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<\/p>\nBudgeting fabric for a collection is the difference between a designer who runs out of money at the linen stage and one who locks the cloth first. Fabric is usually the single largest material cost in a garment, and it is the one line you can control before you ever cut a pattern.<\/p>\n
For most garments, fabric is the biggest per-unit material cost. A fabric that is a few yuan per metre over on a large order quietly eats the entire margin. The budget cannot be a guess; it has to come from the cloth, the yards per garment, the expected waste and the quantity you actually intend to produce. When you plan the collection around the cloth, the rest of the costing follows.<\/p>\n
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Start with four figures: the fabric price per metre, the metres needed per garment, the order quantity, and the waiting loss or cutting waste. Multiply them out and you have the fabric cost of the collection. Most designers miss the waste line, and it is the one that turns a tidy estimate into an overrun. A 5% cutting loss on 4,000 metres is a meaningful number before you even add the labour and trims.<\/p>\n
Spend on the fabric your customer actually touches, the face cloth and the lining that sits against the skin. Save on the fabrics that are structural and hidden, where a slightly thinner or more economic version performs the same job. This is also how to control what a custom fabric order costs<\/a>: hold the budget on the visible face, find the economy in the hidden layers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n