ECONOMICS MANAGEMENT INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 18 Vol 4/No.1/2015 UDK: 7.05 COBISS.SR-ID 216027148 Review Article INVESTIGATION OF CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SILHOUETTES AND COLORS IN FASHION DESIGN Julieta Ilieva Faculty of Technics and Technologies, Trakia University, Bulgaria Graf Ignatiev 38, 8600 Yambol, Bulgaria Abstract: An investigation of connection between silhouettes and colors according to the consumer preferences is presented in the paper. The connections between silhouettes and colors are investigated with the help of the statistical method of Correspondence Analysis. The results of investigation in combination with the latest fashion trends and colors and forms associations can be used for successful fashion design of new models of clothing. Key words: fashion design, colors, silhouettes, correspondence analysis. ARTICLE INFO Article history: Recived 05. mar. 2015. Recived in revised form 25. mar. 2015 Accepted 05. may. 2015. Available online 04. jul. 2015. 1. INTRODUCTION When a fashion designer creates a new model of garment, the designer has to combine his or her idea with the latest fashion trends and the consumer preferences. The silhouette and color are the most visible features of clothing. The paper presents an investigation of connection between silhouettes and colors according to the consumer preferences. 2. METOD USED The investigation is made with the help of the statistical method of Correspondence Analysis. [3] Correspondence Analysis is a descriptive/ exploratory technique designed to analyze simple two-way and multi-way tables containing some measures of correspondence between the rows and columns. The results provide information which is similar in nature to those produced by Factor Analysis techniques, and they allow one to explore the structure of categorical variables included in the table. The most common kind of table of this type is the two-way frequency cross tabulation table. [2] 3. INVESTIGATION The investigation is made about the ladies clothing, because the ladies garments included the full variety of silhouettes and colors. The ladies dresses in the 12 th basic silhouettes: close fitted, fitted, semi fitted, rectangular, Y, Y turned, X, U turned under the waist, O under the waist, A, O, and V [4] are colored in the 6 th basic colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple [1]. In this investigation the system with six basic colors is preferred to the most popular system with seven basic colors (red, orange, yellow, green, cyan blue, indigo blue, purple), because the only one blue included in the 6 th color system is more identified by consumers. The 12 th silhouettes and the 6 th colors are presented in picture 1. The full number of their combinations, included in the study, is 72.