States Army Soldier Systems Center. He gave a presentation at Cornell University in which he described the challenges involved in developing uniforms and protective clothing for soldiers. He could not find people with expertise in the area of apparel design to hire so instead hired engineers and trained them in clothing design after they had joined the army research lab. He said that it took him 12 or 13 years to retrain engineers to be effective designers of clothing that functioned well for soldiers. Because no university had a program yet that focused on functional apparel design, Watkins worked with the army to identify the skills and knowledge required for a designer to fill this need; she then led the development of a program at Cornell University that would instruct apparel students in functional design by incorporating principles of science and engineering into a curriculum grounded in a thorough understanding of the design process. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, Watkins spoke extensively about the critical need for research and education in functional apparel design to other universities and industry associations, including an influential presentation at a 1989 conference of the Association of College Professors of Textiles and Clothing (ACPTC) (now the International Textile and Apparel Association (ITAA). The ITAA has since actively supported research, teaching, design, and design exhibition of functional apparel. Clothing: The Portable Environment In 1984, Watkins published Clothing: The Portable Environment, which has become the foremost textbook for functional apparel design courses and programs and serves as a valued resource for professional designers. Her multidisciplinary, theory-based approach to creating or improving designs is used in apparel programs across the United States and abroad. A second edition was published in 1995. Both editions have been translated into Japanese and Korean. In describing Watkins’s contribution to the textile and apparel design fields through her curriculum development and textbook, author and North Carolina State University professor Kate Carroll notes that "a thorough background in mechanics, body structures, the properties of materials, basic psychology, and assessment of visual appeal” is necessary for the design of functional apparel, in contrast to that of “ready-to-wear goods, where most consumers buy a product for its looks rather than for a special function." Braddock and O'Mahony also acknowledge Susan Watkins contribution in the 1996 edition of Techno Textiles stating that her characterization of clothing as our most intimate environment is an important part of survival