Designers, do you know how your design decisions affect the garment production cost? Each detail you choose, fabric you select, or seam type you go with influences how much that garment will cost to make. Let’s look at five of these details that add to your cost. Because, when you are aware of the cost consequences, you have the power to fit both your vision and your budget with each design.
Hand stitching
Hand stitching is the most time-consuming way to sew something and, therefore, is the most costly. Factory-produced garments are designed to reduce hand sewing as much as possible, but some designs do require it either for the look or the construction. Hand tacks, hand embroidery or beading, pick stitching, etc. are premium finishes that come with a price.
As you design, consider if, when, and where you want to use hand stitching aesthetically. At higher-end price points, it can be worth it. If you are looking to keep costs low, though, consider swapping decorative hand stitching out for a machine-sewn trim or finish.
On the construction side, a good technical designer will be able to help you simplify the sewing and keep hand-stitching to a minimum within your design. With the right skills and machinery, your garment shouldn’t need much – if any – hand stitching at all.
Corners
Straight lines are easier to sew than curves, but curves are easier to sew than corners. This is because you have to stop the machine, lift the foot, and rotate the fabric before continuing to sew. Production sewing costs are based on time so anything that slows down the sewing will cost more.
Some corners take longer to sew than others. A corner where the layers of fabric are sewn together like the point of a collar are the fastest to sew. You still have to stop the needle and rotate, but it is easy to align the layers of fabric. Inset corners like the center front point of a “v’ shaped dress bodice take longer. With this type of corner, the seam allowance of the concave corner side (the skirt in this example) will need to be clipped at the corner point and adjusted so that it lays flat with the oppositely angled piece it gets sewn to.
If having a distinct point isn’t really necessary for your design, a curve is faster to sew and will save you a bit of money.
Asymmetric designs
Asymmetry isn’t necessarily more expensive to sew, but it can be more expensive to cut. When a design is symmetrical, the fabric can be spread back and forth with one layer face up and the next face down. When the marker is cut, every other layer is essentially flipped. Half of the cut pieces are a mirror of the original pattern piece. With symmetric designs, this makes no difference because the design is mirrored left to right anyway. For asymmetric designs, though, half your garments would be reversed if cut this way.
To make sure that an asymmetric design has a consistent orientation, each fabric layer needs to be spread face up. More planning and layout time is needed which can increase your cutting cost. Usually this is very minimal, but is still something to consider when designing and patterning a garment.
1-way prints or fabric nap
Directional fabric increases your material cost for each garment because the pattern pieces need to be placed and cut just so. Pattern pieces almost always nest best (use the least amount of fabric) when you can place them facing two directions on the fabric. If any of your pattern pieces look remotely like a triangle, this is definitely the case. When the fabric has a clear direction, the pattern pieces need to all lay facing the same way on the fabric – using up more of it.
If you’re not sure if your fabric is directional, look at it upside down. Does the print look the same right side up and upside down? If it looks different or obviously upside down when you turn it 180 degrees, it is a 1-way fabric. Napped fabrics can be trickier to identify, but follow the same logic. Fabrics like suede, velvet, or anything fur-like – even if it is a uniform color – have a nap. Lay one swatch upright and the other upside down and look for any color difference. Then run your hand over both pieces and see if you can feel any directionality to the plushness.
If your fabric requires 1-way cutting, you’ll want to know that as soon as possible during development so you can minimize the extra costs. If you have control over the fabric selection or print design, you can design to avoid 1-way cutting altogether. Sometimes simple tweaks to a print design makes 2-way cutting and fabric savings possible.
NOT lining a style
It seems counterintuitive to remove a whole part of a garment (the lining) and have it be MORE expensive to make, but it is very possible. It depends on the price point and level of finishing you want on the inside of the unlined style. Lining hides the internal construction and seams of a garment. You don’t have to spend the time to make the inside look fancy because it will never be seen. The seams just need to be sewn to functionally hold the garment together.
In an unlined style, you see everything on the inside and it touches your skin. Because it is so visible, a higher level of finishing is often desired. Low to mid price garments will probably have overlocked seams which are simple and cheap to do. Higher end garments might have french seams or bound seams. At the very least, they probably have the seam allowances butterflied open and overlocked on each side separately. All of these finishes require more passes along each seam and add to the time and cost.
As you decide whether to include a lining in your design or not, look at the price of lining material versus the cost of additional fancy finishing. Depending on your preferences and price point, nixing the lining may not be any cheaper.
Each piece in your collection should fit your aesthetic vision, but also fit your price point and budget. The more you understand the production cost implications of different design decisions, the better you can engineer that is both beautiful and profitable from the very beginning.