3 Ways Swatch Cards Are Used In The Fashion Industry

Fashion plays an important role in the day-to-day lives of many people. No matter what your personal sense of style may be, you put on clothing each day before stepping out of your home. Many decisions go into the production of a single clothing item. A lot of these decisions are made easier through the use of fabric swatch cards.

1. Fabric Selection

As an article of clothing moves from the conception to the production phase, fabric options must be evaluated. Designers need to determine which type of fabric will provide the look and feel they are trying to achieve with a clothing item's design.

The easiest way to select the perfect fabric is by looking through a swatch book. These books feature small pieces of all fabric options available through a particular retailer. Designers can see and feel each fabric option without ever leaving the comfort of their design studios, thanks to the help of swatch cards.

2. Repeat Production Runs

Every designer hopes that his or her clothing will be a hit with consumers. Smaller batches of clothing items are ordered in the initial stages to ensure that consumers like the product and resources are not wasted on the production of clothing that will not sell.

From the time of the first production run to the time of a repeat production run it can be beneficial to maintain swatch cards for each item in a designer's line. The swatch cards can be used to ensure an exact fabric match for the repeat production runs that will occur in the future.

3. Color Variations

It's important that a designer knows how a color will translate to various fabrics. Most designers select a palette that defines each line they release to the public. These colors are custom created by a dye house, then forwarded to the clothing factory for mass production.

The same color formulation can look very different on polyester, cotton, and spandex. Swatch cards offer designers the chance to see how a color will vary based on the fiber used in their designs. Adjustments can then be made to the dye formulation to ensure color consistency across a line, regardless of the type of fabric used to create each clothing item.

Fabric swatch cards play an instrumental role in the design and production of modern clothing pieces. These seemingly simple squares of fabric have create a more cohesive landscape for the designers who create the clothing you wear each day.