Write the tech pack
The one document a factory can quote from: drawing, measurements with tolerances, fabric, trims, stitching, labels, packing.
DEFINITION: tech packDOCUMENT
A tech pack is the one document a factory can price from: the drawing, every measurement with the plus or minus you will accept, the fabric, the trims, the stitch types and stitches per inch, the labels and the packing, one style per pack. A factory quoted from a photograph is guessing, and its guess will protect it, not you.
No tech pack yet is normal for a first order. Say so on the enquiry and the reply tells you what is missing and what it costs to have one drawn up. The vocabulary on the overview, folded under “the words”, defines every term a pack uses: tolerance, grading, the stitch types, the size set.
Two things on the fabric step fill in most of a first pack. The trims list is the bill of materials, line by line, with what to write for each and the fault each one causes when it is left blank. And where to read the rules yourself is the labelling and care law for your market, free, from the people who wrote it, because a label is the one page of a tech pack that can stop the goods at the border.