Clothing Manufacturing Glossary

MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) — The smallest number of units a factory will make in one run — usually counted per style, per colour. The number that most affects your upfront cost and risk.

GSM (Grams per Square Metre) — The weight of a fabric. Higher GSM = heavier, thicker, more premium-feeling. The quickest way to describe a garment's feel.

DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) — A shipping term where the manufacturer handles customs, duties, and freight, so you receive one clear landed cost with no surprise bills at the border.

Tech Pack — The blueprint for your garment — sketches, measurements, materials, trims, colours, and branding — that tells a manufacturer exactly how to make it.

OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) — Full custom manufacturing — the factory makes your design from the ground up (your patterns, fabric, and construction).

ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) — The factory offers existing designs you can customise and put your label on — faster than building from scratch.

Private label — Taking a manufacturer's base products and customising them with your fabrics, fit, and branding so they're sold as your own brand.

White label — A ready-made, generic product that many brands can buy and put their own label on — fastest to launch, least unique.

CMT (Cut, Make, Trim) — A service where you supply the fabric and design, and the factory cuts, sews, and finishes the garment.

Sampling — Making a physical sample of your garment for you to approve — for fit, fabric, and finish — before any bulk production.

Lab dip — A small fabric swatch dyed to a target colour for you to approve before bulk dyeing, ensuring the colour is right.

Grading — Scaling a base size up and down to create the full size range, so each size fits correctly.

Lead time — How long production takes — typically around 40–50 days from sign-off to delivery for a small knitwear run.

GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) — The leading certification for organic textiles, covering organic fibres, banned chemicals, environmental management, and fair working conditions across the supply chain.

OEKO-TEX — A certification confirming a textile has been tested for harmful substances and is safe for skin contact.

Pantone — A standardised colour-matching system. Giving a Pantone code lets a factory match your exact colour.

Colourway — One specific colour combination a style is produced in. It matters commercially because minimums are almost always counted per style AND per colour — a 100-piece minimum in three colours is a 300-piece order.

Incoterms — The standard international trade terms — EXW, FOB, DDP and others — that define exactly where the supplier's responsibility ends and yours begins for freight, insurance, duty and clearance.

FOB (Free On Board) — The supplier delivers the goods to the port and loads them; from that point freight, insurance, duty and customs clearance are yours. A FOB price always looks lower than a DDP price for the same goods.

AQL (Acceptable Quality Limit) — The inspection standard that sets how many units are pulled from a finished batch and how many defects are allowed before the batch is rejected. "100% checked" with no AQL level attached means somebody looked.

Sealed sample — The approved sample both sides sign and keep. It is the physical reference bulk production is judged against, and the thing to point at if what arrives is not what you approved.

Tolerance — The allowed variation on a measurement. A chest specified at 52cm with a ±1cm tolerance passes anywhere from 51 to 53cm. A size chart with no tolerances is not yet a specification.

Points of measure — The specific places on a garment that get measured to check it against your size chart — chest width, body length, sleeve length, hem opening and so on.

Spec sheet — Strictly, the measurement page inside a tech pack. Loosely, people use it to mean the whole tech pack, so it is worth confirming which one a supplier is asking for.

Flatlock seam — A seam that butts two fabric edges together and stitches across them so the join lies flat against the skin. Standard on activewear and leggings, where a raised seam would chafe.

Overlock seam — The common seam that wraps and encloses the raw edge as it sews. Faster and cheaper than flatlock, but it leaves a small ridge — fine on a loose tee, less so under repetitive movement.

Gusset — An extra panel of fabric set into a stress point, usually the crotch of leggings or joggers. It removes the four-way seam intersection that is the most common blowout point in a fitted garment.

Binding — A narrow strip of fabric folded over a raw edge to finish it, most often at a neckline or armhole. An alternative to a hem or a rib, and visible on the finished garment.

Interlining — A layer set between two fabric layers to add structure, most commonly in a collar or a cuff. It is part of why one polo collar still stands after twenty washes and another does not.

Combed cotton — Cotton whose short fibres have been mechanically removed before spinning, leaving a smoother, stronger yarn that pills less and takes print more cleanly. Carded cotton skips that step and costs less.

Ring-spun cotton — Yarn made by continuously twisting and thinning the strand as it is spun, which produces a softer and stronger result than standard open-end spinning. Often specified alongside combed.

Loopback — A knit construction with loops left on the inside face. It is the structure behind French terry, and brushing those loops is what turns the same cloth into fleece.

Garment dye — Dyeing after the garment is sewn rather than dyeing the fabric first. It gives a softer hand and a slightly uneven, lived-in colour, at the cost of less predictable consistency between pieces.

Reactive dye — A dye that forms a chemical bond with the fibre rather than sitting on the surface. On cotton it holds colour through washing far better than pigment dye, which is why it costs more.

Jersey — The standard t-shirt knit: smooth on the front, looped on the back, light and stretchy. Curls at a cut edge, which is why its hems and necklines have to be finished.

French terry — The sweatshirt knit: smooth outside, soft loops inside, unbrushed. Fleece is the same fabric with those loops brushed into a nap.

Piqué — A knit with a raised waffle texture, pronounced pee-KAY. The classic polo fabric: breathable, structured, and it hides creasing.

Rib knit — Vertical ridges with high stretch and recovery. The fabric at cuffs, collars and waistbands, and the first part of a garment to go slack if it has no elastane.

Interlock — A double knit, smooth on both faces and flat at a cut edge. Heavier and more stable than jersey, and the usual base for sublimation printing.

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