A good flat will save your design

(After I posted this on LinkedIn, I got a lot of feedback from pattern makers that the flat did NOT match the pattern. I own up to that mistake…)

The importance of the black & white technical flat cannot be stressed enough in Apparel & Accessory Design and Development.

Think about the pathway of the product in the Product Development process (yes, I know this is simplified and not all processes follow this path but just go with it):

-         Designer sketches/creates new style
-         Brand creates t/p: Design, PD, Patternmakers/Tech Design
-         Brand sends to manufacturer
-         Manufacturer reviews, most likely re-creates t/p in a different language and format
-         Patternmaker creates pattern
-         Patternmaker passes pattern & t/p to sewer to cut & sew sample
-         Patternmaker reviews sample, compares to t/p and sends back to Brand
-         Brand fits & reviews sample, gives feedback and revises the t/p as necessary

What is the one thing that doesn’t require any translation or assumptions of meaning? The flat sketch. That is what the manufacturer patternmaker & sewer are going to look at first & refer to most often. As detailed as your BOM, Spec Page, and Construction Details might be, they will be superseded by the sketch. I know. I’ve seen it 100 times: the BOM says one thing, the sketch shows something else…they follow the sketch.

Neither 3D nor AI has yet to replicate this functionality…believe me, I’ve tried. While some 3D platforms believe that the flat sketch is irrelevant if there is a 3D render, a corresponding pattern & tech package, the availability of the 3D image becomes more problematic the further down the process you go. The future might have tablets at each sewer’s table to refer to the 3D image and tech pkg, but today it is a hard copy of an Excel or PDF document.