What is a Tech Pack?

 After you have developed your fashion brand and researched the market, now it's time to bring those ideas to life. You begin your search for clothing producers and ask about their prices. You are enthusiastic to move forward but... the tech pack stops you in your tracks.

Now is the time to be afraid: tech packs are now a thing of the past. Without a tech pack, clothing manufacturers will not talk to you and won't provide production quotes.

This is the point where you decide to not stop. You look up Google for help with determination and hope. While you've read pages upon pages of information and spent hours online researching, you still feel far from being able to understand the technology packs.

If this sounds familiar, please continue reading.

This article will answer all your questions about tech packages for fashion brand owners.

The tech pack's purpose is to describe to your sewing machine, using visual guides, what you would expect to see at end of production line.

Yes, I get that. But why is it that sewing factories are unable to provide me with a production quote without a technical pack?

Clothing manufacturers calculate the production time for each garment based upon the instructions that fashion designers give in their tech packets. Your tech pack should contain all the information required to allow a clothing manufacturer such an estimate.

A traditional tech pack should include:

1. technical sketches
2. garment specifications
3. raw material allocations 

This allows fashion designers to set standards, and clothing producers to gauge designer expectations.

What should a Tech Pack look like?

There is currently no universal format. This is a good thing. It allows us flexibility to adapt to the production conditions and budget. However, fashion designers who are not experienced in this field may find it confusing. The Fashion Designer Toolkit offers a sample tech pack and a standard template for industry tech packs.

What information should fashion designer include in their tech kits?

Annotations and a clear illustration of your garment can sometimes be enough, especially when you are working with sample makers or cutters during a pattern cutting/sampling stage. A tech pack is required to accompany your garment manufacturing. This will require greater detail.

These are the most important pages in any complete production tech kit.

You can also include optional pages depending on your style. These pages can be:

The packing and Labelling Manual, which will include instructions on how to package your clothing manufacturer.

The garment can be made in different colour variants.

1. You can tell your clothing manufacturer where to position embellishments and print them.
2. Markers and layouts are helpful for garments with print placement as well as stock control.
3. A cutting sheet is a list of all the pattern pieces with cutting information.
4. We hope that now you are more familiar with tech packs and the contents they should contain. However, you might have many more questions than you thought when you started. 
5. So, we've created another blog post to help you with your questions. You can continue reading at this link.

You can also choose to take the initiative and help your business succeed. We have created the Fashion Designer Toolkit, which has been helpful to many start-up fashion brands, and helped them navigate the manufacturing process.

 

Pattern Grading or Pattern Making What is the difference? 

Both pattern grading (or pattern making) serve different purposes and are done at different stages of garment production. They are also performed by different members of a team. They are sometimes mixed together. Both have similar sounds and patterns, so it is not surprising that they are often mixed up. 

Let's get clear by first looking at the definitions.

Wikipedia states that a pattern refers to the template used to trace the garment's parts onto fabric, before they are cut out and assembled. Sometimes, the process of creating or cutting patterns can be condensed into the one-word Templatemaking. However, it can also refer to Pattern(-)making and Pattern cutting.

The following definition was found on the same website:'pattern Grading refers to the process of turning sample or base size patterns into additional sizes by using a size specification sheet, or increasing grading .

There is clearly a dependency. It might be difficult to understand the differences between these two processes if you don't have a basic understanding.

It is possible to better understand their relationship and dependence by looking at product development and manufacturing cycles.

(image of product development/manufacturing cycles)

Every fashion collection begins with a creative idea. Every fashion designer in the world starts by designing blueprints for their collections. This could be a collection of sketches or fabric draped on a tailor's model. It doesn't matter what you do, the goal is to create a feel that will show how the garments would look on a human body. A designer creates a fashion collection by combining styles.

After the collection has been finalized, the fabrics are sourced and the technical sketches are complete, the designer can then approach a pattern maker for assistance in creating patterns. The pattern drafting process begins.

There might be several pattern drafts of the same style. These are often accompanied by multiple toile fittings. The result is usually garment samples. All patterns made at this stage will be in the same size. The base size will be determined by several factors, including the availability of a model to fit the pattern, the target audience and the production size range. It is usually up to the designer, who will determine the base size of the fashion collection. Then they will need to provide the measurements to a pattern cutter. This set of measurements is used to create the first pattern and sample.

It's now time to begin selling and move on with bulk production. They will need to make their garments in different sizes, regardless of whether they are producing for wholesale or retail. This is where pattern grading comes in. A pattern grader multiplies the base size of any pattern to create the desired number.

A blog post called Making sense of pattern grading was particularly helpful to me by Terry Harlamus. This post covers the basics of pattern grading in great detail. It sheds light on important topics like grading vs. alteration and pattern measurement vs. body measurements. 

These issues are covered in great detail. I will not address them now. Instead, we will focus on some common mistakes that we have observed our fashion studio designers making:

1. Designers often rely on industry-standard grading standards without fully researching them and whether or not they are in compliance with their target customers.

2. Many base size patterns are chosen without considering the product size range.

3. Designers don't fully use the potential of uneven grading rules in order to create better-fitting garments.

In our next blog, we will take a closer look at the consequences of these three common errors.

If you'd like to learn more about fashion production, including our tech pack, grading rules and how to make it better, then join us for our next masterclass. You can also check out our events page for more information.

 

What is a Tech Pack?

A tech pack is a fundamental specialized device between a style creator and a dress producer. It is a bunch of guidelines that the sewing industrial facility requires and needs to continue to deliver your pieces of clothing. Style fashioners utilize this amazing asset to illuminate sewing production lines regarding explicit data about their pieces of clothing. 

The reason for the tech pack is to disclose to your sewing manufacturing plant, utilizing visual rules, what you hope to see toward the finish of the creation line. 

I understand that, but why are sewing factories unable to give me a production quote without a tech pack?  

In view of the guidelines style fashioners give in their tech packs, clothing makers gauge the creation time per article of clothing. Your tech pack ought to incorporate all the data important to empower a dress maker to do as such. 

• technical sketches
• garment specifications
• raw material allocations

The above empowers style planners to set norms and dress producers to measure the fashioner's assumptions. 

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