Phonetic smart clothing design based on gender awareness education for preschoolers

1.1.1 Children’s clothing market research status

Nowadays, an increasing number of children’s clothing brands have emerged and established their brand-style characteristics. But for clothing in the infant period, most consumers rely on the color to distinguish the gender of infants. Based on which, they choose and buy the clothes [7]. For example, most of the boys’ clothes are blue and black, and the girls’ clothes are mainly pink and red. As children grow older, especially in the preschool period (3–6 years old), children’s clothing does not reflect a clear gender distinction in terms of clothing styles. However, the physiological and psychological growth of preschoolers is most crucial, so it is very important to guide and educate children on gender awareness through clothing [8].

In the general perception of the public consumers, the style of children’s clothing can be a reduction of adult clothing [9]. However, the biggest difference between children’s and adult’s clothing is ignored: the former takes more into account the physiological and psychological needs of children, requiring functional, educational, and protective purposes at the same time. For the needs of children of different ages, the color, style, and function of clothing shall be designed accordingly. For preschoolers, they have a rather faster intellectual development, active thinking, and increased activity. Therefore, the pattern design needs to be integrated with profound educational content for children’s enlightenment, and the color shall be based on high brightness and high purity, according to the children’s lively, active, curious, and ignorant personality characteristics in this period [10].

Nevertheless, based on the current situation of the domestic children’s clothing market, most of the children’s clothing design remains on the style, color, fabric, patterns, and other design levels, without much focus and research on the functionality and education of children’s clothing itself [11]. At present, the bionic design approach is mostly used to take all living creatures in nature as the object of reference, and directly or indirectly borrow the shape, contours, lines, colors of these creatures to the designing of children’s clothing modeling, structures, and colors [12]. For example, in the selection of bionic elements for boys’ clothes, dinosaurs, cars, police officers, and other elements that reflect the psychological characteristics of boys are chosen, while for girls’ clothes, flowers, butterflies, princesses, and other elements that reflect the psychological characteristics of girls are chosen. However, this single-design approach fails to intuitively reflect gender awareness, and many children still have difficulty distinguishing their biological sex. It is also difficult for children to understand the in-depth education of gender awareness.

1.1.2 Technical analysis of children’s smart clothing

With the arrival and popularity of artificial intelligence technology, there is more and more smart wearable clothing for children consumer groups. They can be roughly divided into the following types according to their functions: smart positioning, smart monitoring, smart interaction, and smart materials [13]. Based on research statistics, in the development of intelligent children’s clothing, more applications are types of intelligent interaction [14]. Interaction refers specifically to a phenomenon and behavior that occurs among multiple independent decision-making individuals [15]. Currently, many of the children’s smart clothes that we have come across are those with implanted electronic devices via some special design techniques to achieve a specified need through the interaction between the product and the child [16]. For example, Smart PJs from Idaho, USA, has introduced storytelling pajamas, the world’s first smart interactive children’s pajamas [17]. By downloading a free iOS or Android software and scanning different codes on the pajamas with a cell phone, the device will read stories aloud, sing lullabies, or play pictures that help sleep, such as cute animals. Recognizing the limitations of traditional children’s clothing and seeing the huge potential brought by smart technology, the domestic children’s clothing brand Majile has reserved a place for smart technology in clothing design, giving this emerging children’s clothing an unprecedented smart experience [18]. For example, Smart PJs from Idaho, USA, has introduced storytelling pajamas, the world’s first smart interactive children’s pajamas. By downloading a free iOS or Android software and scanning different codes on the pajamas with a cell phone, the device will read stories aloud, sing lullabies, or play pictures that help sleep, such as cute animals [19]. Recognizing the limitations of traditional children’s clothing and seeing the huge potential brought by smart technology, the domestic children’s clothing brand Majile has reserved a place for smart technology in clothing design, giving this emerging children’s clothing an unprecedented smart experience. For example, the fabric of children’s clothing can change color according to the change of children’s body temperature; it can also show different patterns according to the change of weather. In addition, Majile children’s clothing also has a fragrance function and can support global positioning system positioning, route presetting and deviation warning, children’s sports pedometer and calorie detection, etc., which is a perfect combination of ornamentality, practicality, and safety.

1.2.1 Gender consciousness characteristics analysis

Gender consciousness, which refers to the individual’s physical and psychological cognition of their own and other’s gender [20], is the initiation of children’s understanding of themselves, moreover, the foundation of sex education. Throughout the current social environment, most of the social hot topics are focused on children’s puberty education, and parents also care more about and pay more attention to the psychological education of children at this stage [21]. They tend to educate children on how to protect and love themselves but neglect gender education in preschool. After inquiring about references, we have learned that children’s awareness of gender roles begins to be established after the age of 3 [22]. By the age of 3, children can accurately state their gender. During the preschool years, children’s bodies grow rapidly. As they grow older, boys and girls gradually differentiate in terms of shoulder width, chest and waist circumference, and other parts of their bodies, and are at a stage when they can identify their gender. As parents, they should provide preschoolers with appropriate gender awareness education, so that children can have a basic knowledge of their bodies, know their private parts, learn to protect themselves, and understand how to respect and love themselves [23]. As a result, they can form a healthy personality, have a correct view of gender roles, and better pass-through adolescence in the future [24].

In addition, gender awareness education allows children to distinguish between their psychological and physical characteristics and those of the opposite sex so that they can learn from each other’s strengths and advantages in their future growth and can better develop gender awareness in the preschool period [25]. Therefore, it is crucial to cultivate children’s correct gender awareness during their formative years.

1.2.2 Influence of clothing on children’s gender consciousness

Clothing is a comprehensive art, an object composed of color, fabric, structure, and other elements, which can better convey gender symbols [26]. Therefore, in children’s clothing design, the use of the three elements of design determines the physical and mental development of children. For example, when children are young, some parents give girls’ style clothes such as princess dresses to boys and dress them up as girls, which often causes misconceptions about gender in children and has a great impact on children’s future psychology, even affecting their whole life [27].

The development of cognitive skills is a must for every child during the growth stage, especially in early childhood, and is an important factor in the early intellectual development of children [28]. Clothing is a necessity of our life; therefore, it can play the role of a bridge. In the design of children’s clothing, we take the cognitive elements as the starting point, combining the practicality and functionality of clothing with the cognitive nature of enlightenment education, so that young children can feel and understand more intuitively and thus have a stronger influence. Gender awareness education has a significant impact on preschoolers’ clothing [29], so this study can be designed to incorporate the developmental needs of preschoolers through observation and communication, as well as their psychological changes.

3.2.1 Functional design

The children’s garment emphasizes the display of its front and back patterns, adopting the basic hoodie and suit style. The patterns of the body’s specific parts are sewn in three dimensions, incorporating variable memory materials. The garment comprises two types of components: planar and three-dimensional. The three-dimensional components contain sound circuitry devices, emitting prompt and warning sounds upon contact. Children analyze and judge based on the content they hear, guiding them to learn about gender awareness during play. This design not only serves educational, entertaining, and intelligent purposes but also challenges traditional perceptions of clothing design. It transforms children’s clothing from mere wearables, decorations into educational tools, thereby expanding the application scope of clothing.

3.2.2 Style design

Based on the analysis of research questionnaire results and multiple design practice feedback, and considering the limited self-care ability of preschool children, the final-style selection prioritizes simple, easy-to-wear, loose and comfortable casual hoodies (Figure 4). Casual hoodies not only meet the dressing needs of children engaging in various activities in daily life but also offer strong cost control in production and appeal to a wide consumer base, making them accessible to most families.

Figure 4

Design draft of clothing style for boys and girls (front and back). Credit: designed and produced by the author.

Regarding silhouette design, tailored to the characteristics of preschool children’s body types, the clothing silhouette design emphasizes overall shaping, minimizing the use of waistlines, and presenting an overall silhouette in both A-line and rectangular forms (Figure 5).

Figure 5

Clothing effect pictures of boys and girls (front and back). Credit: designed and produced by the author.

3.2.3 Pattern design

Through literature review, it is evident that cartoon patterns convey a lively and genuine aesthetic appeal in children’s clothing design. Cartoon patterns, characterized by cute and diverse motifs, often depict adorable characters from animations, greatly favored by children. These patterns exhibit a modern flair, serving as a highlight in children’s clothing design. Preschool children, in their stage of physical and cognitive development, exhibit a partial but evolving understanding of the world around them. Thus, patterns closely related to their daily lives, emotions, and prominent external features are likely to capture their aesthetic attention.

In this pattern design, considering preschool children’s lively and curious psychology, cartoon animal patterns are adopted and rendered in a three-dimensional manner, creating a strong visual impact. This approach not only stimulates children’s imagination, fostering cognitive development, but also enhances their visual perception of pattern representations. By combining aesthetic appeal with educational elements, the design serves both decorative and instructive purposes.

3.2.4 Fabric design

Comfort is the foremost requirement in clothing design and wearability. Rational fabric selection enhances the value of clothing and narrows the emotional distance between individuals and garments. Preschool children, in their developmental stage, are curious about external objects and have delicate skin. Therefore, when selecting fabrics, comfort and practicality should be prioritized, followed by considerations of safety and environmental friendliness. Clothing fabrics for children should not exhibit issues such as inadequate color fastness, excessive formaldehyde content, or abnormal PH levels.

The fabric of this garment primarily consists of soft materials with a high cotton content, selected according to seasonal variations. For spring and summer, breathable fabrics like bubble gauze and linen are preferred to provide a cooler wearing experience. For autumn and winter, fabrics with warmth, moisture absorption, better elasticity, washability, and durability are chosen, such as corduroy twill, twill fabric, cotton fabrics, and knitted fabrics, ensuring comfort during wear. In the innovation of new technology fabrics, the fabric should possess high safety, good moisture absorption, strong expansibility, softness, color fastness, and quick drying, among other characteristics, to protect children’s skin and achieve temperature-regulating effects.