Facial profiling and pilot hijab sizing of Malaysian women based on anthropometric survey / Nur Syuhaidah Abd. Latiff

Through the years, hijab making industries in Malaysia have witnessed rapid growth due to several factors such as increase awareness among Malaysian Muslim women, the level of income, and technology advancement in the manufacturing, trading, and delivery system. Ready-to-Wear (RTW) hijab has been among the preferences of today's women due to its easy-to-wear character and variety of styles offered. This study aims at investigating several issues pertaining hijab sizing. Consumer's problems and preferences regarding hijab sizing, and size variations of RTW in the existing Malaysian market were investigated by means of questionnaire survey and online interview. The study revealed that comfort plays the most important aspect in selecting hijab, with the hijab face opening parts as the main part that determine consumer's satisfaction. The consumers and retailers agreed that Malaysia should establish a standardize hijab sizing system. The survey also revealed the non standardized hijab sizing issue between different brands in the existing Malaysian market. Following the survey findings, a method of measuring facial dimensions for the use of facial anthropometric survey was developed. Data obtained from the anthropometric survey on 150 human subjects were used to establish facial profiling and to develop pilot hijab sizing for Malaysian women aged 18 to 30. Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and K-means clustering, the physiognomical facial height and the facial width were found to be the key dimensions of the facial profiling. The pilot hijab sizing was successfully developed, with the size range from S to XL, and was validated by means of wear test on prototype hijabs, made up based on the established sizing. The wear test was conducted on 20 human subjects. It was found that the hijab pilot sizing system was able to satisfy the wearer. The study can serves as a reference in the methodology of measuring the head and preliminary study towards the establishment of the actual anthropometric survey for RTW hijab sizing for the Malaysian market.