Tech Pack Guide

Ask a factory what it needs before it can make your garment, and the answer is always the same: the tech pack. It is the single document a sample room quotes from, sews from and checks against — and the quality of the garment you get back is set, more than by anything else, by the quality of the tech pack you send. This page of the Apparel Product Development Guide explains what a complete tech pack contains, section by section, and how to keep it under control.

1. Cover Page and Style Summary

The cover identifies the style beyond confusion: style number and name, brand, season, product category, size range, the designer and technical designer responsible, the date and — critically — the version number. Factories may hold several versions of the same style's pack at once; the cover page is what tells a sample room which one is current. Many packs add a photograph or a clear front-and-back image of the intended garment here so anyone opening the file knows the goal in three seconds.

2. Technical Flats and Callouts

Flats are precise line drawings of the garment — front, back and inside where it matters — drawn flat rather than on a body, with callouts naming every detail: pocket shape and placement, placket construction, collar style, vent, cuff, hem finish. Details that cannot be drawn clearly get close-up sketches. The flats are the visual half of the specification; a change that is not reflected in the flats has, from the factory's point of view, not happened.

3. Bill of Materials

The BOM lists every material the garment consumes — shell fabric, lining, interlining, thread, zippers, buttons, elastic, labels, hangtags and polybags — with supplier, content, color and quantity per garment, for every colorway. It drives purchasing and costing alike. The full treatment is in Bill of Materials (BOM) Explained; the Apparel Search bill of materials glossary entry gives the short definition.

4. Colorways and Color Standards

This section names each colorway and ties every material in it to an approved color standard — a physical swatch or a recognized color reference — so "navy" means the same thing to the brand, the mill and the factory. The approval process behind those standards (lab dips for dyeing, strike-offs for prints) is covered in Lab Dips, Strike-Offs & Color Approval.

5. Spec Sheet: Measurements and Tolerances

The spec section lists the points of measure for the base size, the grade rules that produce the other sizes, and the tolerance allowed on each measurement. It is the yardstick every sample is measured against. Spec Sheets & Points of Measure explains how POMs are defined, measured and graded.

6. Construction and Stitching Details

Seam types and allowances, stitch type and stitches per inch or centimeter, hem and edge finishes, fusing and interlining placement, buttonhole and bartack positions — the instructions that decide whether a garment merely looks right or is also built right. Construction callouts belong on the flats as well as in this section, so the person sewing sees them at the moment they matter.

7. Artwork, Prints and Embroidery

Anything applied to the garment — screen print, embroidery, appliqué, heat transfer — is specified here with the actual artwork file referenced, its finished size, its exact placement measured from fixed points, and its colors tied to the color standards. Placement measured "from HPS" or "from center front" removes the guesswork that ruins printed garments. The print methods themselves are covered in the Textile Printing Methods guide.

8. Labels, Trims and Packaging

Brand label, size label and care/content label — with placement diagrams — plus hangtags, and how the finished garment is folded, bagged, tagged and packed into cartons. Label content is regulated in most markets, so this section is usually checked against the destination's labeling rules before production, not after.

9. Fit Comments and Revision History

Every sample round produces comments; the tech pack is where they live. Each version records what changed, why, and which sample it responds to, so that three rounds later nobody has to reconstruct why a pocket moved. A pack without a revision history will eventually contradict itself — usually at the most expensive moment.

Formats and Version Control

Tech packs are built in spreadsheets, illustration programs, dedicated builders and full PLM systems; the tool matters far less than the discipline. Send the factory a locked PDF for reference plus the editable file if they work in it, name files with style and version, and confirm receipt of each new version in writing. Apparel Search offers a free Tech Pack Builder, a downloadable Tech Pack Template, a step-by-step guide to creating a tech pack and a tech pack checklist for the final review. One thing a tech pack is not: a cost sheet. Costing reads the same materials and construction data but lives in its own document — see the cost sheet explained in the Garment Costing Guide.