Final Information to Making a Garment Spec Sheet – A Look Behind The Seams If you recognize the attire you wish to make, have discovered materials you wish to use, and are about to start out speaking to a manufacturing unit about

Final Information to Making a Garment Spec Sheet – A Look Behind The Seams

Last Updated: March 2, 2026By Melanie DiSalvo

If you recognize the attire you wish to make, have discovered materials you wish to use, and are about to start out speaking to a manufacturing unit about making samples and seeing your clothes in actual life – you’ll need a garment spec sheet.

A garment spec sheet is sort of a blueprint that helps you talk your design idea to your producer to allow them to make it precisely as you envision it (and no, it’s not a tech pack). With an excellent spec sheet anybody wherever on this planet ought to be capable to make your garment.

I’m certain you’ve gotten heard horror tales from small manufacturers working with factories and never getting the designs they wished. However, this little sheet will assist restrict misunderstandings between you and your producer, clarify high quality management requirements, and assist create patterns faster.

Whereas many manufacturers rent knowledgeable to make their garment spec sheets, I’ll present you the best way to DIY it your self utilizing a t-shirt for example.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

SHORT ON TIME? CHECK OUT THIS 60 SECOND SLIDE DECK

TECH PACK VS GARMENT SPEC SHEET

Earlier than we start, to know how a garment specification sheet works, you need to know what a tech pack is.

A tech pack is a whole set of pointers a designer makes for the producer to assemble the garment. Mainly, it’s just like the automotive guide inside your glove field – it consists of every part from material swatches and costing to the place labels must be sewn. Tech packs vary from 6-12 pages of pure garment data.

However, what’s a garment specification sheet? A garment spec sheet is a web page inside your tech pack devoted solely to garment measurements and stitching directions.

A spec sheet will inform your manufacturing unit each level of measure (POMs) in your garment and provides them directions on the best way to grade. For those who don’t know, grading is the method of taking a sample and making it into a bigger or smaller dimension. Lastly, a vogue spec sheet will let your manufacturing unit understand how removed from perfection they will stray (as a result of nobody is ideal). Extra on that later.

Merely put, a tech pack is your total pointers for the producer, and a spec sheet is the nitty gritty measurement and development particulars inside it.

WHY ARE GARMENT SPEC SHEETS IMPORTANT?

fashion spec sheet

A garment specification sheet is utilized in each stage of growth and manufacturing – from the primary match pattern to remaining approval and the standard assurance inspection earlier than the order ships. It’s a significant software that can assist you guarantee your garment matches the way you need it to.

It is usually an insurance coverage coverage for you and the producer in case errors or misunderstandings occur.

The factor is, nobody ever will get a garment good on the primary strive.

That tremendous big bell sleeve you thought you wished? Perhaps you determine it must be a bit smaller. On this case, you’d revise your garment spec sheet to the brand new measurements after seeing the sleeve in a pattern. The manufacturing unit would then make a brand new pattern with the revised sleeves.

Now, think about you open your field of 100 manufacturing items, and there are these big sleeves you thought you removed. You possibly can return to your spec sheet and present the manufacturing unit your modifications and whenever you made them.

If it’s their mistake, and they’re an excellent manufacturing unit, they may assist right it for you.

So, you see. With out the spec sheet as a paper path, you wouldn’t have a case.

HOW TO CREATE GARMENT SPECS

Listed below are 10 issues each spec sheet should have.

ONE: DESCRIPTION

That is only a temporary description of the garment on the high of your spec sheet.

So, you don’t must get artistic. If it’s a t-shirt, name it a ‘T-Shirt’. It’s that straightforward!

TWO: STYLE NUMBERS

Fashion numbers are a necessary solution to hold observe of your clothes – significantly in case you’re engaged on a number of totally different kinds directly. Some manufacturers will work on a whole bunch of kinds a season so there must be a simple solution to hold observe of all of them.

You need to create a constant fashion numbering system to maintain it straight. Creating a method quantity could possibly be so simple as numbering every fashion from 1 to nonetheless many you make. Or, you could possibly go extra advanced.

Your fashion quantity can embody:

Season and 12 months (Spring 2023)
Merchandise quantity (01, 02, 03 and so forth.)
Whether or not it’s a high, backside or costume (T, B, D)
Color (W for white, BL for black and so forth.)

The fashion quantity to your white t-shirt can be SP2301TW (spring 2023, fashion 1, high, white). Or, if we wish to hold it easy, we might name it 001.

THREE: PRODUCT CATEGORY

The class mentions who the garment is meant for. E.g., males, ladies, unisex, children, and so forth.

FOUR: COLLECTION

Make sure that to record your garment’s season. In case your t-shirt belongs to the spring/summer season 2023 season, you’ll write SS-23.

FIVE: COMPANY INFORMATION

Each web page in your spec sheet (and tech pack, for that matter) ought to have all of your contact particulars.

It’s essential to incorporate them on each web page as a result of factories are chaotic and messy. Papers get separated and misplaced on a regular basis. So, if web page 2 will get ripped out and finally ends up on the ground (which, consider me, occurs on a regular basis), anybody on the manufacturing unit will know the best way to get that web page the place it belongs (learn, not the rubbish).

Make sure that to incorporate on each single web page:

Your organization identify and brand

The brand helps folks rapidly see what model they’re engaged on.

Contact particulars (e-mail, tackle, telephone quantity)

Quick access to this information helps the manufacturing unit higher talk with you.

Season and supply date

This fashion, a manufacturing unit may be sure they’re utilizing this season’s set of garment directions and never final 12 months’s. And it’ll remind them of timelines, encouraging them to fulfill the deadline.

SIX: GARMENT DIAGRAMS AND TECHNICAL SKETCHES

Embody a back and front view diagram of your garment however hold it easy. This isn’t the time to get artistic with avant-garde sketches! You don’t even must know the best way to use adobe illustrator or one other CAD program. A easy sketch with a pencil will do.

Sticking to a easy black-and-white technical drawing is greatest.

You may additionally wish to embody close-up diagrams for advanced particulars reminiscent of pockets, stitching, and linings.

As soon as the technical drawings are made, you’ll need to label all of the factors of measurement in your diagrams.

For instance, in case you have been making a t-shirt, line A may signify how vast the neck opening must be, whereas measurement B reveals the sleeve opening.

This diagram is a visible illustration of all of the numbers and measurements you’ll fill out in Excel – which we are going to get to in only one minute.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PICTURES IN A GARMENT SPEC SHEET

Footage make everybody’s life simpler. The reality is many individuals working in factories don’t have the perfect studying and writing abilities, so a picture can forestall a mistake earlier than it occurs.

The opposite factor is, as loopy because it sounds, everybody measures clothes a bit in a different way. A bodily drawing that reveals how every level ought to measure cuts down on errors.

SEVEN: MEASUREMENT EXCEL

A measurement sheet enhances the garment diagram. Earlier I discussed all these factors of measure labeled within the sketch have to be stuffed out in Excel with precisely what number of inches or centimeters they need to be. These values will assist your manufacturing unit create a sample according to the suit your need.

All POMs (factors of measure) you’ve recognized and labeled on the drawing have to be mirrored within the measurement sheet.

Now that you just perceive POMs, again to the t-shirt, the POM you’ve marked as A must be listed in your sheet with a callout annotation telling the producer precisely what number of inches or centimeters it’s.

The Excel will look one thing like this:

CODE	NAME	S	M	L
A	Neckline circumference	22	24	26

EIGHT: CONSTRUCTION GUIDELINES AND STITCHING DETAILS

These specs element what kinds of stitches you wish to use in your garment and the kinds of equipment that may be wanted.

Some clothes require particular seams, which depend on hard-to-find stitching machines – it’s essential to record this out to make sure the manufacturing unit has the right tools to make your vogue designs.

You also needs to embody extra technical particulars like thread sizes, sew per inch and seam kinds.

For instance, in our t-shirt, we’d use plain seams and double-stitched seams.

You could discover it useful to incorporate a seam diagram (also referred to as a seam indicator line) to indicate the manufacturing unit precisely what you need. As I mentioned, photos are a should for maintaining communication clear and stopping errors from occurring.

NINE: DESIGN EMBELLISHMENTS

Make an observation of any equipment or any further particulars your garment has, reminiscent of:

Embroidery
Fringes
Fastenings
Print directions

Again to our t-shirt instance. Let’s say I desire a huge advantage + vice brand on the middle entrance chest. On this part, I’ll embody precisely how huge the brand must be and the place will probably be positioned on the shirt.

TEN: ADDITIONAL COMMENTS

If in case you have any extra data that’s useful to the producers, add it right here. Don’t be shy; the extra information (particularly photographs), the higher with a garment spec sheet.

FIGURING OUT THE ACTUAL GARMENT MEASUREMENTS

The trickiest a part of the garment spec sheet is figuring out the precise factors of measurement.

In giant vogue corporations, a whole workforce is dedicated to this job. They’re referred to as the tech workforce. All they do is create garment spec sheets and generally paper patterns. To make clear, they don’t contact any of the opposite sections of a tech pack template (that may be the designer’s job) – they solely work on the specs.

Each garment ought to have wherever from 12-30 totally different factors of measure.

However, it will get much more difficult. Each sort of garment has its personal set of factors of measure. So the factors of measure on a t-shirt may not be the identical as a tank high, which could not be the identical as a shirt.

I promised you could possibly DIY this – and you may. Listed below are the essential POMs you will need to have. Once more, like every part else, the extra particulars you can provide, the higher – however together with these 9 gives you an excellent head begin to the right garment:

Neck width
Neck depth
Shoulder width
Armhole opening at armpit
Armhole opening on the backside of sleeve
Sleeve size
Complete shirt size
Width of blouse beneath the armpit
Width of the shirt on the backside hem

HOW DO I FIND THE ACTUAL MEASUREMENTS?

Except you determine to enroll in a months-long course on garment development and sample making, you’ll by no means be capable to determine that out by yourself.

You don’t must.

Exit and purchase a garment you just like the match of, place it flat on a desk, and replica their measurements. It’s that straightforward!

DON’T FORGET THE TOLERANCE

Have you ever ever tried on one pair of pants in a retailer and had them really feel a bit too tight, after which tried on a unique pair in the identical dimension once more…all of the sudden, they felt a bit extra comfy?

You’re not loopy.

That’s tolerance.

Garments are handmade by folks, and folks aren’t good. So, in manufacturing, it’s unlikely that each single garment would be the identical.

It’s business commonplace to permit producers to have small variations to the measurement numbers on the spec sheet. This is named tolerance.

Distinguished by -/+ columns in your measurement sheet, tolerance is the quantity over or beneath the spec sizes that enables the garment to go high quality management.

GARMENT SPEC SHEET PRO TIP

Not all tolerances are the identical. A sleeve might need a tolerance of ⅛” whereas the physique might need a tolerance of ½”.

Quick vogue corporations normally have a bigger tolerance as a result of pace and effectivity are value greater than accuracy.

Usually, after I labored in quick vogue, we had a tolerance of ½”. I as soon as labored with a model that wished a 1/16” tolerance (in addition they wished ridiculously low costs). The manufacturing unit dumped them as a result of they have been “too problematic”.

ONE MORE TIP ON TOLERANCES – AS THEY ARE IMPORTANT

They need to be giant sufficient to simply accept small variations however sufficiently small that they don’t overlap between sizes.

Here’s what I imply. So, if the width of the sleeve on a t-shirt is 8” on a small, and 9” on a medium, and the tolerance is ½” – that doesn’t make sense. Technically, a small sleeve might go as giant as 8.5” and a medium sleeve could possibly be as small as, properly the identical 8.5”. If this occurred, the small and the medium can be the identical dimension, which might be tremendous complicated to prospects.

So, be sure that your dimension grading and tolerances are giant sufficient between sizes to keep away from match confusion.

PUTTING ALL THE INFO TOGETHER IN A PROFESSIONAL DOCUMENT

Now that you just’ve obtained your POMs and a listing of what it’s essential embody in your garment spec sheet, it’s time to place it collectively.

You possibly can create your garment spec sheet as a spreadsheet (learn, free).

Or use tech pack creating software program like Techpacker.

Techpacker makes creating the complete tech pack tremendous simple. They even provide you with templates that can let you know what factors of measure you will need to embody for a garment and a few commonplace business measurements.

It’s regular to make errors, so take into account getting a second pair of eyes to evaluation it, simply in case!

Whenever you’re pleased with it, save your garment spec sheet as a PDF and ship it to your manufacturing unit.

Keep in mind, your garment spec sheet is a dwelling doc. You’re allowed to make amendments if samples don’t work out. Simply date each edit you make so you possibly can hold observe!

ADDITIONAL GARMENT SPEC SHEET TIPS

Listed below are just a few extra issues it’s best to know!

KEEP IT SIMPLE

Preserve your garment spec sheet easy and simple to know. Much less is extra right here.

Suppose like an architect, not an inside designer. This isn’t a artistic doc; it’s a blueprint so it must be clear.

LEAVE ZERO ROOM FOR ASSUMPTIONS

By no means assume the producer understands your imaginative and prescient. Be sure to embody each element that helps talk your design idea.

That’s the reason I instructed having a second set of eyes on the doc – in case your reader is confused, your manufacturing unit may be too.

WORK SMARTER

the phrase ‘work smarter, not more durable?’ – I say it on a regular basis. The identical applies to your garment spec sheets!

Reuse your garment spec sheets.

This t-shirt instance might turn out to be a v-neck t-shirt or perhaps a long-sleeved shirt. No must reinvent the wheel. Use what you’ve gotten already.

REMEMBER TO USE IT THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE GARMENT LIFECYCLE

As soon as your first match pattern has been developed, be sure to scrutinize them in opposition to your garment spec sheet.

Verify each element and measurement specification to make sure it’s a mirrored image of what you had written down.

It’s regular to your imaginative and prescient to not be good the primary time.

If this occurs, you possibly can edit your garment spec sheet, have the manufacturing unit make a brand new pattern, after which repeat the method till you’ve gotten the right garment.

Your remaining accepted spec sheet will turn out to be your high quality management software which can then assist you monitor discrepancies in bulk manufacturing.