Day to day in fashion

Just this season we got set up with software called WFX (World Fashion Exchange).  It is a PLM (product lifestyle management) software system and is SO amazing…the screenshots below don’t do it justice.  This system is how we manage all of the tech packs for garments, approvals, sample ordering, reporting, and much more.  We used to manage everything in a billion Excel spreadsheets, and it was a mess – when something changed, it had to be updated in 5 different spreadsheets.  It was a mess and a lot of work.  This database like set up saves a lot of time and work while also tracking things more efficiently.  Here is a quick rundown on a tech pack:

WFX Tech Pack Home Page

Click on the image to get a legible view, but here’s a quick rundown on the capabilities of the software.  Circled on the left are the details for the tech pack – you can add more but the basics are colorways, care, image and annotation (allowing you to upload CADs to call out details in garments/patterns), file upload/download, specs.  Circled along the top are various tabs that allow you to track the status of the garment, a log that tracks everything modified on the tech pack, a messaging center where you can communicate w/ your vendors on that specific style, BOM (bill of materials) that allows you to add all of the “materials” required to make your garment (buttons, zippers, hang tags, poly bags, fabrics, etc), and costing where your vendors can input pricing and it will auto calculate all of your margins frombased off of your sell price.  Wow, as I write about this I realize that this is only the smallest fraction of what the software does.  More details will have to come later or this will wind up being one lengthy post…

Although I’m not nor have ever been trained as a techincal designer, I do think all the steps and processes that are followed to make sure a garment fits right are interesting.  My knowledge of this portion of the design process is somewhat limited and I’d like to expand it (although it’s hard to find time in my work day to learn new things) but I will share a little bit about what I do know.

Depending on the silhouette of a garment and/or our past experience with a factory, we will request various numbers of “protos” which will be fit and measured.  A new silhouette will without a doubt require at least a 1st proto, just as a new factory will have to submit at minimum 1st protos for all garment silhouettes they are working on.  When the garment comes in, it is first measured at the defined Points of Measure (POM) and the data is put into a spreadsheet that will automatically calculate if the measurements are out of tolerance.

Points of Measure - each has a code and a description, plus a set measurement with an allowed amount of tolerance from the Spec.

Depending on where the measurement is, the tolerance will vary.  The opening in an armhole will have a smaller amount of tolerance than the opening at the bottom of the garment.  When too many measurements are “out of tolerance”, we will request a 2nd proto and in some cases we will even request a 3rd proto.

In addition to measuring, we also fit many of the new silhouettes to ensure the pattern doesn’t just measure right but fits well on a human body.  We have both a male and female fit model so we are always fitting to the same figure.  Here you can see comments that were made for the fit on a sweater and how those comments are conveyed to the factory:

This photo shows (although hard to see) that there is an excess of fabric in the back neck. Remember, a photo can be worth 1000 words especially when communicating with people whose 1st language is not English.