ABSTRACT
This study was carried out to determine the Female Lecturers acceptability of improved Akwete fabric for special occasion in Imo State tertiary institutions Nigeria. Four objectives were stated among which were to use fine industrial yarns to improve Akwete fabric to reduce the weight, coarseness, and improve the design. The research was also guided by four research questions and four null hypotheses. Experimental research design was used for the study. The population for the study were 2000 female lecturers and a sample of 200 respondents were randomly selected by multi-stage random sampling technique. Score card was used to collect data. Descriptive statistics was used to answer research questions, while Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and t-test were used to test the hypotheses and were all rejected at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed among others that there were 1,728 plies of yarns per one square centimeter of the conventional Akwete which escalated the weight and this brought about resistance to air flow, making the fabric uncomfortable to the wearer. The improvement on this fabric led to the acceptability by 180 out of 200 female lecturers with ground mean acceptability of 3.94 above cut-off point 2.50 indicating highly acceptable. In view of the findings, it was concluded that reduction in yarn count, using plain weave and rayon yarns dropped the weight of improved Akwete fabric and it was accepted. Based on the findings, it was recommended that yarn counts should be reduced to 280 plies per square centimeter and plain weave with rayon yarns should be used while weaving to reduce the weight, coarseness, and be acceptable.