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The tech pack is the document that gets clothes made: the difference between a sketch a factory admires and a garment a factory can build. Here is its anatomy, page by page, whether you actually need one, and the mistakes that stall first samples. Written in plain language for designers who have never seen one.
A tech pack, short for technical package, is the engineering document for a garment: everything a factory needs to cut, sew, and finish your design without calling you to ask what you meant. A sketch communicates intent. A tech pack specifies construction. The distinction sounds academic until the first sample arrives wrong, at which point the tech pack becomes the most important document you own, because it is the contract that decides whether the factory owes you a remake. If the sample deviates from the pack, the maker fixes it at their cost. If the pack never specified the thing you cared about, the argument is over before it starts.
In working practice, a production-ready tech pack runs about twenty pages per style. It is also a living document: every fit session and every approved adjustment gets recorded back into it, so that by the time production begins, the pack and the signed sample describe exactly the same garment.
Templates vary between studios, but every serious tech pack answers the same seven questions in roughly the same order. If a document is missing one of these sections, a factory will either guess or call you; both cost you time.
Style name and number, season, category, size range, sample size, date, and revision number. The revision number matters more than it looks: factories build from the newest pack, and disputes are settled by it.
Flat line drawings of the garment, front and back, drawn to proportion with callouts pointing at every construction detail: topstitching, pockets, plackets, vents, hardware. Not fashion illustration; engineering drawing.
A table of points of measure: chest, waist, sleeve, body length, and dozens more, each with a target value and a tolerance, plus how to take the measurement. Tolerances are what make the spec enforceable.
Every component in the garment: shell fabric with composition and weight, lining, interfacing, thread, zippers, buttons, labels, hangtags, with per-unit consumption. The BOM is where a garment's true cost lives.
Seam and stitch types, stitches per inch, seam allowances, hem depths, and finish notes for every join in the garment. This page is the difference between a garment that survives washing and one that doesn't.
How each point of measure changes from size to size. Grade rules turn one approved sample into a full size range without re-fitting every size from scratch.
Each color version of the style with color references, print and embroidery files at scale, placement measurements, plus label and care instructions and how the finished piece is folded and packed.
The honest answer depends on which door you knock on. A production-only factory, the kind that quotes cut-and-sew from your documents, needs a finished tech pack at the door; without one there is nothing to quote, and anyone who quotes anyway is guessing with your money. A full-service atelier does not require one, because drafting the pack is part of the service: you arrive with sketches, reference photographs, or a clear paragraph, and the technical layer is built with you.
That is how it works here. The design engagement, from $2,500 per style, turns your references into a working pattern and a complete tech pack of about twenty pages, with a costed bill of materials, and the finished document belongs to you, whether you produce with us or take it anywhere else. Already have a pack you trust? It gets reviewed for production-readiness and you skip the design fee entirely. Either way, no factory should ever hold your tech pack hostage; if yours does, that is the loudest warning it will ever give you. If you are earlier than all of this, start with our guide on how to produce your first fashion collection and come back to the paperwork when the capsule is scoped.
The numbers below are our own rate card, and they follow the structure you should expect from any honest full-service house: a fixed fee, a defined scope, and a document you own at the end.
You do not need to learn pattern drafting to launch a label. Send your references and the design team writes the pack with you: flats, measurement spec, costed BOM, grading, everything on this page, and the finished document is yours to keep.
Five lines is enough to start. The founder personally reads every brief and replies within 48 hours with a fixed quote, a realistic timeline, and an honest answer on whether we're the right house for the work.
Five lines about what you want made. A fixed quote, a real timeline, and an honest answer within 48 hours. The paperwork is our job.
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