Production drawings – what kind of alternatives you can use in fashion drawings?

It`s a well-known truth that production drawings are a base for the product development service providers How accurate and well-drawn it has to be?

Very often, dreams are not realized because of the novice designer doubting his or her drawing skills or the way that the technological knots of the clothing are drawn. All in all, that person does not dare to pass their wish on and will not realize their dream. Often, designers seek the help of a sewing technician who prepares the correct technical documentation for them, this is time and again done without delving into detail about the product.

Sometimes we get perfectly drawn production drawings, but not filled with accurate data. Depending on the competence of the person compiling the documentation, we often need to bother the designer with a number of clarifying questions that have not been answered in the technical specifications or which have not been addressed at all.

More than 13 years ago, I attended a client meeting in Finland at the home office of a designer. “I saw a thick sewing technology book on the designer’s desk that had a double-edged pocket open above the technological drawing. In amazement, I asked – why are you investigating this? The designer replied with a smile that they wanted to give us a couple of models for product development, but first, they had to find out how a cross-section for a pocket should be drawn in the technological documents.” I was very surprised by this way of thinking, as it was my understanding that a designer need not know sewing technology and create perfect technical cross-sections!

However, in the light of my current knowledge, there is no reason why I should have been surprised. Already from kindergarten onwards, children’s performance skills are compared, and it is encouraged to rank children. A similar attitude continues to be used throughout school and university. Of course, people will then take this attitude with them into their future lives, many people will find this to be a great obstacle for them in doing what they want – because “perhaps I am no good”.

This meeting was the incentive for our company to change the way it communicated, and I started to emphasize the need to take away the customer’s fears in all our future meetings with customers. Designers are creators who do not have to have the knowledge to produce production drawings. A photo of the same designer’s model was published a year later, in 2010, on the online front page of the New York Times, featured by the legendary street photographer Bill Cunningham as part of the Paris Fashion Week in the video “The Birth of a New Look”. Unfortunately, this video can no longer be found on the internet, but you can read about the famous photographer.

Do not bother wasting your valuable time creating perfect production drawings! The specialists of Baltic Intertex OÜ are used to working with drawings of different technical levels. Baltic Intertex has 17 specialists with professional educations in their fields, who are all willing to guide and help you!

When Baltic Intertex was just starting with the service of providing a “finished product from a drawing” in 2006, we were convinced that if the customer would send us a sketch of the model and a perfectly filled measurement scale, we would have been given the ideal input to start working. We made the patterns and samples strictly following all measurements and were happy to be executing the work with exact precision, creating beautiful-looking products in the process. What happened was that often the customers were not all too satisfied with the end result, despite us taking care to ensure the correctness of the measurements and the high quality of sewing. To create a correct and well-fitting product, we had to make several new samples, in doing so, the designer improved the measurements of the product. So far, over the years, we have honed our skills to an extent where we are usually able to make the second sample already of the final fabric.

The most curious incident was however when we made the finished product exactly according to the customer’s measurement scale, but checking the finished product revealed that the neckline of the dress was too small, and it was impossible to put the product on. At the start, we were quite bewildered, by that moment, we had already produced several items according to this pattern and the customer had always been very satisfied. Even though we had a separate quality control specialist working for us at that time, we had mainly emphasized the dimensional compliance of the product. Of course, no one tried this model on anymore either, as it was an “old model”. The customer sent the whole batch back to us (~100 products). Checking the conformity of the patterns and the product, we found out that the fabric had not stretched out as much as was the case with the previous batches, and that had been the reason for the neckline remaining too small.

This rather costly lesson led me to the conclusion that the customer cannot, even should not need to provide us with accurate measurements for the finished product. It is the task of Baltic Intertex to test the behavior of the fabrics during hot wet processing and to see how the fabric shrinks and stretches out. We have devoted many years to increase the competence of our technical support, and we are still trying to become smarter every day so that we would be able to fulfill even the most special wishes of the designer and that not just the sample, but the product as well, could actually be produced.

The starting point is to try and ensure for the designer a convenient and less time-consuming way to conduct business.

• Send us a simple drawing or a sketch that we would have enough competence to decipher. Our specialists will prepare correct production drawings together with the necessary technological solutions.
• Send a photo of a product similar to the desired model, adding which kind of changes you want to see being made.
• Send the finished product and comment on what you want to change. We see the pattern of the product, digitize, and model the model to suit you.
• Just talk us through. We have customers who like to come to our office and just talk us through which kinds of models they want. Conversing often leads the customer to come up with new and better ideas, as the meeting can also be considered a coaching session to an extent, wherein the customer is provided with help to find the necessary answers on their own. The fact that we help the customer both in terms of technology and with our production expertise is just a natural part of the Baltic Intertex service.

We will be very happy if you think that this story could be of interest to your friends.