BTLE 30233

CLOTHING
CONSTRUCTION

By: MA. GLORIA O. SANTILLAN

UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION
TOPICS:
1.1 Definition of garment
1.2 History and role of garment in human race
1.3 Garment manufacturing process chart
1.4 Garment manufacturing flow chart
UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1.1 Appreciate the role of garment in fashion industry
1.2 Describe garment manufacturing process chart and
flow chart
 Quotation
‘What I do is restricted by the cloth and the human body.
My job is to make that cloth give expression to the body.’

(Vivienne Westwood)

Born in April 1941, she is an English fashion designer and

businesswoman, largely responsible for bringing modern punk and
new wave fashions into the mainstream.
Garment
• A garment is a piece of clothing.
• Derived from the French word for
“equipment”, garment is a somewhat
generic term you can use when the specific
kind of clothing you’re describing is not the
point.
INTRODUCTION
• Garment making is a technical
accomplishment that requires knowledge
of fabrics, principles of clothing
construction and skills involved in it.
• This depends on the ability to select the
correct fabric, color, design and
accessories to suit an individual occasion.
• A garment that is made will be attractive if
it fits well and proper attention is paid to
its finer details.
 THE NATURE AND PURPOSES OF
CLOTHES
• Perhaps the most obvious function of
clothes is to provide warmth and
protection.
• Other basic functions of clothes include
identifying the wearer and making the
wearer appear more attractive.
• Clothes that are deemed handsome in
one period are declared downright ugly in
the next and even uniforms – the simplest
and most easily identified costume – are
subject to change.
THEORIES OF CLOTHING (By: Scotty Henderson)
• One of the earliest theories which formed
the hypotheses of wearing clothes was the
modesty/ shame theory.
• This theory is also known as the fig leaf
theory which is based on the story in the
Bible. Genesis states that Adam and Eve
realize that they are in a state of being
naked when they consume a fruit from a
knowledge tree. In shame they both stitched
clothes out of fig leaves, hence the name fig
leaf theory.
THEORIES OF CLOTHING (By: Scotty Henderson)
• Arguments said that clothing was merely because of
protection of one’s body from the threats in the
environment.
• A discovery of a 500-year old male on a glacier on the
Austrian-Italian border revealed such. The body was
clad in a fur cap, a leather cape, a loincloth, and leather
shoes. These clothes were possibly there to provide
protection against the harsh winds.
• Other arguments stated that clothing was created to
create sexual attraction or to display beauty of one’s
body.
THEORIES OF CLOTHING
• Recent scholars now state that clothing represents one’s
identity and communicates nonverbally.
• Clothing in some societies is as functional as language. It
represents a person’s age, gender, marital status,
ethnicity, social status and occupation.
HISTORY OF GARMENT • It is not certain when
CONSTRUCTION people first started
wearing clothes
however,
anthropologists give
estimates that range
between 100,000 to
500,000 years ago.
The first clothes were
made from natural
elements: animal skin
and furs, grasses and
leaves, and bones
and shells.
HISTORY OF GARMENT
CONSTRUCTION • Clothing was often
draped or tied
however, simple
needles made out of
animal bone provide
evidence of sewn
leather and fur
arguments from at
least 30,000 years
ago.
HISTORY OF
GARMENT
CONSTRUCTION
• Before sewing machines,
nearly all clothing was
local and hand-sewn,
there were tailors and
seamstresses in most
towns that could make
individual items of
clothing for customers.
After the sewing machine
was invented, the ready-
made clothing industry
took off.
BIRTH OF MECHANICAL
SEWING
• The first possible patent connected to
mechanical sewing was a 1755 British patent
issued to German, Charles Weisenthal. He
took out a patent for a needle to be used for
mechanical sewing.
• He was awarded the patent for the first known
mechanical device for sewing in 1755. For his
invention of a double pointed needle with an
eye at one end, he received the British Patent
No. 701 (1755) but after in 1830, Barthelemy
Thimonnier reinvented the sewing machine.
SEVERAL INVENTORS ATTEMPT
TO IMPROVE SEWING

• The English inventor and cabinet maker, Thomas

Saint was issued the first patent for a complete
machine for sewing in 1790.
• The first functional sewing machine was invented
by the French tailor, Barthelemy Thimonnier in
1830. His machine used only one thread and a
hooked needle that made the same chain stitch
used with embroidery.
• The inventor was almost killed by an enraged
group of French tailors who burnt down his
garment factory because they feared
unemployment as a result of his invention.
SEVERAL INVENTORS ATTEMPT
TO IMPROVE SEWING

• In 1834, Walter Hunt, America’s first

(somewhat) successful sewing machine. He later
lost interest in patenting because he believed
his invention would cause unemployment.
• (Hunt’s machine could only sew straight seams.)
Hunt never patented and in 1846, the first
American patent was issued to Elias Howe for
“a process that used thread from two different
sources.”
ISAAC SINGER vs ELIAS
HOWE – PATENT WARS
• Sewing machines did not go into mass
production until the 1850’s, when Isaac Singer
built the first commercially successful machine.
Singer built the first sewing machine where the
needle moved up and down rather than the
side-to-side and the needle was powered by a
foot treadle.
 READY-MADE CLOTHING
• About 1831, George Opdyke began the
small-scale manufacture of ready-made
clothing, which he stocked and sold
largely through a store in New Orleans.
• Opdyke was one of the first American
merchants to do so.
• But it was not until after the power-driven
sewing machine was invented, that factory
production of clothes on a large scale
occurred. Since then the clothing industry
has grown.
 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
GARMENT CONSTRUCTION
• During the Industrial Revolution, both men’s and
women’s clothing becomes more complex during
this era due to the invention of the Sewing
Machine, and the popular dissemination of
pattern books and systems for garment cutting.
• Men’s clothing, while outwardly simple, begins to
acquire the internal padding, interfacings and
complex structure that makes modern men’s
suits falls so smoothly even over an object as
lumpy and mobile as the human form.
• Women’s clothing continues to balloon out with
ruffles, decorations and petticoats.
 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
GARMENT CONSTRUCTION
• Industrialists would invest in the
machines, hire the stitchers cheaply,
and then take the profits for themselves
that their increased output produced.
• With profits so high, soon competition
between manufacturers of clothes got
fierce, and so producers tried to
“improve” their product by adding
more sewing decoration, such as ruffles,
pleats, and top stitching, to lure
customers.
 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
GARMENT CONSTRUCTION
• The end result was that fashionable
Women’s dress became incredibly over
decorated in the 19th Century.
• Another result of this was that poor
people’s clothing got better, and the
rags of earlier eras were replaced by
cheaply made mass manufactured work
clothes. The middle classes were able to
afford more than clean simple clothes,
and began to actively indulge in fashion
for its own sake.
 INDUSTRIALLY PRODUCED
GARMENTS
• Ready-to-wear or industrially
produced garments is the term for
factory made clothing, sold in finished
condition, in standardized sizes, as
distinct from made to measure or
bespoke clothing tailored to a
particular person’s frame.
GARMENTS MANUFACTURING
 GARMENTS MANUFACTURING
Garment manufacturers are
primarily engaged in the design, cutting
and sewing of garments from fabric. On
industrial basis, there are certain areas
or sequence through which garments
are manufactured.
 GARMENT
Design or Sketch Pattern Design MANUFAC
TURING
Production Pattern PROCESS
Sample Making
CHART

Grading Marker Making

Cutting Spreading

Bundling SEWING

Packing Pressing Inspection

 DESIGN/ SKETCH
• Before making an apparel of garments, designers
must have to design or sketch the appearance
completely.
• In the garment manufacturing, the first step is
designing the sketch for dresses that have to be
prepared. For this purpose, the designer first draw
several rough sketches. The designer does not go
for details at this moment, but he rather let his
creativity flow on the paper and he draws many
sketches. Later, these sketches are analyzed by a
panel of designers. They finally select few out of
them.
 PATTERN DESIGN
• Every piece of apparel or
garment is built upon a pattern.
• The pattern maker now develop
first pattern for the designs in
any one standard size. This is
made by pattern drafting
method and the purpose of
making this pattern is to create
the sample garment for test fit.
 SAMPLE MAKING
• The first patterns are sent to the
sewing unit for assembling them into
garment. This sample is constructed to
analyze the pattern fit and design too.
After the sample garment is stitched it
is reviewed by a panel of designers,
pattern makers and sewing specialists.
If any changes have to be made, they
are made at this time.
 PRODUCTION PATTERN
• The pattern design is now taken for
creating the production patterns. The
production pattern is one which will
be used for huge production of
garments. After making the cloth
sample it is wise to make a production
sample that will be hanged out in
front of every labor.
• It may be produced manually or
through CAD system.
 GRADING
• The purpose of grading is to create
patterns in different standard sizes.
Pattern sizes can be large, medium
and small or else there are standard
patterns of size 10, 12, 14, 16 and so
on for different figure and sizes. This is
generally how we get S M L XL XXL
sizing.
 MARKER MAKING
• Marker making is the process to
sketch on fabric before cutting it.
• Computer software helps the
technicians create the optimum fabric
layout to suggest so fabric can be
used efficiently. Markers are laid in
such a way so that minimum possible
fabric gets wasted during cutting
operation.
 SPREADING
• Spreading is the process of
superimposing lengths of fabric on
spreading table for cutting purpose.
• With the help of spreading machines,
fabric is stacked on one another in
lays that may go over 100 ft (30.5 m)
long and hundreds of piles (fabric
pieces) thick.
 CUTTING
• After successfully spreading the fabric
and putting all the marks and sketch
by the marker, this is the time to cut
the fabric according to design.
• Manual Cutting
• CNC Cutting (Computer Numeric
Cutting)
 SORTING/ BUNDLING
• The sorter sorts the patterns
according to size and design and
makes bundles of them. This step
requires much precision because
making bundles of mismatched
patterns can create severe problems.
On each bundle there are
specifications of the style size and the
marker too is attached with it.
 SEWING & ASSEMBLING
• Each of the parts of the clothing should be sewed
or assembled in order to make a complete
apparel that are wearable.
• The sorted bundles of fabrics are now ready to be
stitched. There is the so called ‘sewing stations’
for sewing different parts of the cut pieces. In this
workplace, there are many operators who
perform a single operation. One operator may
make only straight seams, while another may
make sleeve insets. Yet another two operators
can sew the waist seams, and make button holes.
 INSPECTION
• In this step of garment manufacturing process,
each of the complete apparel or garment is to be
checked. If any fault is found, then the whole
process should be repeated.

• Open Seams
• Wrong Stitching technique
• Non-Matching Threads
• Missing Stitch
• Raw Edges
 PRESSING/ FINISHING
• The next operations are those of
finishing and/ or decorating. Molding
may be done to change the finished
surface of the garment by applying
pressure, heat, moisture, or certain
other combination. Pressing, pleating
and creasing are the basic molding
processes.
 PACKING
• After making a bale of these
garments, packing is done.
References
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