Simple Guide on the Manufacture of Apparel:
Posted by Amelia Sebastian
Navigating the process of clothing production can be a challenge if you're new to the game. First-time collaborations often lead to:
- Exasperation due to delays
- Time-consuming lead periods
- factories failing to accommodate last-minute adjustments
The initial steps include sketching out the design, creating a tech pack, and finally, using CAD layout for any design. But, producing clothing in-house requires more than just setting up sewing machines and cutting tables.
The process unfolds as follows:
- Marketing and Sales Strategy Know your market before mass production. Striking a balance between customer demand and production capacity is crucial. Liaise with potential retailers, discuss minimum orders, frequency of reorders, sales figures, and delivery schedules.
- Designing Unlike factory-produced clothes, where numerous workers cut, align, and sew pieces, your patterns must be precise and exact. Each garment should be a carbon copy of the other, with all necessary marks included.
- Grading and Sizing Grading and sizing can be puzzling, even for those who create their patterns. Understanding how a size 2 dress becomes a size 10 dress and their respective differences is usually a professional's job. However, using digital patterns lets you make changes and adjustments surgically precise, as all measurements are visible in real-time.
- Lay-Plan: Pattern Readying Next, plotters print out the patterns. A proper lay plan is essential, arranging all pattern blocks systematically (such as samples) based on factors like fabric length, roll width, total number of items to make, and the breakdown of sizes. The software then suggests the best way to arrange geometric shapes (patterns) to get the most out of the fabric and minimize waste.
- Cutting With the patterns in hand, it's time to cut the fabric. Patterns are printed on special paper that sticks perfectly to the fabric, ensuring accurate cuts. Initially, fabric pieces are cut by hand, but for mass production, multiple layers of the same fabric are stacked and cut in large quantities using automated tools.
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- Sewing After the pieces are cut, they are put back together. To save time, similar tasks are grouped together, so people can efficiently perform the same act repeatedly.
- Colors and Trims Match the threads with the fabric color. Choose the best matches from a wide array of options. Fabrics don't necessarily require trims, but a variety of zippers, buttons, and other accessories complete the look.
- Machinery Adjustments Each sewing machine requires setup based on the fabric being used. Remove old threads and install the new reels for the chosen color. Adjust tension settings to achieve the best results.
- Final Assembly Verify the setup, lay out the sets, and sew the pieces together. As the pieces come together, the design starts to take shape.
- Finishing Once the items are completed, take them to the sampling unit for a quality check. Ensure perfect measurements and no defects. Protect delicate pieces by applying stabilizing starch solutions, pressing them gently, or vacuum-sealing them in garment bags.
- Quality Check Inspect the garments thoroughly and approve them for grading and moving on to the next phase of production.
- Packaging and Delivery Time to ship! Properly pack orders and keep track of them to avoid reshipping mistakes.
- Customer Communication Stay in touch with your customers to gather valuable feedback about their experiences, preferences, and any concerns. This will help in refining your processes and products for future collaborations.
- Amelia Sebastian suggests that a successful fashion-and-beauty collaboration requires more than just design, including a marketing and sales strategy to balance customer demand and production capacity.
- After creating patterns and designs, the next step in the manufacturing process is to use digital patterns for surgically precise grading and sizing, ensuring a carbon copy of each garment is produced.
