Effect of Care Instructions on Evaluations of Apparel Attributes

A care label is one cue that might influence evaluation of a garment because different care instructions are associated with different fabrics as well as different levels of expenditure of time and money. The purpose of this study was to determine whether care instructions affected perceptions of garment quality, predictions concerning a garment's future performance, a garment's estimated retail price, and a customer's likelihood of purchasing a garment. Two variations of care instructions were used: hand wash and dry flat, and professionally dry-clean. Undergraduate females (N = 84) enrolled in textiles and clothing classes volunteered to serve as subjects. Subjects received a sketch of a garment along with one of the two care instructions, recorded their perceptions of garment quality and price, predicted the garment's future performance, and indicated their likelihood of purchasing the garment. Analysis of variance revealed that care instructions did not influence perceptions of quality, price, or likelihood of purchase but did influence predictions of future performance. Care instructions indicating that the garment should be professionally drycleaned resulted in favorable predictions about future performance, as compared with care instructions indicating that the garment should be hand washed and dried flat. Study results suggest that care instructions are a cue used by consumers to predict the future performance of a garment.