Technical Development
Garment Spec Sheets Explained: The Document Behind the Tech Pack
A tech pack tells a factory what to build. The spec sheet inside it tells the factory exactly how big to build it, at every size.
"A tech pack without a real spec sheet is a set of instructions with no measurements attached to them."
One Document Inside a Larger One
A spec sheet is the specific page or section of a tech pack listing exact measurements — chest width, body length, sleeve length, and dozens of other points of measure — for a garment at every size in the range, typically referenced against a labeled flat sketch (a point-of-measure diagram) showing exactly where on the garment each number applies (Techpacker, What Is a Garment Spec Sheet and How to Add One in a Tech Pack).
Why Ambiguity Here Is the Costliest Kind
A measurement without a clearly labeled point of measure is genuinely ambiguous — "chest 20 inches" means something different depending on whether it's measured flat, one inch below the armhole, or at the widest point, and two people can read the identical number correctly and still produce different results without a clear diagram resolving the ambiguity.
How This Connects to Grading
The spec sheet for a single sample size is the base a factory grades — scales up and down — to produce the entire size range, which means an error in the base spec doesn't stay contained to one size; it propagates through every size derived from it (Fashion Index Blog, How to Create an Apparel Tech Pack, Part 4: Constructing a Graded Specification Sheet).
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