed at a major sporting goods supplier, which supported the recruitment. The selection of interviewees was made on a convenience basis. Experts who were at the time working in at least a management position in sports clothing development and evaluation were invited to take part. The differentiating feature of the interviewees was their function. The number in brackets behind the functions corresponds to the number of participants who work in that function: Design (5), testing (5), apparel development (4), material development (3), pattern making (2), sport science (2), marketing (1).

2.3. Analysis

The study aimed to understand the experts’ perspective on sports clothing quality and its evaluation better. Therefore, a qualitative approach was chosen. Qualitative research allows examining the true meaning of concepts. A thematic analysis was undertaken using the qualitative data analysis software NVivo 12 by the same researcher that conducted the interviews. Within the research question, the analysis should reduce the complexity and classify the content of the interviews according to theoretical characteristics of interest. It needs to be noted that the analysis contains interpretation by the researcher and is not just a passive description or summary of the data. In practical terms, seven steps (Figure 1) were executed for the analysis following Kuckartz (2012).

Figure 1. Thematic analysis steps. According to Kuckartz (2012, p. 78).

Themes were formed in an inductive manner based on the transcripts and deductively based on the published themes for clothing quality attributes. The main themes generated were ‘quality understanding’, ‘attributes’, and ‘evaluation methods’, which align with the research questions. The theme ‘attributes’ was divided into four subthemes similar to Eckman et al.’s (1990) categories for clothing attributes: ‘Aesthetic’, ‘extrinsic’, ‘durability and processing’, and ‘usability’. Three inductively derived subthemes form the theme ‘evaluation methods’: ‘Explanation’, ‘criticism and praise’, and ‘suggestions and wishes’.

To give a comprehensive answer to the question ‘In which quality attributes do textile experts break down quality?’ a sports clothing quality framework (Table 2) was generated following studies by Quattelbaum et al. (2013) and Stylidis et al. (2020). These studies assume that the overall perceived quality is based on perceptive clusters made up of quality attributes. Attributes are defined by descriptors that depend on technical parameters. The framework was derived from the data assigned to the themes ‘attributes’ and ‘explanation’. Only the perspective of the interviewed participants is incorporated in the framework. Hence there is no claim to cover all aspects of perceived sports clothing quality.

Table 2. Sports clothing quality framework.

Using NVivo 12, the interviews were classified according to the development and evaluation functions. The percentage distribution of the text assigned to the subthemes ‘aesthetic’, ‘extrinsic’, ‘durability and processing’, and ‘usability’ was calculated for the different functions. On the one hand, the distribution was made for the coding coverage (Figure 3) and the other hand for the number of coding references (Figure 4). Both distributions were given because the consideration of only one distribution could be misleading. For example, a long passage assigned to one theme could distort the coding coverage distribution. The distribution helps to identify patterns and to illustrate the different views from interviewees working in various functions. This, however, does not present an absolute comparison between the different groups, which would require a much bigger sample size and where the unique features of each interview fade out.

For a respondent validation, the study findings were discussed with the participants after initial data analysis (Steinke, 2004).

Loughborough University’s Human Participants sub-committee granted ethical approval for the study (Project ID: 2968).

3. Findings

In this section, the themes and their subthemes are presented following the three research questions. Characteristic quotes from the participants are given to illustrate the origin of the themes. With each quote, the reference to the interview is provided as well as an indication of the function group to which the quote belongs.

3.1. Quality understanding

In the present expert sample, mainly three views on quality arose. These were, perceived sports clothing quality is:

• The fulfilment of the use-case requirements. Garments should meet all standards that make them suitable for the intended use.… it does what you want it to do. (interview_210122_design)

• The immediate impression of a garment often called the ‘first moment of truth’ (interview_210108_testing).It’s for me and for it’s kind of the perception of the wearer or even the perception of touch and kind of how that perception influences their idea of how this will perform kind of before any scientific numbers or studies, or anything is done it’s really kind of when you put it on when you first for our example run in it when you first touch it … . (interview_201221_design)

• An individual perception.I think just quality is just different to everyone. I think it’s just kind of a certain value system that everybody has as nurture … . (interview_210105_sport science)

The reasons why perceived sports clothing quality is relevant for participants’ work can be assigned to the above views.

Most reasons fit with the view that perceived sports clothing quality is the fulfilment of the use-case requirements. Participants want to understand the consumer better and thus build better products or, in other words, formulate better product requirements. Comparison with competing products was another reason that fits in this view. A comparison is only possible if criteria exist. An exceptional reason was that perceived sports clothing quality is relevant because consumers’ health depends on it. The interviewee who gave this reason works with outdoor sportswear, so consumers’ health is seen as a use-case requirement.

Reasons connected with the view that perceived sports clothing quality is an individual perception are mainly about an emotional connection with the consumer. Participants saw quality as relevant because it helps to build trust and a good reputation.

3.2. Breaking down sports clothing quality

The sports clothing quality framework (Table 2) contains four stages which are introduced below.

3.2.1. Stage 1: clusters

In the first stage, clusters were formed following the subthemes of the theme ‘attributes’. The theme ‘attributes’ includes all statements in which experts described what they look for in sports clothing. This covers the four subthemes: ‘Aesthetic’, ‘extrinsic’, ‘durability and processing’, and ‘usability’. The subtheme ‘aesthetic’ was made up of statements regarding the look and the haptic properties of a garment. Statements about attributes and technical parameters externally assigned to the clothing can be found in the subtheme ‘extrinsic’. The subtheme ‘durability and processing’ includes remarks describing how well a garment is produced and how well it holds up. The subtheme ‘usability’ is all about supporting the athlete during sports.

3.2.2. Stage 2: quality attributes

Attributes are specific aspects that are relevant for experts in the development and evaluation of sportswear. Attributes are still so abstract that they can be communicated with non-experts (Quattelbaum et al., 2013; Stylidis et al., 2020). In total, 13 attributes were identified and assigned to the clusters of stage one. Overlaps and connections were indicated in the framework by the grey dashed lines.

As already mentioned, the two attributes, ‘look’ and ‘haptic’, were assigned to the cluster ‘aesthetic’. ‘Look’ describes the emotional and subjective response to the visual appearance of the clothing, and ‘haptic’ describes the reaction generated through the contact of the tactile receptors and the clothing.

Haptic is everything you can perceive by hands actively, … everything you can perceive with your tactile receptors so soft, hard. I mean, stretch, and recovery is also something you can actively assess, right, weight as well, cool touch, warm touch, yeah. (interview_210222_sport science)

The attributes ‘brand’, ‘sustainability’, ‘safety and compliance’ and ‘price’ were assigned to the cluster ‘extrinsic’. The attribute ‘brand’ describes the influence of a brand on perceived quality. The statement of one participant illustrates this effect:

… their assumption is as soon as there are [brand logo] on it, it is a higher quality. (interview_210216_material development)

‘Sustainability’ was described as a product’s impact on the environment. However, the participants could not pinpoint what makes a product sustainable because sustainability contains different parameters, and it is still under research. ‘Safety and compliance’ were described as fulfilling laws and regulations and ensuring user and supply chain safety. The attribute ‘price’ reflects how affordable a product is and how valuable the consumer sees a product.

… it’s always the best if it is really affordable, so the less it costs, the better it is, but still, the consumer expects quality even if it is not as pricy. So here I would say if there is a product that is just as an example 20 € and there is a product that is 25 € they expect that the 25 € product is definitively also with more quality. (interview_210107_marketing)

Most of the statements and associated attributes were allocated to the usability cluster. The cluster comprises the attributes ‘injury prevention’, ‘temperature and moisture regulation’, ‘performance’, ‘comfort’ and ‘fit’. The meaning of the attribute ‘injury prevention’ for sports clothing was made clear by one participant:

… if you are a decent walk away from civilisation, if you are getting wet and cold quickly, then you are getting uncomfortable, and it can be dangerous, you know. People will die by hypothermia in those situations if their clothing isn’t performing as it should. (interview_210122_design)

‘Temperature and moisture regulation’ is the ability to influence the temperature and moisture conditions in garments. ‘Performance’ is the attribute of the garment to support the user in achieving higher athletic performance.

… we want to make athletes better not only as a brand of saying so. It’s again we want somebody to run faster, we want to make somebody run longer, we want to make somebody stay cooler longer, … . (interview_210105_sport science)

While ‘comfort’ is in a certain context described as a positive sensation, in essence, for functional clothing, it was described as the absence of distractions. The user should be able to concentrate fully on the sport.

If it’s uncomfortable and if it’s annoying and if it distracts them from the sport, from their performance, then yeah, that’s kind of that’s a fail that’s like the biggest fail on a product creation point. (interview_201221_design)

According to the participants, ‘fit’ means that the garment accommodates the body, supports the athlete during sports, and does not irritate or distract the athlete. Participants also emphasised that ‘fit’ promotes the functionality of the garment:

… or that a rain jacket is actually covering really everything and has a proper hood on top that it’s not like raining inside or dripping from the head inside here, … . (interview_210205_testing)

Interviewees mentioned the two attributes ‘fabric and finishing quality’ and ‘workmanship’ for the cluster ‘durability and processing’. ‘Fabric and finishing quality’ were described as the longevity and resistance of the fabric and its finish:

I would say the main component of quality is durability for sports because you know these jerseys are being worn at the highest level of playing, and they need to be able to hold up to that roughness of the game. (interview_210125_02_apparel development)

‘Workmanship’ is how well a piece of fabric is processed into a garment. Especially the quality of the seams was taken into account by the participants for this attribute.

3.2.3. Stage 3: descriptors

The participants were asked to define the attributes and to assign technical parameters to them. From the replies, descriptors (Table 2) were deduced. While the attributes are somewhat abstract, the descriptors are more tangible and sometimes technical. For some descriptors like snagging, standardised testing methods exist. Due to the technical language, the descriptors are more difficult for non-experts to understand.

3.2.4. Stage 4: evaluation methods

Five ways to assess sports clothing quality were identified: ‘Conventional textile testing’, ‘expert assessment’, ‘wear trials’, ‘advanced lab testing’, and ‘customer and market feedback’.

‘Conventional textile testing’ describes a wide range of typical and standardised textile tests to assess quality. All products have to pass these tests. Suppliers often perform conventional textile testing. Given examples were pilling tests (Martindale), washing tests and wicking tests.

‘Expert assessment’ uses the experience of professionals to estimate the quality of the garments. For ‘workmanship’ and ‘fit’, the expert assessment was described as particularly relevant.

… that’s more like a work experience and feeling. If you put it on a dummy and look at it, you will see OK, there went something wrong obviously, and out of your experience, you can say OK, it’s that or that. It’s not really that you can have kind of a guideline or something like that to cross-check it … . (interview_210125_pattern making)

‘Wear trials’ describe that human subjects wear the garment either in a controlled environment or in the field to test its quality. The assessment is based on questionnaires, observations, or body data. Typically wear trials are performed to assess the ‘fit’. However, it can give information about other attributes related to ‘usability’ or ‘durability and processing’. Wear trials are also used to validate lab test results.

‘Advanced lab testing’ describes complex testing methods that require highly skilled operators and specialised equipment. In contrast to conventional tests, advanced tests are only performed for certain products. These methods are mainly applied for performance sports clothing and less so for casual sports clothing. Advanced lab testing is often used for properties related to ‘moisture and temperature regulation’. Other attributes that require advanced lab testing are ‘haptic’, ‘injury prevention’, ‘performance’ and ‘comfort’. An example of advanced lab tests mentioned by the participants was the Newton thermal manikin (Lu, Kuklane, & Gao, 2017).

‘Customer and market feedback’ is derived from sales numbers, claims, returns, and reviews. It gives information about the general quality of a product and is connected with most quality attributes. The participants emphasised that this aspect is becoming an increasingly important source of information due to online shopping and digitalisation:

And we take we review returns and claims quite a lot and to try to understand what people have seen as not a quality product. (interview_201218_material development)

3.3. Thoughts on the sports clothing evaluation process

The theme ‘evaluation methods’ contains all statements connected with the description of evaluation methods, the advantages and disadvantages of the methods, and suggestions for evaluating sportswear. Since the theme is extensive, it is divided into three subthemes: ‘Explanation’, ‘criticism and praise’, and ‘suggestions and wishes’. While the first subtheme (‘explanation’) was incorporated into the framework, the other two subthemes (‘criticism and praise’, and ‘suggestions and wishes’) allowed deriving challenges and suggestions for the sports clothing evaluation process, which are illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Overview challenges and suggestions.

3.3.1. Criticism and praise

As the name indicates, this subtheme covers all statements related to the current evaluation process’s advantages and disadvantages. In general, participants considered the current testing methods to be appropriate. However, diverse challenges were identified in the evaluation process. Method and tool-related challenges are ‘testability’, ‘diversity versus standardisation’, ‘reality versus consistency’, ‘comparability’, and ‘slowness’. Consumer-related challenges are ‘communication’, ‘relevance’, ‘expectation’, and ‘understanding of the consumer’.

The challenge ‘testability’ describes that attributes like ‘haptic’ or ‘look’ cannot be tested objectively.

Within the challenge ‘diversity versus standardisation’, participants described that the internal standards and guidelines are not differentiated enough for the range of products and use cases.

The challenge ‘reality versus consistency’ outlines that lab tests often cannot represent real life, and wear tests are not consistent enough to gain reliable results:

However, it’s not real life because the lab tests have to be repeatable, consistent, and we all know real life is never repeatable, never consistent. (interview_ 210210_testing)

‘Comparability’ is the challenge that suppliers measure the same property with a wide range of methods. The property is then no longer comparable. Participants associated this challenge mainly with breathability.

Generally, the evaluation process was seen as too slow. Participants criticised that the development starts again from the beginning if a product fails certain tests and that the development and evaluation can no longer keep up with the speed of modern consumer habits.

Within the challenge ‘communication’, the interviewees’ perception was that it is difficult for consumers to understand sports clothing’s technical parameters and to compare products:

… even [company name] specifies the fill power now, which is interesting because it’s quite a technical number technical methodology of testing which the consumer just doesn’t understand they just know more is more so the higher the number, the better it will be, … and obviously more expensive but it doesn’t necessarily give the consumer too many insights as to why or how. (interview_210122_design)

The participants raised the question if quality and its evaluation actually matter in the outside world. The challenge ‘relevance’ covers this question. One participant gave an example:

I mean, it’s kind of if you have a climate if you create a [brand for cooling material] shirt. Does the consumer ever talk about [brand for cooling material], or does he buy the shirt because it looks cool? (interview_210105_sport science)

The challenge ‘expectations’ describes that the participants felt unsure what quality is acceptable. The participants did not know what the consumer expects and how the expectations change during the product lifecycle.

A challenge is the ‘understanding of the consumer’. The participants described that they do not know how consumers perceive quality. One participant reported that end-consumers and also institutional consumers do not evaluate quality based on technical parameters:

… the perception so far from the league has been that the recycled material is not as high quality as virgin, and again that’s all based on them just looking and touching the fabric. It has nothing to do with the actual material testing results or anything that would define how strong or extensive the fabric is. (interview_210125_02_apparel development)

3.3.2. Suggestions and wishes

The last subtheme includes all statements that suggested improvements in the sportswear evaluation process. The dominant aspects in this theme are ‘digitalisation’, ‘understanding’, ‘transparent communication’, and ‘equipment and resources’.

Participants asked for more digital tools. The digital tools can help to shorten the development time, identify consumers’ needs, and connect properties with perception.

Other participants raised the need for a deeper understanding of the consumer. The questions that participants asked were how the consumer perceives quality and how the consumer uses the garments. Participants demanded more consumer-focused studies and testing.

Some participants demanded to communicate quality simple and transparent towards the customers. It was seen as a necessity that consumers understand the attributes of products and their quality and price differences.

Generally, the participants asked for better equipment and more resources to complete a more in-depth evaluation.

4. Discussion

The discussion of the findings is based on the three research questions and the literary context.

4.1. Experts understanding of perceived quality

From the sample, three views on perceived sports clothing quality were identified. These views reflect different definitions of quality. The view that perceived quality is the fulfilment of the use-case requirements corresponds to the definition of objective quality or the product-based quality definition approach (Garvin, 1988; Mitra & Golder, 2006). That perceived quality is individual, different for each person and ‘ … a certain value system that everybody has as nurture … ’ (interview_210105_sport science), resembles the definition of Zeithaml (1988), who sees perceived quality as ‘ … a judgment usually made within a consumer’s evoked set’. Lieb et al. (2008) excerpt four points that are consistent across different definitions for perceived quality. One point is that perceived quality is subjective, and quality perception happens consciously and unconsciously to satisfy evident and hidden customer needs. This matches with the view that perceived quality is an immediate impression.

The reasons why perceived quality is relevant for the participants’ work can also be assigned to the different definitions of quality. Understanding the consumer better and building better products corresponds to the objective, product-based definitions of quality. A user-orientated and subjective view on quality fits with the argument that perceived quality is relevant for building an emotional connection.

Garvin (1988) hypothesises why there are different views on quality. According to Garvin (1988), the different definition approaches are derived from the various scientific fields that deal with quality. For example, the manufacturing and value-based approach relates to operations management. The participants have different functions, which could explain the different views on perceived quality.

4.2. Sports clothing quality framework

This section discusses the sports clothing quality framework in the context of the research question and compares it with studies from the literature, which mainly have focussed on casual womenswear. The participants work background and how this influences their view on different quality attributes is also addressed.

The overall aim of the framework is to give an overview of sports clothing quality, which was confirmed in the respondent validation.

It is an objective of the present study that the framework should establish a foundation for clear communication and the operationalisation of quality. Concerning this objective, a discussion is necessary. Like the quality understanding, the clusters and, respectively, the assigned attributes and descriptors reflect the objective/product-based and subjective/user-based view on quality. The clusters ‘durability and processing’ and ‘usability’ are rather objective. The clusters ‘aesthetic’ and ‘extrinsic’ are mostly subjective. Stylidis et al. (2020) assume in a similar context that only for the more product-based perceived quality it is possible to define attributes, which can be used as measurable product-specific variables and allow a meaningful discussion between the designer and customer. This also applies to the sports clothing quality framework. While the descriptors for the cluster ‘durability and processing’ are partly standardised, the descriptors for the cluster ‘extrinsic’ are still vague. The evaluation methods linked to these clusters show a similar picture. This is an obstacle to clear communication and operationalisation. Another obstacle is the presence of overlaps between the attributes. This applies particularly to the attribute ‘comfort’, which can be seen as a cross-section of the attributes ‘temperature and moisture regulation’, ‘fit’ and ‘haptic’. However, ‘comfort’ was mentioned several times separate from these attributes in the interviews, and the participants highlighted its importance:

… one of the most important things in creating sports clothing is comfort, … . (interview_201221_design)

To avoid overlaps and to create more clarity, further studies, such as factor analysis, need to be conducted, though a different, quantitative data type is required for that, with a much larger data set. A point of criticism put forward in the respondent validation stage was that what is considered to be an advanced test is also product-dependent. Tests that are considered advanced tests for casual sportswear might be standard tests for performance sportswear.

A comparison of the developed framework with earlier studies that interviewed consumers about casual womenswear underlines the specific characteristics of sportswear and the differences between customer and expert perspectives. Usability attributes like ‘injury prevention’ are specific for sports clothing and are only incidentally mentioned for casual clothing (Abraham-Murali & Littrell, 1995; Eckman et al., 1990). A study by Zhou et al. on activewear brands (2018) emphasises usability related attributes (‘functional design’) as well. The attribute ‘injury prevention’ demonstrates the differences between the experts’ and consumers’ perspectives, as one participant made clear:

… and then injury risk of making sure that the products that we are bringing out are actually not hurting people. It’s not so much, it’s not the most sexy and obviously from an advertiser standpoint … because it’s just from a marketing and consumer point of view I think it’s I would say given, but I think we still need to make sure on our side that the products we are sending out are OK because we do get legal cases as well. (interview_210105_sport science)

Experts look more into technical attributes, whereas the focus of consumers is more on extrinsic attributes. For sports clothing, these are price and model imagery (Zhou et al., 2018). For casual women’s clothing, these are, for example, store and service-related attributes, which the experts in this study did not mention (Abraham-Murali & Littrell, 1995). Socio-communicative attributes like status played no role for the experts in this study (Ghalachyan & Karpova, 2021). Interestingly consumer studies did not consider attributes like ‘safety and compliance’ and ‘sustainability’. An explanation for that is that Abraham-Murali and Littrell (1995) and Eckman et al.’s (1990) studies were conducted in the 1990s. However, the 2018 Zhou et al. study did also not mention the attribute ‘sustainability’. Ghalachyan and Karpova (2021) criticise the absence of the attribute sustainability in clothing quality evaluation studies and take it up as a cross-sectional category in their review-based consumer-focused framework.

Just as with the different views of quality, patterns can be identified for the attributes mentioned by the participants. Figures 3 and 4 show that the participants’ work function affects the view on quality attributes. For example, participants working in apparel development and pattern making talked mainly about the subthemes’ durability and processing’ and ‘usability’. These subthemes cover aspects like workmanship and fit that pattern makers and apparel developers deal with a lot within their job. The subtheme ‘extrinsic’ played no or minimal role for these participants. Whereas the participant working in marketing mentioned a lot of aspects like price assigned to the subtheme ‘extrinsic’. Considerable deviations between the coding coverage and the number of coding references, as is the case for participants working in testing, can be explained by the fact that one participant talked in detail about standards and compliance. The participants came from diverse work backgrounds and thus provided a broad perspective on sports clothing quality summarised in the presented framework.

Figure 3. Coding coverage [%] of the theme ‘attribute’. 100% correspond to the total text assigned to the theme ‘attribute’. The 100% are split according to the text length assigned to the respective subthemes.

Figure 4. Number of coding references [%] for the theme ‘attribute’. 100% correspond to the total number of text parts assigned to the theme ‘attribute’. The 100% are split according to the number of text parts assigned to the respective subthemes.

In summary, this study’s findings allow the generation of a sports clothing quality framework based on diverse perspectives. The framework breaks down the terminology and makes it tangible. It highlights sports clothing’s unique features and shows differences between the consumer and the expert view.

4.3. Challenges and suggestions for the evaluation process

Challenges and suggestions addressed by the interviewees illustrate real-world problems. Some of the points are already picked up by the scientific discussion; others could serve as an initiator for further research.

The challenges ‘diversity versus standardisation’ and ‘slowness’ are related to the company’s internal rules. The challenge ‘expectations’ should be thought of in product and brand-specific terms. Hence, finding a general answer to these challenges is not practical.

The challenges ‘testability’, ‘reality versus consistency’, and ‘comparability’ have already been addressed in the scientific debate. ‘Testability’ is a challenge that applies especially for the attributes in the ‘extrinsic’ and ‘aesthetic’ clusters like ‘haptic’. Numerous approaches exist to determine rather subjective attributes. For haptic, the Kawabata system is an example. The challenge ‘reality versus consistency’ is a driver for the development of new evaluation methods. A look at the variety of existing methods to describe ‘temperature and moisture regulation’ shows that both science and industry are aware of this challenge (Hes & Williams, 2011). The challenge ‘comparability’ was mainly linked by the participants to the example of breathability. In fact, a vast number of tests methods with different conditions and low comparability exist. The participants recommended the sweating guarded hotplate to measure the breathability because the conditions in the related standard are less flexible. However, this method is expensive and needs well-trained users, creating an obstacle for suppliers to use it (Hes & Williams, 2011).

There are still many unanswered questions regarding the challenges ‘communication’, ‘relevance’, and ‘understanding the consumer’. For example, in the latter case, the literature questions whether the customer can actually measure clothing quality (Clodfelter & Fowler, 2001). Interview- and questionnaire-based studies have been conducted that look into the relevance of sports clothing quality and its attributes (Fowler, 1999; Rogers & Lowell Lutz, 1990; Wilfling et al., 2021; Zhou et al., 2018). However, the tangible impact on parameters like sales numbers must be reviewed internally in the company. First approaches exist to create a transparent and straightforward communication of technical clothing attributes, like the ‘wear comfort vote’ developed by the Hohenstein Institute. The ‘wear comfort vote’ is an all-in-one grade to easily assess clothing comfort (Bartels, 2005). However, an all-in-one grade can only reflect the complexity of a construct such as sports clothing quality to a limited extent.

Wishes to improve the evaluation process were ‘digitalisation’, a better ‘understanding’ of the consumer, ‘transparent communication’ and more ‘equipment and resources’. From a scientific point of view, ‘digitalisation’ and a better ‘understanding’ of the consumer are interesting. This work facilitates further studies on customer ‘understanding’, ‘digitalisation’ and ‘transparent communication’ by establishing a terminology for sports clothing quality. Explicit descriptors of quality attributes enable creating questionnaires and possible correlation, e.g. between attributes and sales figures in big data approaches. A precise terminology allows the industry to communicate sports clothing attributes uniformly to the consumers, generating more transparency.

5. Conclusion

Sports clothing quality and its attributes are not yet entirely and uniformly described. The descriptions available so far have come mainly from a consumer’s perspective. The present work establishes an experts’ perspective on sports clothing quality by 22 interviews with industry professionals. From the interviews, three different quality understandings, a sports clothing quality framework, and the experts’ opinion on the evaluation process were derived. Thereby this study provides insights into the industry, proposes a terminology for the sports clothing evaluation, shows unique features of sports clothing and differences between experts’ and consumers’ perspectives.

The proposed terminological foundation needs to be further confirmed. Subsequent research could examine the terminology and understanding of sports clothing quality from other perspectives and for specific sports.

Acknowledgement

We thank Dr Hilary McDermott (Loughborough University) for assistance with methodology and for comments on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).