01 · What a tech pack is for
A tech pack is the document a factory works from.
A clothing tech pack describes the product in enough detail that a manufacturer can price it, sample it and produce it without filling gaps with assumptions. It carries the specification, the materials, the measurements, the branding application and the commercial context in one controlled place.
It does three jobs at once, which is why an incomplete pack causes trouble later rather than sooner. It is the basis for a quotation, the instruction for a sample, and the reference that settles a disagreement about what was actually agreed. A pack that is good enough to sample from may still be too vague to decide a dispute with.
A tech pack is a commercial document, not a regulated format, so there is no authority that certifies one as complete. The parts that are regulated are narrower: fibre content, care information and other label content are set by the destination market, and those inputs belong in the pack rather than being decided after production.[2][3]
This guide is a buyer-side preparation method. It is not a template, a drafting service or a description of how any particular factory operates.
02 · Who decides what
Sort every input by who actually owns the decision.
Packs go wrong when a buyer leaves a decision open that only the buyer can make, or spends effort specifying something the supplier has to decide anyway. Before writing anything, sort the inputs into three groups.
- Buyer-owned
- Fit intent, silhouette, brand application, colour standard approval, positioning and target price. No supplier can decide these, because they describe what the brand is selling rather than how it is made.
- Joint decisions
- Material selection where availability or minimums constrain the choice, construction trade-offs, and any substitution that changes cost, hand-feel or compliance.
- Supplier-owned
- Equipment and process capability, line capacity, scheduling and internal quality controls. A pack that prescribes these is usually specifying a factory rather than a product.
- Never assumed
- Anything affecting cost, compliance or a customer-facing commitment. If it is not written down and acknowledged, it is not agreed.
The most common structural mistake is not a missing page. It is a pack where the reader cannot tell which items are settled and which are still open.
03 · Product and construction
Describe the build, not the look.
A factory reads construction. A styled illustration or a mood board communicates direction but rarely answers the questions that decide a sample: where the seam sits, how the edge is finished, what happens at a stress point, and which panels are cut from which material.
- Flat front and back views, with the panels, structure and proportions visible rather than rendered.
- Construction notes by area: seam type and finish, edge treatment, reinforcement points and openings.
- Placement guidance for anything applied later, given as a position relative to a reference point rather than as a word like “centre”.
- Numbered reference points that the measurement chart and the sketches both use, so a figure on the chart maps to a place on the garment.
- Explicit notes on what may vary between the reference and the production garment, and what may not.
Reference images are useful as evidence of intent. They become a problem when a pack leans on them instead of stating a decision, because two people can read the same image and agree while picturing different garments.
04 · Materials, trims and colour
Every component that has to arrive on time and match.
The bill of materials should list what the garment is made of, what is attached to it and what it ships in, at the level of detail that lets a supplier cost the order and check the incoming goods.
- Main material
- Composition, weight or structure, width or width class, finish or hand-feel reference, and whether a specific mill or article is required or simply expected.
- Trims and components
- Interlining, elastic, thread, fasteners, cord, hardware and any functional part, with material, finish and size where those affect appearance or performance.
- Colour
- The system used to specify colour, the approved standard for each colourway, and the viewing condition against which it will be judged. Colour decisions made under different lighting are a routine source of disputes.
- Labels and packaging components
- Woven and printed labels, care labels, hang tags, stickers and packaging materials, each with content, placement and market requirements where relevant.[1]
- Substitution rule
- State whether equivalents may be proposed, and what the buyer needs to see before agreeing to one.
05 · Measurements and grading
A measurement is only a decision once the method and the limit are fixed.
Most measurement disputes are not about the numbers. They are about the method: how the garment was relaxed or stretched, where the point of measure sits, which tool and unit were used, and what deviation is acceptable.
A garment measurement spec sheet records points of measure, methods, size targets, agreed limits and results. The complete tech pack also controls materials, construction, artwork, labels, packaging and revision history. A customer size chart serves a different job: helping a shopper select a size. Do not use any one of these documents as a substitute for the other.
- Define each point of measure and show it on a diagram that both sides read the same way.
- State the garment condition for measuring, because the same measurement taken differently produces different values.
- Provide a full size range, not a single base size, with the grading rule that connects them.
- State a tolerance for each point of measure, and explain which tolerances are critical to fit and which are commercial.
- Separate measurement conformity from fit approval. A garment can sit inside every tolerance and still fail the intended fit.
A blank tolerance is an open decision, not an agreed default. Mark it pending, name the reviewer and resolve it before the measurement check is used for approval. The buyer toolkit provides a starting record; the product-specific diagram, target values and limits still need technical review.
Apply the chart to the actual category: the trouser manufacturing brief adds rise, inseam, waistband and pocket questions; the skirt manufacturing brief adds length, lining, closure and hem questions. Keep these garment decisions tied to the same specification revision.
06 · Branding, labels and packaging
The parts customers see and authorities check.
Branding and label content sit at the intersection of design and regulation, so they need both a visual specification and a content source.
- Applied artwork by position, size, colour and technique, with the files needed to reproduce it.
- Label content, language, sequence and placement, checked against the destination market before production rather than after import.[2][3]
- Care information that matches the actual material behaviour of the garment being made, not the behaviour of a similar product.
- Packaging: folding and presentation, protective material, hangtag or sticker application, assortment and carton markings.
- Import preparation inputs, where material, use or packaging affects how the goods are declared.[4]
Label content is one of the few parts of a pack with an external deadline. Deciding it late does not delay the sample; it delays the shipment.
Which technique can actually reproduce the artwork is a separate decision from where it sits. The decoration methods comparison covers screen print, DTG and embroidery from the production side.
07 · Commercial context
Quantity, ratio and target change the manufacturing answer.
Commercial inputs are not negotiating context added at the end. They determine which processes are available. A print technique, a fabric choice or a construction method that works at one order size may be uneconomic or impossible at another.
- Quantity
- Total and per style, with the basis on which it is estimated. It drives material planning, process selection and whether a dedicated setup is justified.
- Size and colour ratio
- How the order splits across the range, because the split affects cutting efficiency and material consumption as much as the total does.
- Target price and margin logic
- Not a negotiation position but a feasibility input. A target that cannot be met at the specified construction is worth discovering before the sample is made.
- Timing expectations
- Any date that matters commercially, stated as a driver rather than a demand, so the working sequence can be built backwards from it.
- Repeat intention
- Whether this is a one-off project or the first of a range, which changes how much development work is worth doing now.
These inputs are also the inputs behind a cost conversation. When the question moves from what the pack should contain to which decisions move the quotation, continue with what drives the cost of clothing manufacturing.
08 · Version control
The pack has to say which version is in force.
A pack changes during development, and the risk is not that it changes. The risk is that two versions exist at the same time and only one of them is being read.
- A version number and date on the document itself, not only in an email subject line.
- A short change record: what changed, when, and who approved it.
- An explicit statement of which version the next step should be based on.
- A rule for how a change is communicated, so that a message or a marked-up image never quietly overrides the controlled document.
- A match between the pack used for the approved sample and the pack used for production.
Once a sample is approved, the version that describes it becomes the production reference. If that is not recorded, the approved sample is only a garment rather than a decision.
09 · What the gaps cost
An omitted input is still answered. Just not by the buyer.
Work does not stop because a pack is incomplete. The reader supplies the missing value from the most available option, and the most available option is the one that suits production. That is the mechanism behind most first-sample surprises.
- Tolerance missing
- A production default is applied, which may be looser than the fit can carry and will look like a quality problem later.
- Colour reference missing
- Colour is matched to the nearest available material, and the first honest conversation about it happens after the sample arrives.
- Construction detail missing
- The most familiar method for that product type is used, which may be cheaper or heavier than intended without being wrong.
- Quantity missing
- A quotation is built on assumed volumes, so the price is real but the basis for it is not.
- Packaging underspecified
- Generic protection and presentation are chosen, and any brand requirement is discovered at dispatch.
- Gaps left unlabelled
- The supplier cannot distinguish an open question from a settled requirement, so an unanswered item is read as a decision.
An empty field is ambiguous. An item explicitly listed as open tells the supplier where a proposal is welcome and where it is not, and it keeps the open list visible instead of buried in an assumption.
10 · Send it as a brief
A complete pack is built, not assembled in one pass.
A first submission does not have to answer everything. It has to be clear about what it does answer.
- Send what is decided, and list what is not, with the decision owner named for each open item.
- Say what the next step is meant to produce: an indicative price, a development opinion, a sample, or a production-ready file.
- Ask the supplier to declare assumptions rather than absorb them, so a quotation can be read as a range of possibilities.
- Keep the pack and the sample record connected, so an approved sample can be traced back to the specification it was approved against.
What happens after the pack lands is a different decision from whether it was written well. For how sample purpose, references, comments and approval records should be handled once development begins, continue to the product development and sampling framework. If the brand layer, packaging inputs and repeat-order file are the open questions, the private-label and white-label manufacturing route covers that ground.