Factor analysis was used to examine the structures of “dressing behavior when wearing yukata (casual kimono) ” and “ yukata preferences.” For this purpose, 309 female students were asked to answer 35 questions about their yukata dressing behavior and preference among 18 different yukata . The analysis extracted five factors for the “behavior” and seven for “preference.”

Next, a positioning map was used to visualize women's yukata two-dimensionally: “modern vs. classic” and “colorful vs. quiet color combinations.”

For a more comprehensive perspective, women were classified into five clusters based on their “preference” factor scores and the characteristics of each group's “behavior” were examined. The results indicated that women who preferred modern image yukata (64.4％) were affirmative and had high factor scores for “uplifting feeling” and “freely selectable yukata ” under “behavior,” while women who preferred yukata with classic, subdued-color image (35.6％) had five low factor scores under “behavior.”