As a apparel designer, probably the last task you have thought of is the apparel label that serves as advertising and marketing billboard of your textile projects. On the contrary, it’s a good idea to strategize about it a month in advance. Many of those in the designer apparel business often overlook labeling their designer projects until the very last moment—usually just days before a trade show. This article covers classifications every clothing design professional needs understand about custom fabric tags.
Clothing Tags—The Basic Definitions
The two major types of custom fabric tags are woven and printed. Let’s explore these type of labels further.
Woven fabric labels consist of woven yarns with a weave based on your specifications for the design. A loom manufactures your artwork as part of the cloth. The tags are then cut and/or folded.
Advantages of Woven Fabric Labels
- Long lasting through frequent exposure to heat and friction, including washing and dryer use.
- Damask woven textile labels are a denser material and have a very elegant appeal. The damask woven process is basically two layers of threads woven together.
Disadvantages of Woven Fabric Labels
- Generally a longer turnaround time to completion. This is because most woven fabrics need to be shipped in from oversea factories, and numerous logistical considerations with manufacturing and shipping need to be taken into account. If the designer is short on time, then woven tags are not the recommend option for apparel labels.
- Graphics limitations: All artwork and lettering have to have a well defined, smooth two-dimensional line drawing appearance. There can be no color fades, shade variance, or extremely small intricate fonts. Keep in mind, the loom is weaving a compact section of cloth, and the artwork woven must adapt to weaving loom sequences. Thus if you have a highly detailed logo, it is best to stay with printed cloth labels.
- High minimum order requirement.
Printed fabric labels are made out of several types of ribbons that are printed, hot-cut, and folded. The most popular materials employed are cotton, satin, micro fiber, leather, and tyvek.
Advantages Printed Fabric Labels
- Depending on the clothing labels source, a decreased manufacturing time. Usually, printed tags are domestically produced.
- With the breakthroughs in clothing labels technology, manufacturers are able to print photo quality images, shading and shadow, extremely fine writing, and color transitions. For example, the textile technology currently available has the capability of printing Monet on your garment labels!
- Highly intricate elements of your logo can be captured and printed onto fabric.
- Soft to the skin.
- 48 Hour rush manufacturing assistance available with some suppliers.
- Many domestic suppliers.
- Low minimum requirement.
Disadvantages Printed Fabric Labels
- Image can fade over time with repeated laundering.
- Background colors normally are required to be either pastel or white colors, unless of course your supplier has colored ribbon printing capacities —though textile innovation is constantly changing.
So always keep in mind—do not forget your labels! Planning early saves you stress, time, and a LOT of money.