From One Photo to a Quotable Wool Specification Pack

A photo of a coat fabric can start a conversation with a wool mill, but it cannot start a quotation. A mill can read structure, colour direction and roughly the scale of a pattern from an image. It cannot read fibre composition, yarn count, finishing route or shrinkage history, and those four items decide the price and the minimum. What a mill needs is a specification pack: six mandatory fields, a repeat and colour reference that can be checked, and a stated quantity split. Send the pack and the reply becomes a quote. Send only the photo and the reply becomes an assumption with a number attached.

What Can a Wool Mill Actually Read From a Photo?

A photograph is a reflectance record, and a mill reads it as a visual reference rather than as a specification. From a 45-degree image an experienced mill reads four things: 1. the weave family, 2. the pattern scale, 3. the colour direction, 4. the surface character. Wool’s natural crimp, described in Woolmark’s fibre reference, produces the loft that a photo shows as thickness, so a mill can guess at a weight band but not at a weight. Wool also absorbs around 30 percent of its own weight in moisture, and the same piece shot 3 times under three light sources reads as three fabrics. A ruler or a coin in frame adds scale: for example, a 10 cm rule beside the selvedge tells the mill more about repeat than any adjective. That is where the evidence stops: a photo cannot show composition, yarn count, finishing route or the shrinkage history that sets the price in 2026.

Which Six Fields Make a Quote Real?

A specification pack is the set of inputs a mill needs before it can price a cloth, and six fields carry almost all of the weight. The six are: 1. fibre composition with a target percentage, 2. yarn count and weave, 3. weight in grams per square metre with a tolerance, 4. finished and cuttable width, 5. pattern repeat with layout, 6. intended use with quantity split by colour. Write composition so the percentages total 100 percent, which is the form Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 requires on the finished label. According to ASTM D3775, width is measured on the piece under stated conditions, so a width quoted without a method invites a debate at goods-in. For example, a pack that names 80 percent wool without a tolerance invites a 20 percent polyamide substitution. A pack complete enough for two mills to quote the same cloth is a specification in 2026.

Which Fields Go in the Email Template?

The template below is short enough to paste into an email and complete enough to be quoted against. Fill every row or write “open” and expect a question back.

How Do You Express Repeat and Colour?

A repeat is the distance after which the pattern starts again, and it must be written as two numbers plus a layout rule. Write it as “repeat 6.4 cm warp direction by 5.2 cm weft direction, straight layout, tolerance plus or minus 2 mm,” and add whether the layout is straight or stepped, because a stepped layout changes the warp plan and the cutting waste. For colour, write a Pantone TCX number together with a physical reference, and name the lighting condition for approval, since a colour that matches under daylight can fail under shop lighting. Under Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011, fibre composition must be stated accurately on textile products sold in the EU, so the percentages in the pack are not only a cost input but a labelling obligation. Keep the wording identical in the pack and on the label.

Why Is a Photo-Based Quote Only a Provisional Price?

A provisional price is a quotation issued on assumed inputs, and it is provisional because the mill has priced a plausible cloth rather than your cloth. Three assumptions do the damage. The mill assumes a composition that meets the look at the lowest yarn cost, which is usually more synthetic than the buyer intended. It assumes a weight band rather than a weight, and weight moves yarn consumption directly. It assumes a finishing route that produces the appearance in the photo, which may not be the route that produces the hand the buyer wants. Any of the three can move the price by a margin that matters at bulk. The fix is procedural rather than technical: label the first reply as indicative, then replace each assumption with a written value and ask for a firm quote against the completed pack.

How Do You Turn an Indicative Price Into a Firm One?

An indicative price becomes a firm price when every assumption behind it has a written value attached, and the conversion is a short exchange rather than a negotiation. Ask the mill to list the assumptions it used, which most mills will do when the request is framed as a specification check rather than a challenge. Typical answers name a composition band, a weight band and a finishing route. Replace each band with a single value from the pack, then ask for the price again with the values quoted back. Two rules keep the exchange clean: no verbal changes, and one revised quotation per revision of the pack. When the mill declines to name its assumptions, the price is a position rather than a calculation, and a second mill is the faster route to a real number. Ask for the revised quotation in the same format as the first, with the values printed beside the price, and keep both versions in the file. In 2026 mills quote against yarn prices that move, so a firm quote normally carries a validity date and a note on the yarn basis it used. A quote without a basis cannot be compared with a second quote, which is why buyers who collect three prices without the pack end up comparing three different cloths and calling the spread a negotiation.

Which Words Cannot Be Accepted in a Specification?

Soft, warm, luxury and premium are marketing words, and none of them can be accepted or rejected at goods-in. A mill cannot weave to “soft” because softness is not a measurable property, and a buyer cannot claim against “not soft enough” because no threshold exists. Replace each adjective with a property that a laboratory or a hand can check: thickness in millimetres, bending length, compression recovery, surface friction, or a named reference sample that both parties hold. A reference sample is often the cheapest instrument, because it converts an opinion into a comparison. The rule is not to ban descriptive language from the conversation. The rule is to keep it out of the acceptance clause, where it would be unenforceable in both directions.

How Do You Replace Soft With Numbers?

A measurable hand specification uses three or four properties, and each one needs a method and a tolerance. Thickness in millimetres under a stated pressure is the simplest, and a thickness gauge is available in most mills. Bending length measured on a cantilever tester describes stiffness, which is what buyers usually mean by body. Compression recovery describes how the cloth recovers after packing, which predicts how a coat looks after a journey. Surface change after abrasion describes whether the cloth will pill, which is the property most often discovered too late. Write the method beside each number, for example “thickness 1.8 mm plus or minus 0.15 mm under 1 kPa,” and attach the reference sample. Then a disagreement becomes a measurement rather than a taste argument.

What Makes a Quote Expire or Trigger a Re-Quote?

Quote validity is the period during which a mill holds a price, and a re-quote trigger is the list of changes that ends that period early. Thirty days is a common validity window in greige and yarn pricing, and it should be written on the quotation rather than assumed. Four changes should trigger a re-quote: any change in composition, any change in weight or width beyond the stated tolerance, any change in repeat or colour count, and any change in quantity that crosses a minimum threshold. Write the sentence into the pack: “Quotation valid 30 days from issue and based on the specification above; any change in composition, weight, width, repeat or quantity triggers re-quotation.” This single sentence prevents the most common commercial argument in fabric sourcing, which is a price that silently belonged to a different cloth.

What Is the Minimum Order Question You Should Ask?

A minimum order quantity is the shortest run a mill will schedule, and the honest version of the question asks for three numbers rather than one. Ask for the minimum per colour, the minimum per warp plan, and the minimum that keeps the quoted price. The three differ, because a mill can often weave 300 metres of one colour but will charge a higher rate below its economical warp length. Ask also whether the minimum is a hard floor or a surcharge threshold, and get the surcharge in writing. Our Wollstoffherstellung page describes how runs are scheduled, and the yarn equivalence note explains why two nominally identical counts can price differently. The fabric sourcing guide covers the wider sequence from brief to bulk.