CLOTHING FOR CHILDREN WITH CUSHIONED FEATURES IN KNEE AREA
An internally integrated cushioned component that applies to all types of children's legwear; it accomplishes the dual objective of protecting the wearer's knees by providing cushioning against impact to the knee area and prolonging the lifespan of the garment through utilization of tear resistant material.
This patent document relates to garments for children and, more particularly, to garments affording protection with shock absorbing means.
BACKGROUNDChildren, in general, will spend much of their waking hours engaged in playful, learning activity, regardless of the legwear category (style, fabric, etc.) they may be then wearing. As they learn to crawl, walk, and run at the various stages of their development, they frequently bruise, scrape, and cut their knee areas as they drag or shuffle themselves across floors of all surface types, or fall down upon rough or hard surfaces and objects. In addition to this direct trauma to children's knees, it is common to find holes and thinning fabric in the knee areas of children's legwear garments owing to this higher incidence of friction and impact.
Prior solutions to this problem allow padded objects or devices to be attached or adhered to the outside of existing garments for children. But, as they are not an integral part of the garment, they require the child to be interrupted by an adult or older sibling to “transform” the current garment into “play clothes.” This is neither practical, nor does it anticipate the learning and playing styles of children's spontaneous play behavior, and therefore it is not a very effective method for protecting knees. Moreover, to require a consumer to make an “after market” separate purchase and additional effort to apply these padded objects is an impediment to their daily use.
There is therefore, a need for a system that provides protection for the knee area, decreases the trauma to the children's knees and lessens the degree of wear and tear to the garment itself, while at the same time accommodating the fact that children, whether learning to crawl, walk, run, or climb a tree, tend to act spontaneously.
SUMMARY OF INVENTIONThe present invention, therefore, relates generally to protecting both the children's knees and the garments themselves from the aforementioned wear and tear by providing a built-in cushioned component for the knee area of children's legwear.
Specifically, in one embodiment, the present invention provides a legwear garment with fabric removed in an oval or any other shape around knee area thereby creating space for the cushioned component to protrude slightly from the cut out area, the result of which is a built-in look providing a structure that aligns and affixes the cushioned component and the garment fabric from the inside.
The cushioned component comprises a perforated neoprene, or other closed cell foam with good compression, component covered on the front and back by nylon or some other durable fabric.
Like the surrounding fabric, the cushioned component can be comfortable against the skin. It can be able to breathe and flex as the wearer moves, and maintain its shape and integrity after washing.
The cushioned component can have a tear resistant nylon covering, featuring assorted colors and other stylish embellishments that can vary with garment design elements to enhance everyday attractiveness. An aspect of this invention is the aesthetic quality that, combined with sensible and comfortable design, appeals to both the purchasers (parents) of the legwear garment and promotes wear-ability for the wearers (children) of the legwear garment.
The cushioned component, combined with the method of integrating it into the legwear garment, provides protection to the knee area while also prolonging garment life by preventing tears, snags, and rips in the knee area.
The cushioned component can be sized for different garments, based on age specifications and garment consumer category, to cover a desired area from above to below the knee area. The cushioned component can be sewn using a combination of attractive and durable stitching designs that secure it in a way that prevents snags or rips to edges of the cushioned covered component, thus preventing tears to the garment while also providing protection to the wearer of the garment.
The cushioned component's surface covering and internal padding can be designed for everyday child play-related impact on all surfaces.
The cushioned component can be sewn into place twice. One sewing can be around the actual edge of the cut-out fabric, using a zigzag flat lock stitch, which creates a durable and pleasing outward facing design. In addition, since the cushioned component is fixed from the inside of the garment, the actual specifically sized periphery of the cushioned component can be sewn with a tight machine inline stitch that leaves a faint impression of the desired shape.
Depending on the garment and the consumer segment, the shape of the cut out in the fabric will vary. The outer stitching may be present in all garments, both as a secure manner in affixing the cushioned component from the inside, and also to define a recognizable standard and pleasing front facing design for this legwear line.
Other embodiments extend to elbow, shoulder, head, hand and hip protection.
Unlike the prior art systems, the invention does not involve patches or pads that need after-market adhering or sewing to the exterior surface of the legwear garments' fabric. The invention requires neither straps, belts, buckles, clips, Velcro nor any other form of add-on attachment device for the garment, to achieve its cushioning function around the knee area.
In the accompanying drawings:
Children's legwear for everyday use is generally described in broad terms for both boys' and girls' apparel, and is comprised of casual, loungewear, and formal dress categories. Each category of legwear apparel features an array of styles, cuts, and fabric quality and composition made in a range of preferences depending on the season, intended use or activity, and targeted group demographics, which can mean boys separate, girls separate, or boys and girls as a combined category.
With this as an introduction,
The protection to the wearer's knee and area above and below the knee is uniformly provided by the cushioned component across the areas 4, 6, and 8 in
The neoprene interior material 40 used for the cushioned component can vary in thickness from 1.2 mm to 6 mm depending on the size, style and other variables that are customized to the targeted wearer. The surface covering of the cushioned component 42 is made from nylon or other tear resistant material, and is that same covering that shows in 34.
The invention therefore features an aesthetically pleasing exterior design for wearers, and parents of wearers, of the legwear garment, and requires no extra effort from the parents or the wearer in order to get the benefit of having the knee area cushioned, such as taking extra steps prior to each time the wearer wants to wear the garment such as attaching a pad by using clips, bands, velcro, buckles or straps or any other external attaching device. The cushioned component is fully integrated into the garment, is attractive and designed for children to wear comfortably at all times as they engage in their daily and nightly activities, allowing them to break into spontaneous play mode or learning mode (crawling, walking, running, climbing, etc.) without having to change into other clothes or having to interrupt their spontaneous play or learning by adding some form of external device to attempt to provide protection to the knee area.
As will be apparent to people skilled in the art, the system of the invention has many possible applications in addition to providing cushioned features to the knee area. For example, one such use is for protecting the elbows by applying the system to the elbow area of long sleeve shirts.
Another application of the system of the invention is for protecting the heel and palm areas of the hands, or the joint areas of shoulders and/or hips.
The system of the invention can alternatively be used to provide cushioned protection to the head by applying the system to a form fitting headband geared for infants, toddlers, and young children who take falls or bump into objects or the floor while engaging in learning or spontaneous play. This application could be used as a stand alone headband that provides cushioned features across the forehead, temples, and around the back of the cranium, or could be applied to existing protective helmets as an additional cushion to provide incremental protection or to enhance the fit of the helmet to the child's head size. Many protective helmets made for toddlers and little children tend to slip down too low on the forehead and either cause discomfort or prevent the child from seeing, or both. The cushioned component system is a possible solution to this problem of improper fit.
It will be understood that the same system may be used in many different shapes and configurations as dictated by the garment type, size and target wearers' intended use. Although inline machine stitching and zigzag flat lock stitching are used in the illustrated embodiment, it will be understood that different types of stitching may be used in alternative embodiments to affix and integrate the cushioned component into the garment.
The cushioned component itself may be made of any combination of materials, although in the preferred embodiment it is of perforated neoprene of various thicknesses and covered by varying grades of nylon fabric, both of which are relatively breathable, pliable, comfortable, washable and compatible with surrounding fabrics of clothing into which the cushioned component is integrated.
Although embodiments of the invention have been described above by way of examples only, it will be understood by those skilled in the field that modifications, alterations, and/or additions may be made or introduced to the disclosed embodiments without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention.
Claims
1. An item of protective children's clothing comprising:
- legwear configured to cover at least a knee area of a wearer, the legwear being constructed of at least one fabric and including an inner surface and an outer surface and having at least one opening formed through the fabric at each knee area; and
- at least one cushion filling each opening and arranged to protrude through the opening of the outer surface,
- each cushion being secured by a stitching around a perimeter of the opening to form an integrated unit with the fabric, wherein the cushions are flexible in use.
2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein, each of the cushions is covered and the cushion covering and legwear are similarly colored.
3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein, the cushions are constructed of closed-cell foam.
4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein, the cushions are constructed of neoprene between 1.2 and 6 millimeters thick.
5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein, the cushions are covered with tear-resistant fabric.
6. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein, the cushion filling each opening is arranged to protrude through the opening beyond the outer surface.
7. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein, the cushion filling each opening is arranged to protrude through the opening to be visible at the outer surface.
8. An item of protective children's clothing comprising:
- sleeves integral to the clothing, the sleeves configured to cover at least a joint area of a wearer, the sleeves being constructed of at least one fabric and including an inner surface and an outer surface and having at least one opening formed through the fabric at the exterior angle of each joint area; and
- at least one cushion filling each opening and arranged to protrude through the opening of the outer surface,
- each cushion being secured by a stitching around a perimeter of the opening to form an integrated unit with the fabric, wherein the cushions are flexible in use.
9. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein, each of the cushions is covered and the cushion covering and sleeves are similarly colored.
10. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein, the cushions are constructed of closed-cell foam.
11. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein, the cushions are constructed of neoprene between 1.2 and 6 millimeters thick.
12. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein, the cushions are covered with tear-resistant fabric.
13. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein, the cushion filling each opening is arranged to protrude through the opening beyond the outer surface.
14. The apparatus of claim 8 wherein, the cushion filling each opening is arranged to protrude through the opening to be visible at the outer surface.
15. An item of protective children's clothing comprising:
- clothing configured to cover at least a vulnerable area of a wearer, the clothing being constructed of at least one fabric and including an inner surface and an outer surface and having at least one opening formed through the fabric at the vulnerable area; and
- at least one cushion filling each opening and arranged to protrude through the opening of the outer surface,
- each cushion being secured by a stitching around a perimeter of the opening to form an integrated unit with the fabric, wherein the cushions are flexible in use.
16. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein, the vulnerable area is the exterior angle of a knee joint.
17. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein, the vulnerable area is the exterior angle of a knee joint.
18. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein, the vulnerable area is the exterior angle of an elbow joint.
19. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein, the vulnerable area is the exterior angle of a wrist joint.
20. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein, the vulnerable area is the exterior angle of a shoulder joint.
21. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein, the vulnerable area is the exterior perimeter of the head.
22. The apparatus of claim 15 wherein, the vulnerable area is the exterior point of the hip.
Type: Application
Filed: Jan 9, 2013
Publication Date: Jan 23, 2014
Inventors: Samantha Stevens Ford (San Carlos, CA), Robert Elias Ford, JR. (San Carlos, CA)
Application Number: 13/737,870
International Classification: A41D 13/015 (20060101);