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Garment Technologist
A garment technologist is a product adviser that helps a design team ensure that each product aligns with the company's vision. Garment technologists work for manufacturers and retailers to help design teams create clothing items. As employees, they can either work as full-time advisers for a company or as commission advisers for select pieces or lines of clothing. They work with designers to modify models, test suitable fabrics and ensure that each redesign is as efficient as possible to help streamline the process.Garment technologists are involved with more than just the design of a piece. They also gauge and seek to improve the marketability of an item by analyzing product returns. They're also responsible for ensuring that an item stays within budget. Garment technologists may work with other clothing staff, such as pattern cutters, graders and designers. They may also work with other prominent members of the process outside of the employee range, such as buyers and stakeholders.
A Garment Technologist acts as the technical bridge between fashion designers and manufacturers, ensuring clothing designs are functional, high-quality, and producible within budget. They manage the entire product development lifecycle, including material selection, fitting, pattern alterations, and quality control. Key roles involve analyzing fabrics, conducting fit sessions, and ensuring garments meet manufacturing, safety, and quality standards.
- Fabric and Material Selection: Selecting, testing, and approving fabrics, trims, and accessories to ensure they are fit for purpose.
- Fit and Pattern Approval: Collaborating with designers and pattern makers to perfect the fit of garments, often conducting fitting sessions on live models or mannequins.
- Production Oversight: Monitoring the manufacturing process from raw materials to the finished garment to ensure design specifications and quality standards are met.
- Technical Specifications (Tech Packs): Creating, updating, and managing detailed technical packs that include construction details, measurements, and manufacturing instructions.
- Quality Assurance: Identifying and analyzing defects, faults, or returns, and implementing solutions to maintain high quality.
- Knowledge of Production: In-depth understanding of garment construction, sewing, pattern making, and manufacturing processes.
- Technical Expertise: Strong knowledge of textiles, fabric properties, and garment technology.
- Communication: Ability to work closely with designers, buyers, suppliers, and factory technicians.
- Attention to Detail: Meticulous approach to quality control, specifications, and fit.
- Problem-Solving: Ability to resolve technical issues during sampling and bulk production
How To Become a Garment Technologist
When considering your future career, planning based on the duties of different careers can be a helpful first step toward discovering what you like and dislike about different industries. Garment technologists have many unique duty aspects to their profession, some of which can be appealing for those interested in the clothing industry. Learning more about garment technology can help you determine if this career is right for you. In this article, we review what a garment technologist is, what they do and how you can become one.Key takeaways:
- Garment technologists play a key role in the fashion industry, working as product advisers to design teams to ensure each product aligns with a company's vision and stays within the budget.
- Duties of a garment technologist include design modification, material adjustment, budgeting garments, overseeing fabric testing, analyzing product returns and responding to product queries.
- To pursue a career as a garment technologist, attain a relevant degree, complete an apprenticeship, gain certification in fashion design, accumulate industry experience and find opportunities to apply your knowledge.​
Duties of a garment technologist
Garment technologists have many duties within the clothing industry, from the concept of a design to the final selling pieces and marketing tactics. Their duties include:
Design modification
Garment technologists modify designs during every stage of the development process. Some design modifications may involve their other duties, such as changing materials for budget or production reasons. They may also change a design for purely design purposes, such as replacing an element of the outfit to better align with company needs. Garment technologists can change the design for comfort, ease of use, material and storage purposes while working with a design team to help improve the product overall.
Material adjustment
Garment technologists may adjust the material in an outfit. This could result in an entire material overhaul or the replacement of a part of the garment, such as a collar, shoulder pad or sleeve. Garment technologists may do this to increase comfort, style, flexibility or the price of an item to better meet industry standards. Material adjustments may also be necessary throughout a process to help a team determine which material is best for a piece of clothing, which is why garment technologists can be helpful for the prototype building process.
Budgeting garments
Another function that garment technologists help fulfill in a design team is helping ensure that a garment works well within a company's budget for that line. Material and even marketing for a piece can impact the budget that the company needs for it, and so it's the garment technologists of the team who make major decisions concerning a piece's marketing needs as well as its base design. Because base design, including material needs, need to be made before marketing decisions, garment technologists strive to ensure they make the right decisions at the right time.
Overseeing fabric testing
A garment technologist not only helps design the fabric settings for a piece of clothing but also helps test the fabric during the prototype stages as well. Although the testing portions have much to do with the company's preferences, some tests may involve changing the material or adjusting a marketing plan. For example, sports material may require flexibility and breathability for the skin during high physical activity.If the clothing item does not meet these standards, a garment technologist may need to return to the team and design an entirely new prototype that both meets these needs and fits within the budget. Additionally, if the garment technologist has already created advertisements for the piece, they need to ensure that the clothing piece meets all advertising requirements. This is so that the company can deliver stated promises and also fulfill customer expectations for products.
Responding to product queries
When a company creates a new query for a product, a garment technologist's job is to understand the project requirements and move forward with a development team's progress. This can involve testing different materials for feasibility, developing a marketing proposal and creating prototype models. As consulting employees, garment technologists may review multiple products at a time and work in different stages of the development process for each.
Analyzing product returns
If a customer returns a product or the company recalls the product line for any reason, garment technologists determine the next best course of action concerning the garment. This may involve further adjusting the material, changing styles, removing advertisements or changing the marketing plan entirely. Returns and recalls may even cause a product to undergo a total process reset for the team. In some instances, a product recall may even cause discontinuation of the garment, although for a garment technologist, reworking a material may be better than discarding it entirely.
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