It is necessary that every aspiring brand must understand clothing production , but to what extent?
Let's first explore what clothing production is..
Clothing production is the process of how garments are produced. It includes the making of the patterns, toiles, sampling, grading, and production runs big or small.
Simply put it includes any process that helps to get a garment made.
We believe that clothing production should not be confused with the design process. We believe that during the design process the focus is more centred around the look of the garment, textures, colours & what trims will be used etc.
Hopefully now you will have a better idea of what clothing production is, we will now explain why we think it is necessary for you gain a better understanding of it.
We know that fashion production is a vast area and most probably a designer/brand would prefer to find a fashion studio/manufacturer who will do everything for them e.g. fabric and trim sourcing, patterns, sample making, grading and small production runs; but we believe that it is better for the brand to be on top of this themselves and that they should not solely rely upon any manufacturer to handle this area for them.
Why? Because, put simply it's your brand and so you need to know your fabric composition, where your fabric comes from, where your trims come from, what patterns are and why they are important, and the sample making process. Although you do not need to know everything in detail, you do need to have a good general idea.
Your fashion studio/manufacturer wants to give you a great garment/product, and they need you to help them help you, and the more knowledge you have the better.
Clothing production, is not glamorous, but it's necessary. We believe that it is so necessary that if you fail at this point, your garments/collections may fail also.
Clothing production, is all about the technical details. It has a huge emphasis on shape, fit, and function as opposed to colour, trend and style for without the former three the latter will be extremely irrelevant.
Have you ever had a garment that you really liked the colour, pattern and/or style of but when you tried it on something wasn't quite right with it?
Well this may have been down to the way it was made in the pre-production stage. Maybe the patten cutting was rushed and so the fit of the garment was compromised, or maybe the fabric was not best suited to the garments shape.
We would just like to says that It is not all about that amazing fabric or print you just made or that great button/beads you sourced. Clothing/Fashion production has many more elements involved.
Please let us know your thoughts and experiences and comment below.