From Tech Pack to First Sample: How UK Brands Work With an Indian Manufacturer

The gap between a brand that gets a good first sample and one that spends three months going round in circles is almost never manufacturing skill. It is the quality of the brief.

This post walks the real workflow from tech pack to approved pre-production sample: what we need, what we do when it is missing, what each sample stage is actually for, and who pays for what. It is written for a UK brand working with an Indian manufacturer for the first time.

What a usable tech pack contains

A tech pack does not have to be beautiful. We have made excellent product from a hand-drawn sketch with measurements written on it, and struggled with immaculate 40-page documents that never said what weight the fabric should be. What matters is that it answers the questions a pattern master will ask.

The non-negotiables

1. A flat sketch, front and back. Photographs of a reference garment work too. What we need to see is every seam, closure and detail.
2. A measurement chart with tolerances, in centimetres, in a base size, stating whether the measurements are body or garment. This is the most commonly omitted item and the most expensive one to omit.
3. Fabric specification. Composition, GSM with a tolerance, weave, finish, and whether the weight is greige or finished. Our GSM guide sets out the six lines that belong here.
4. Colour reference. Pantone TCX, or a physical swatch posted to us. Not a screenshot - screens lie about colour.
5. Trims and components. Buttons, zips, thread, interlining, drawcords. Specify or tell us to propose.
6. Labelling and packaging. Main label, care label, size label, swing tag, polybag, carton. Artwork if you have it.
7. Construction notes. Seam types, stitch density, hem allowances, topstitching. If you do not know, say so and we will propose.
8. The size range you will eventually produce, even if you are sampling one size.

The things that help more than brands expect

• A reference garment in the post. Worth more than ten pages. If a garment already fits the way you want, send it - we will measure it and build the pattern around it.
• Telling us the target retail price. Brands withhold this thinking it weakens their position. It does the opposite: it lets us propose a fabric and construction that can actually land there, instead of quoting something you were never going to buy.
• Saying what the garment is for. "A linen shirt for a UK summer, worn open over a tee" tells us more about the right weight and finish than a spreadsheet does.
• Naming which details are fixed and which are negotiable. If the collar shape is the whole point of the design, say so. If it is not, we may be able to propose something that saves cost or improves how it sits.

What happens when it is incomplete

We do not stop. We make assumptions, list them explicitly, and send them back to you with the costing. The sample gets made against those assumptions.

That is the important bit to understand: an incomplete tech pack does not delay the first sample, it delays the second. The proto arrives, it is not what you pictured, and now you are two weeks and one sample charge into a conversation that a single line in the original brief would have prevented.

The four gaps that cause the most rework, in order:

1. No measurement tolerances. Every garment measurement has to land somewhere in a range. If you do not set the range, we use standard commercial tolerances, and those may be wider than your brand requires.
2. Body versus garment measurements unstated. A 96cm chest measurement means two very different garments depending on which you meant. This one causes complete remakes, not adjustments.
3. Fabric weight given without a finish. "180 GSM linen" can arrive crisp or stonewashed, and they are different products.
4. Colour by screenshot. We will match what we see, and what we see is not what you see.

The sample stages, and what each is for

These terms get used loosely. Here is what they mean in practice, because approving the wrong one at the wrong stage is how brands end up with bulk they did not expect.

Two things follow from that table.

Do not judge colour on a proto. Brands reject protos over colour constantly, and the proto was never in your colour. Judge the design; colour is approved separately through a lab dip.

Take the PP sample seriously. It is the reference your bulk will be measured against, including by you if something goes wrong. A rushed PP approval is the single riskiest shortcut in the whole process. Photograph it, keep it, and keep it somewhere you can find it in six months.

Lab dips and colour

Colour runs on its own track. You send a Pantone TCX reference or a physical swatch, we dye small pieces of your actual fabric to match, and you approve one. That approved lab dip becomes the bulk standard.

Assess lab dips in consistent lighting, ideally daylight or a light box, and say what you want if the match is not right - "less yellow", "one shade deeper" - rather than just rejecting. Two rounds is normal. Note that linen takes dye differently from cotton and natural linen has its own base tone, so very pale and very bright shades can take an extra round.

Who pays for what

Straightforwardly:

• Swatch cards: free, and we post them internationally.
• Made-up samples: charged, usually at a multiple of the eventual unit price, because a sample is made individually by a pattern master rather than run down a line. Where a programme goes to bulk we commonly credit sampling against the first order.
• Corrections to our error, or against a clear tech pack comment: remade at our cost.
• Changes of specification - a different fabric, a redesigned style, a new size set: charged, because that is new development rather than a correction.
• Courier: usually on the buyer's account, which also gives you control over the service level.

We will always tell you which of the last two categories we think a request falls into before starting work, rather than surprising you with an invoice.

How to give feedback that does not cost you two weeks

This is the highest-leverage habit a brand can develop, and it is simple.

• Measure, then comment. "Sleeve is 2cm short at the cuff" is actionable. "Sleeves feel wrong" is a guess we then have to interpret.
• Mark up the sample physically and photograph it, or annotate the flat sketch. Pins and tape on the actual garment communicate more than a paragraph.
• Send all comments at once. A second email two days later with three more changes restarts the round.
• Separate "wrong" from "different". Tell us which items are deviations from the spec and which are changes of mind. It affects both timeline and cost, and we would rather know than guess.
• Reply promptly. The dead time waiting for approval is usually longer than the making time. A sample sitting on a desk for ten days is ten days added to your launch.

A realistic timeline

From a complete tech pack: costing in three to five working days, proto in two to three weeks, one fit round adding two weeks, PP sample two weeks after that. Six to ten weeks to an approved PP sample, plus courier time each way. Then four to six weeks of bulk production on an existing fabric, and 18-22 days at sea to a UK port.

Add two to four weeks in front of all of it if your fabric is being woven specially for you. Which decisions push you into custom weaving, and what they cost, is worth reading before you commit to a fabric.

Send it, even if it is rough

The most common reason a brand delays is a belief that the tech pack is not good enough yet. Send it anyway. We would rather see a sketch with measurements and tell you what is missing than wait six weeks for a document that still will not say what finish you want.

You can upload a tech pack directly through the button below - PDF, spreadsheet or a zipped folder of images all work - and we will come back with questions, fabric options and an indicative cost. If you would rather start from what we already make, our custom solutions page and apparel range show the patterns we already hold.