Textile Design and Product Development

Textile Design

  • Structure: knits vs. Wovens

  • Surface design: process of creating patterns, motifs, and dyes to print on fabrics

Colorways

Color palette or specific color selections for a pattern or print

  • Most designs have multiple colorways

Finishing

Enhances appearance and adds to suitability for use and wear

  • Mechanical, chemical, or combination

  • General finishes prepare fabric for further use (scouring and bleaching)

  • Functional finishes impart special characteristics (waterproofing or flocking)

Wovens

  • Plain weave or tabby weave

  • Twill weave

  • Stain weave

  • Jacquard

  • Pile weave (terry cloth or velvet)

Knits

  • Jersey knit

  • Rib knit

  • Bulky weight

  • Cable knit

  • Ponte knit

  • Intarsia/ fair isle

  • Tulle

Nonwoven

  • Felt (wool)

  • Leather

  • Sinew (used as string)

  • Neoprene

  • Fusible interfacing

  • Polypropylene

Wovens

  • Should not stretch along the grain

  • Can have a little stretch on the cross grain

  • Will stretch a lot along the bias

Wovens are commonly used for garments that need structure and they require more specific fit and sizing

Knits

  • Stretch in every direction

  • Has the appearance of many columns of braids next to each other

90% of the clothing we wear today is knit: tee shirts, hoodies, athletic wear, even shoes can be knitted. It is fast to produce with high tech knitting machines, and it doesn't require such specific sizing because of its stretch.

Fashion Director for the Textile Producers

Responsible for determining trends, colors, and textures for piece goods or fabrics that the firm (business) will feature for a specific season

  • they communicate trends to textile designers, production managers, and customers

  • has a lot of overlap with trend forecaster role

Career Challenges:

Similar to a trend forecaster, it is tough to secure these jobs and to keep them. Fashion Directors need a strong foundation of industry experience to be successful, and educational foundation in textiles. They must know how to work collaboratively, since the decisions they make regarding trends will affect many people working in their textile firm.

Textile Designers

Creates original designs for fabrics used in all sorts of industries (fashion, home and business interiors (wallpapers, carpets, seating), car interiors, paper goods, accessories, etc.)

They design images and patterns for surface designs, or they develop textured fabrics via weaving or knitting

  • Designers often specialize in surface design, wovens, or knits

  • They render mock-ups of textile pattern or print for a garment

  • Assistant textile designers act as a supporting role to the head designer

Textile Stylist & Colorist

Textile Stylist - reinterprets or modifies existing patterns or prints to turn them into fresh, new products

  • edit, resize, and make new colorways to recreate what has retailed successfully before

Textile Colorist - chooses the color combinations that will be used in creating each textile design

  • works closely with color forecasters to make strong choices based on the trend

Responsibility of the Textile designer/ stylist/ colorist

  • Interact with customers (apparel manufacturers and designers)

  • Collaborate with marketing, buying, technical personnel, and design colleagues

  • Understand how textiles will be used (referred to as end-use), what properties textiles need to function optimally, how dyes and surface treatments affect these properties

  • Conduct research for ideas and inspiration

  • Experiment with texture, pattern, and color

  • Present ideas, sketches, and samples to customers

  • Producing designs and colorways using CAD

  • Checking and approving samples

  • Working to meet deadlines and working within budgets

Qualifications and Challenges

Qualifications

  • Education: Bachelor's degree in textiles, visual arts, CAD, graphic design, fashion design, or related field

  • Experience: Entry-level design position, technical experience with color and CAD

  • Personal Characteristics: computer skills; strong visual sense of color, texture, pattern: trend awareness; business skills; knowledge and practical understanding of textiles and how they're produced (sewing, knitting, weaving, embroidery); understanding of target market and end use

Career Challenges

  • Interpret trends designated by fashion director

  • Convert words of fashion director into images, patterns, textures

  • Be aware of technical requirements and limitations of fabric development

  • Overcome pressure to meet quick deadlines and work within budget

Textile Technician

Supervises production facilities of a company or oversees production done by contractor

  • regular checks on production and quality

  • checking performance levels of equipment

  • oversees regular routine equipment maintenance

Career challenges

  • Understanding and anticipating continually changing technologies

  • Deadlines are constant challenge

  • Communicating and problem-solving with variety of co-workers in other divisions

Textile Engineer

Determines how designs can be applied to a fabric while considering practical variables such as durability, washability, and colorfastness

  • Merging textiles with technology

  • Includes chemistry and manufacturing

  • often works with factories abroad -> Outsourcing - having aspects of a company's work completed by manufacturers in another company and/or another country

  • Many textiles engineers work for companies that own their own manufacturing facilities and work their way up from the production line to this position