Factors affecting the design process in preschool age group children's clothing

ABSTRACT Fashion, especially in the clothing industry, emerges as a rapidly changing and renewing concept. Especially in the fashion world that women's clothing is predominant, children's clothing has an important place in addition to men's clothing. So much so that many world-famous brands such as Gucci, Zara, H&M, GAP have greatly expanded their children's clothing fields with their "kids" product categories. Children's clothing designers, who have a wide range of products such as party wear, daily wear, stylish clothing, school wear, beach wear, evening wear, underwear, need to consider many factors such as age, gender, cultural, environmental, social, demographic and health while preparing their collections. Especially health is a very important factor in children's clothing. The design process, which starts with trend analysis, continues with determining the target audience, selecting the theme, drawing sketches, creating models, determining the colors and patterns of the materials; It results in cost calculations and product development studies, and is offered to parents and children. Parents, who consider the health and comfort of their children before themselves, attach great importance to their children's clothing and leave their choice of clothes to the children in order to raise self-confidence of their children. It is known that their physical and social development has an impact on their behavior and ideas as well as their clothing choices. In line with all these researches, it was aimed to create an original collection for girls and boys aged 4-6 and the shadow play "Karagöz and Hacivat", one of our cultural heritage, inspired this collection. The costumes, patterns and figures of the characters in the shadow plays inspired the designs, and the details of our cultural heritage were tried to be transformed into an original collection. Key Words: kids clothing, design process, factors affecting design