Why Apparel Production is Not Always One Stop Shopping

Truth be told, I’m a foodie who loves to cook and bake. I have high standards and requirements for the dishes that I make. But alas this means many different stops when it comes to shopping. Afterall, I can’t find the same quality cut of meat at my grocery store compared to the local independent butcher. I also get my coffee beans from a local roaster and the produce from the farmers market is top notch. Truth be told, I have brought more complexity into my life by being obsessed with quality. Yes, the idea of going to one grocery store and then going home is incredibly appealing. But you know what? I just wouldn’t be happy with the results and I’m not ok with that. 

Similarly the allure of finding a manufacturer that takes care of all the leg work from sourcing, to pattern making, grading and production is very appealing to busy designers who just don’t have the bandwidth or experience to navigate the product development process. I get it, there is a lot of complexity and if you are not sure of the steps, and the people, then it makes sense to go with someone who can do it all. But if you are like me and are looking for quality, sometimes you need to shop around. 

How Does a full package production manufacturer work?

When you work with a manufacturer in this capacity, basically you are leaving all the details of your production up to them. You will provide them with your supporting documents such as a tech pack or sketches and from here they will work with their own in house pattern maker to develop the pattern. They will/can source your fabric for you and then create the sample. Once the fit is approved they can take care of grading and do the markers and fabric consumption to basically ship you a finished product that you can sell.

Full Package Production Manufacturers are great for some fashion brands

I want to be very clear that I’m not saying that you should give up your manufacturer if you are in business already and everything is working out for you because the appeal of having someone take all your stress away sounds lovely. Instead, I like to recommend this scenario to potential clients that find me, but have no clue on where to go beyond the pattern making. Yes, I’m always happy to work with startups, but not everyone is up for the challenge of choosing services for their apparel line ala carte. 

Costs

So back to the shopping analogy. Sometimes you have to shop around for a good deal. Yes, my butcher does sell local pasta. However, for what I’m making, I don’t need anything too special. The $2.00 grocery store version will work just fine. 

When you utilize a full package production manufacturer (FPP), you are paying premium for their services that are packaged under one umbrella. This charge may be warranted with all the work that they put into your project. However, as you become more experienced in the garment industry, you may find that it could be cheaper to source your own labels, or outsource the pattern making, for instance.

When you are first starting out it you may be willing to pay for the convenience. However, as your order quantities increase, so will your costs and then it’s time to start crunching the numbers.

Creative control

When you work with someone for a while you recognize their strengths and weaknesses. You may find over time that certain areas may not be meeting what you envisioned. Perhaps your factory just can’t find the right fabric that you want, or their print output just isn’t what you envisioned. This is why different specialized vendors exist. There is a niche for everything. 

FPPs have their own processes in place. You are not their only customer and they have worked for a long time perfecting their own workflow and hiring the right people for their team to achieve the results for their customers. When you work together, you need to conform to their processes and workflows. 

Let’s say you have a unique approach where you like to drape your own garments to get things going. Well, your factory may or may not be open to utilizing what you have produced. This can play out a few ways. Either the factory says, “sure, send over what you have worked on”, or they can say, “no, let our team handle it”. In this case, if the factory does receive the garment and it’s not exactly what they would do, they could disregard and make a riff of it because they don’t have time to really suss it out. Or maybe it never gets passed to the pattern maker. I’m not saying this happens every time, but it’s a worst case scenario that I have lived through before.

Expanding relationships and connections

When you are working with a FPP, you are more than likely dealing with a project coordinator. You are rarely emailing the pattern maker, or head sample maker, or grader if you have questions. The communication flows through one person. 

I’ve found myself often in this situation because it’s how most import production works. If you have a good coordinator then things should flow smoothly. But after visiting factories and meeting the coordinator, I quickly push past and want to meet the rest of the team. It’s here that there are no gatekeepers trying to summarize communication and you can really work out what needs to be done. 

But chances are, if you are still a small business this may not be an option for you to visit your factory. In this case you may consider outsourcing some of the work to different parties. This could look like many different things. Perhaps you want to develop a print that looks a certain way that a factory could never achieve and you hire an artist to make it for you. Or you want a specific type of packaging for your product that only a boutique producer can make for you. Additionally, you may have local or specific artisans that you would like to utilize for your product that are key to your brand. 

The garment industry is all about relationships and connections so by branching out and searching for new people to work with can also help to build and grow your business. 

Things can break

This is probably the most common situation that I hear of. Probably because I have a lot of clients that have been working with a FPP and something just isn’t right with the fit of their garments. Perhaps they have done 4-5 fittings and the pattern maker just can’t get it right. In this case it’s important to keep in mind that it’s a very fast paced environment and pattern makers need to crank out a lot of work. They may not have time to really investigate or the communications as to what needs to happen may not have been passed to them. 

Not to make it about me, but this is where I come in because I can take the time to do a deep analysis of what the problem is and really work to understand what is required. But that’s my specialty. A FPP’s specialty may be able to make 10 patterns a day.

But it’s not just pattern making. Perhaps your factory just can’t get the colors right that you ordered or maybe they can’t accommodate your needs for production, or the sizing isn’t working and they just aren’t willing to deviate from their existing processes. In this case you may need to shop around and you could find someone that is a great fit, but maybe you still need to fill in the blanks for the services that they don’t offer. 

Speed and flexibility

FPP’s can work very fast because of their processes. But if they have a lot of clients/work then it may seem like a slow turnaround. They are trying to fit everyone in. Depending on how busy a certain department is your wait times could vary. For instance, I had a client waiting 3 months for an initial sample! The pattern was made and graded. They even had a tech pack. But for some reason, things were very slow on the backend without any explanation. Now I realize that there could be many factors at play, but oftentimes a coordinator won’t tell you the real reason for the delay. 

As explained, the workflows in place are designed to work in the manufacturers favor. It’s developed around their own needs so if you want to do something a little different from the usual, you may get pushback or resistance. 

Bringing in third party vendors

I feel like I’ve given you a lot of downsides for working with an FPP. However, I’ve been lucky to have worked with some really amazing production partners where I was brought in to only supply the patterns and we have established good workflows so the customer is happy. 

Some manufacturers are open to this and others are not. It’s important to find out before you start out whether or not they are open to working with third party vendors such as pattern makers, print designers, different fabric vendors, etc. Basically, just ask if a part of their service is not working out, can you hire another person that they would agree to work with. If not, I would say move on. Because a good manufacturer is dedicated to giving the customer what they want. 

Final Thoughts

I recently saw an Instagram post by a young tech designer that I used to work with. They wanted to let people know how hard it is to produce clothing unless you are going through an FPP. I mean, can you believe you have to source everything!? 

Truth be told, this is how a lot of domestic and small manufacturers work. They are small businesses that can’t afford a staff for pattern making, sourcing and design. It’s a much more common scenario for overseas manufacturers. If you are dedicated to producing locally/domestically/ with small businesses then this is what you will face. Even some small factories will bring in freelance cutters because they just do sewing.

This scenario isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Yes, it will be more work, but in the end you will have exactly the quality that you want.