What is a tech pack? The complete guide for clothing brands

What is a tech pack#

Think of a tech pack as the build sheet for one garment. A factory you have often never met, sometimes on the other side of the world, has to turn your idea into a real product without you there to answer questions. The tech pack answers them in advance.

It's usually put together by the designer or a technical designer, and it's read by the sample room and the production team. Every field has a job. The sketch shows shape. The bill of materials names the fabric and trims. The measurement spec sets the fit. Miss one and the factory either guesses or stops to email you, and both cost time.

When a factory can see the full garment on paper, the quote comes back faster and closer to reality, because they can count the materials and the operations instead of padding the price for the unknown. The first sample lands nearer to what you pictured. And when something is wrong, you have a written spec to point at, so the fix is a correction rather than an argument.

What goes in a tech pack, section by section#

Each section carries a specific part of the story, and a good pack does not skip any of them.

Cover page#

The cover is the identity of the style. It carries the style name and number, the season, the date, and your contact details, plus a version so nobody works from an old draft. Keep a status field too, something like development, sampling, or approved, so anyone opening the file knows where the style stands. The style number is the thread that ties every other page, every sample, and every invoice back to this one garment, so set it once and never reuse it.

Sketches and callouts#

A technical flat is a front-and-back drawing of the garment with no body in it, drawn to proportion. It is not a fashion illustration. Its job is to show seams, pockets, topstitching, and hardware clearly enough to sew from. The useful part is the callouts: small numbered markers on the drawing that point to a seam or a trim and match the numbers in your bill of materials and construction pages. Callouts are how you say "this label goes here" without a paragraph of description.

Bill of materials#

The bill of materials, or BOM, lists every physical thing in the garment. Main fabric, rib, thread, interfacing, woven labels, care labels, hangtags, the poly bag, all of it. For each one you note the material, the composition, the supplier, the color, and how much the garment uses, called consumption. The BOM is what a factory prices against. Leave a trim off it and it will not be costed, and it may not be ordered, so the sample arrives missing a part.

Measurement spec#

The measurement spec, sometimes called the spec sheet or the points of measure, is the finished size of the garment at every point that matters. Chest, waist, hem, length, sleeve, shoulder, and so on, each measured a specific way and laid flat. Two extra columns turn a list of numbers into a real spec: the grade, which is the step between one size and the next, and the tolerance, the amount a factory may vary before a piece fails inspection. There is a whole section below on why those two columns decide everything.

Colorways#

A colorway is one color version of the style. If you sell the tee in bone white and navy, that's two colorways, and each one maps colors to the parts of the garment: body, rib, topstitching, labels. This is also where color reference lives, the Pantone code or the approved lab dip the factory dyes against. One warning on color. Never assume a color on your screen matches bulk fabric. Approve a physical lab dip first, then record its reference here.

Construction details#

Construction is how the pieces go together. For each operation, a shoulder join, a hem, a neck rib, you note the seam type, the stitch type, and often the stitches per inch, plus a placement note. This is the difference between a tee that holds its shape and one that twists at the side seam after a wash. If your factory has a house standard for an operation, let them use it. If you have a preference, spell it out, because the machine and the seam decide how the garment wears.

Packaging and labels#

Last, how the garment is finished and packed. Which labels go where, with the main label at center back neck and the care label in the side seam, how the piece is folded, whether it ships in a poly bag or a box, and any legal labeling your market needs, like fiber content and country of origin. It is the section people skip most, and the one that causes the most last-minute scramble, because relabeling or repacking a finished order is slow work on a deadline.

The measurement spec is where money is won or lost#

Everything else in a tech pack can be a little loose and still work. The measurement spec cannot. It is the part a factory checks every sample and every production run against, so it is the part where vague numbers turn into real money.

Start with tolerance. No factory hits a target measurement to the exact fraction on every piece, and no one expects them to. Tolerance is the honest admission of that. A chest spec of 20 inches with a tolerance of plus or minus 0.5 inch means anything from 19.5 to 20.5 passes. Set it too tight and you will reject good garments and pay for it. Leave it off and you have no ground to reject a bad one. Widths usually run a wider tolerance than a collar or a cuff, because half an inch reads differently on a 20 inch chest than on a 6 inch neck.

Then grading. A base size, often the medium, is measured first, and every other size steps up or down from it by a set amount called the grade rule. If the chest grades 1 inch per size, your small is 19 and your large is 21. Getting the grade right is what makes a size run feel consistent instead of a large that fits like an extra large. A graded spec, laid out size by size, is what a factory needs to cut a full run.

This is also why factories reject or pad their price on a vague spec. "Make it a medium" is not a spec. Without graded numbers and tolerances a factory either guesses, which produces a fit you did not ask for, or it prices in the risk, which you pay for. A clear spec is cheaper to make.

That same measurement discipline is what a good store size chart runs on. If you sell the finished garment online, you can turn your spec into a size chart shoppers actually read with the Sizely Size Chart maker.

A free tech pack template#

We built a tech pack template you can download and fill in, with no email required. It's a spreadsheet with a sheet for each part of the pack:

• Cover for the style details and a slot for your flat sketch
• Bill of materials with columns for material, composition, supplier, color, consumption, and cost
• Measurement spec with points of measure across sizes XS to XXL, plus grade and tolerance columns
• Colorways mapping each color to the parts it covers
• Construction for seam, stitch, and placement notes

The measurement sheet comes pre-filled with an example men's short sleeve tee, so you can see how a graded, toleranced spec looks before you clear it and enter your own. It works in inches or centimeters. Pick one unit and stay in it.

Download the free tech pack template (.xlsx)

Common tech pack mistakes#

A tech pack tends to fail in the same few ways. These are the ones that cost the most time:

• No tolerances. A spec without a plus or minus gives the factory nothing to inspect against, so every sample becomes a debate.
• Only one size specced. A single medium is a starting point, not a size run. Without grade rules the factory cannot cut the other sizes.
• Vague materials. "Cotton jersey" could be a lot of fabrics. Add the weight in gsm, the finish, and a supplier so you get the hand you wanted.
• Sketches with no callouts. A clean flat with no numbers still forces the factory to guess where each label and trim goes.
• Colors approved on a screen. A monitor is not a reliable guide to bulk color. Sign off a physical lab dip and record its reference.
• No version or date. Send three rounds of edits with none of them dated, and someone will sew from the wrong one.
• Skipping packaging. Labels and folding feel minor until a finished order has to be reworked to meet a marketplace or retailer rule.

Tech pack vs spec sheet#

People use these two terms loosely. They are not the same thing. A spec sheet, or spec, usually means the measurement page on its own: the points of measure with their graded sizes and tolerances. A tech pack is the whole document, and the spec sheet is one part of it, sitting alongside the sketch, the bill of materials, the colorways, and the construction notes.

If a factory asks for your spec, they may just want the measurements. If they ask for your tech pack, they want the full set. When in doubt, send the full pack. A factory can ignore what it does not need, but it cannot make what it was never told about.

Frequently asked questions#

What is a tech pack?#

A tech pack is the technical document a brand gives a factory to get a garment produced. It gathers the sketch, the materials, the graded measurements, the colors, and the construction details in one file, so the factory can quote and sew the garment without guessing.

What does a tech pack include?#

At a minimum: a cover page with style details, a technical flat sketch with callouts, a bill of materials, a measurement spec with grades and tolerances, colorways, and construction notes. Most packs also cover packaging and labeling. The template above has a sheet for each of these.

Do I need a tech pack for a small clothing line?#

Yes, and arguably more than a big brand does. A small line has less room to absorb a wrong sample or a late order. Even a one-page pack with a clear sketch, a materials list, and a graded measurement spec will get you a faster quote and a closer first sample than a description sent over email.

How much does a tech pack cost to have made?#

It depends on how you make it and how complex the garment is. You have three broad options. Do it yourself with a template like the one above, which costs only your time. Hire a freelance technical designer, who usually charges by the hour or per style. Or use a design studio or tech pack service, which typically bills a flat fee per style and can handle a full range. A simple tee costs less to spec than a lined jacket with many trims, whichever route you pick. If you are testing an idea, a self-made pack is often enough to get a first sample moving.

Related guides#

• How to measure a garment: the measuring guides
• Turn your spec into a size chart with the Sizely Size Chart maker