Read the market
The yarn inside the cloth, the cotton under the yarn, and the freight on your lane.
Read these in this order
Each one links to the module that carries that number. The two readings under it are reference points, not thresholds, and under those are the outside places worth going to check the number at its source.
- Turn the construction into a weight
The GSM formula and the consumption calculation, worked for a poplin, a twill, a denim and a jersey.
No action needed when the weight the formula gives and the weight the mill quotes agree within a few per cent.
Worth a second look when they do not reconcile. One of the construction and the weight is wrong, and it is much cheaper to find out which before the order than after the delivery.
Learn further, at the source other people's sites, free unless marked paid
- Textile School (opens in a new tab) plain language explainers of the fabric calculations, for a reader meeting GSM arithmetic for the first time
- Online Clothing Study (opens in a new tab) consumption and costing worked from the production engineering side, a second way of arriving at the same kilograms
- CottonWorks (opens in a new tab) Cotton Incorporated's fabric development and yarn manufacturing modules, for checking a construction assumption against a technical source, with free registration for the courses
- Get everyone onto the same count system
The conversion between Ne, Nm, tex, denier and the rest, plus the ply notation that is genuinely ambiguous.
No action needed when the specification states singles and resultant counts separately.
Worth a second look when a quotation that says 2/40s and nothing else. The two readings of that differ twofold in fabric weight, and no convention settles it. Ask.
Learn further, at the source other people's sites, free unless marked paid
- Textile School (opens in a new tab) the count conversions written out, so Ne, Nm, tex and denier can be checked against a second source before you sign the specification
- CottonWorks (opens in a new tab) the yarn manufacturing material behind the numbering systems, useful when a supplier and a buyer are quoting in different ones
- Price the yarn content
The yarn benchmark, applied to the kilograms per metre the calculation gave you.
No action needed when the yarn content you calculate is a sensible share of the fabric price you are quoted.
Worth a second look when the yarn content alone approaches the fabric quotation. Either the construction you were given is not the construction being made, or the quote will not survive contact with the order.
Learn further, at the source other people's sites, free unless marked paid
- UN Comtrade (opens in a new tab) yarn export values per kilogram by country, the free way to put a price on the tonnage your calculation produced
- YarnsandFibers (opens in a new tab) yarn price trends by chain, a second read on the level before you apply it to the whole order
- EmergingTextiles (opens in a new tab) paid paid, and the only route to yarn price levels with real history, which is the gap free sources leave
- Check the direction of travel
Producer price indexes for yarn, as an independent read on whether yarn prices are rising or falling.
No action needed when flat or gently trending.
Worth a second look when a turn. Fabric quotations follow yarn with a lag, so the index turning is early warning on the quote you are about to receive.
Learn further, at the source other people's sites, free unless marked paid
- US BLS producer price indexes (opens in a new tab) the underlying monthly series, free and open, so you can see the turn yourself rather than wait for the quotation that follows it
- Add the shipping
Container rates and the per kilogram addition.
No action needed when small relative to the cloth.
Worth a second look when heavyweight cloth on a long lane. Denim at 300 grams per square metre ships a lot of weight for the value in it, and freight moves the landed cost more than it does for a shirting.
Learn further, at the source other people's sites, free unless marked paid
- Freightos Baltic Index (opens in a new tab) lane level container rates, which is what heavyweight cloth on a long lane needs rather than a world average
- Drewry World Container Index (opens in a new tab) the weekly composite most contracts reference, free to read as a headline figure
- Shanghai Shipping Exchange, SCFI and CCFI (opens in a new tab) the Asian export view, useful when your cloth ships out of China or transships through it
- IMF PortWatch (opens in a new tab) daily port calls and chokepoint transits, for the week a quoted rate quietly stops meaning a delivery date
- Compare the countries on what actually differs
Wages, power reliability, lending rates, logistics score and currency, by origin, each figure stamped with the year it is from. This is the closest published thing to a conversion cost comparison, and conversion is the part of a fabric price that genuinely varies by country.
No action needed when the origins you already use are steady on power and currency.
Worth a second look when a country that looks cheap on wages and poor on power. An outage in weaving is broken ends and a shift lost, and it turns a cheap quotation into a late delivery. This is the single most common way a fabric origin decision goes wrong.
Learn further, at the source other people's sites, free unless marked paid
- World Bank Indicators (opens in a new tab) firm reported power outages, lending rates and the logistics performance index, which is the cheap wages and poor power test in one place
- ILOSTAT (opens in a new tab) national manufacturing earnings for the wage column, remembering these are country averages rather than a mill's payroll
- ECB euro reference rates (opens in a new tab) a daily fix for thirty currencies from one source, so an origin comparison is not distorted by stale rates
- EU GSP and preference status (opens in a new tab) which of your origins holds GSP+ or Everything But Arms into the EU, a difference that usually outweighs the cost gap you are measuring
- GOTS certified suppliers database (opens in a new tab) confirms that a mill quoting organic holds a live scope certificate, before you pay the premium per kilogram
- Open Supply Hub (opens in a new tab) whether the mill exists at the address on its letterhead, and which brands already declare it in their own chain
Reference points, not advice. They describe what the numbers have done, and they do not know your quality, your terms or what you have already covered.
Then decide, before you ask
For fabric the honest answer is that the data supports renegotiation and origin comparison well, and supports timing badly. You can arrive at a fabric negotiation knowing what the yarn in the cloth is worth, which is a strong position. You cannot time a fabric purchase off this site, because we do not hold fabric prices to time it against.
- Cover now
- Fix the price for a stated quantity and period, accepting today’s number.
- Wait
- Leave the position open. Only sensible when you know what you are waiting for and by when.
- Split the order
- Cover part now and part later. The usual answer when the signals disagree, because it is the one that does not require you to be right.
- Change origin
- Buy the same thing from a different country. Turns a price question into a duty, freight, lead time and quality question.
- Change fibre or blend
- Move some of the cotton content to polyester or a cellulosic. Changes the product, so it is a decision for the customer as much as for procurement.
- Renegotiate
- Go back to the supplier with the movement in hand. What the data really buys you is the right to ask.
The data can tell you which of these is worth considering. It cannot tell you which to take, and this page never will.
What a bad answer looks like: “2/40s” on its own, with no singles count and no word on whether it is per ply or resultant, so the yarn inside the cloth cannot be costed and the quotation cannot be checked.
Tools for this step
- Fabric weight maths
Follow a real construction all the way to a weight and a yarn consumption, so you can check a weaver whose quoted weight and construction do not agree.
- Fabric weight worked examples Excel
Three real constructions taken end to end, so you can check your own arithmetic against a worked one.
Every tool for this guide, grouped by what you are trying to do, is on the tools page.