Adaptive sportswear · 2020

Paralympic shooting jacket

A custom jacket developed with a wheelchair athlete, combining her preferences with the demands of a highly regulated sport.

The jacket, in detail

The finished jacket · Back view

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Finished prototype. Photographs from Kayna Hobbs’s master’s thesis (2020), Figures 4.28–4.29. Virtual prototype: Hobbs & Morris (2020), conference paper, CC BY 4.0.View the thesis ↗

Kayna’s role: Master’s research, design & garment development
Institution: Colorado State University
Advisor: Kristen Morris
Research output: Master’s thesis, conference paper
& journal case study

The design question

What should a shooting jacket do for this athlete? The project considered function, personal expression and appearance together, using interviews to understand how she experienced her existing garment.

Developing with the athlete

A 3D body scan informed a half-scale dress form. Kayna used the form for pattern development, then explored the jacket digitally in CLO. The athlete reviewed the evolving design.

Physical fittings remained essential. The thesis records revisions to the test garment before the final prototype was constructed.

Front and side views of the virtual shooting-jacket prototype — Virtual prototype from Hobbs & Morris (2020), Figure 1. Conference paper ↗ · CC BY 4.0 ↗. Original figure excerpt, unaltered.

What came out of the work

The project produced a jacket prototype and an adapted framework for understanding disabled athletes’ clothing needs. The findings are grounded in one athlete’s experience.