What is Fabric Sourcing?
FABRIC SOURCING
Fabric Sourcing is a SERVICE that LC Apparel consulting offers to our clients. The service does not include the price of your final approved fabrics.
Fabrics are both inspiring and innovative. They help to set the theme of each line. Each season, fabric designers and mills create new color palettes, weaves and textures, fiber blends and printing techniques, lending fashion direction for the coming season.
We guide our clients in choosing the right fabrics for their product to achieve the desired finished product and price point.
Starting with reliable and knowledgeable sources we source from fabric wholesalers & fabric trade shows all over the world.
Fabric Sourcing: 4 Important Points to Remember
- AFFORDABILITY
In general, the fabric for your garment represents 60% of the overall garment cost so you want to be aware of your end wholesale/retail prices when choosing new fabrics each season. Creating a fit and quality at a price point your customers can rely on is crucial to create a growing and successful business. When you find fabric that works and sells well for your product, use this as a staple within each season to create consistency.
- FUNCTIONALITY
It is one thing to create beautiful illustrations or flat sketches of your garment, and quite another to actually be able to build that in a three dimensional reality using the fabric and trims chosen. Sometimes fabrics will not hang or drape the way you envisioned, or fights another fabric within that garment so that they don’t function well together. So it is important to create prototypes to wear test fabrics within each style to confirm the functionality of the design
- TESTING
In addition to testing your fabric’s functionality, you may need to test the content fabric so that you ensure the fibers will take any finishing application added. Such as sublimation printing, digital or wet printing processes, heat transfers etc. Some cotton or nylon fibers will not take certain printing techniques for example, so be sure that you are working in the recommended base fabric in order to achieve the best desired effect for your product.
- AVAILABILITY
Where you purchase your sample fabric is just as important as what you are purchasing. You must be aware that if you are getting your seasonal fabrics from local fabric stores, they usually carry only a certain amount of yardage purchased as overstock from local designers for each season so it’s very possible that when you are ready to order your bulk, it may no longer be available.
This is what our fabric sourcing service includes. Affordability, functionality and availability. We ensure the right fabrics with our expertise for the right development of your design.
If you do not decide to utilize this service with us, it is important to know these tips.
Below is a link to reference for Fabric Sourcing, listen to our BlackNFashion podcast Episode 47: Fabric Sourcing Tips & Resources and Episode 33: Fabric Knowledge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji8I66rQiYE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgZUGwcHrV0