Learning About Fabrics 1: The Who, What, and How

hey everyone this video is the long-awaited very first video in the new fabric series and i know you guys have been waiting for this video me too i've been waiting to do it i hope you're taking notes because this video is going to be a ton of background info a ton of vocabulary words at the end of this video at the very least i want you to be able to talk to a sales rep and sound somewhat intelligent and so all the things that they talk about don't seem so completely foreign alright that's the goal after this video i'm really excited to do this series you guys because i said this a million times and i will say it to anyone who will sit down for two seconds and listen to me fabrics and fiber technology are the true future of fashion okay silhouettes can only go so far because our bodies are gonna stay the same i mean if you look at evolution uh we all look the same just hunched over and hairier but yeah human bodies we are all with two arms two legs a neck you know but there is no limit to where we can go with fiber technology and it is one of the huge pathways to sustainability in fashion and see now i'm totally excited and talking about this thing but let's really look back into the basics okay so number one do you know how excited this video this is the best video oh okay calm down zoe calm down it's like nine o'clock at night i have not had coffee for hours okay this is just how excited i am number one what is fabric you need two pieces of information you need fiber content and you need construction okay it's like when you bake a cake what do you need to do to make a cake you need the ingredients flour sugar eggs and you need the construction you mix things in bowls pour them in pans and then you bake them right and so when someone asks you what is this fabric or what is your favorite fabric don't say silk silk is not a fabric silk is a fiber and so it's like saying what's your favorite food uh and then you answer flour uh no because i think technically if you eat raw flour you could get really sick like i don't think humans are supposed to ingest raw flour okay so you need the fiber content and the construction okay and that's going to give you your fabric so let's talk about fibers you have to really understand fibers because they're the things that are going to tell you how different fabrics perform how they drape how they wick moisture away from the body all those things you have to understand the fibers so you have several categories of fibers number one you have fibers separated into natural and man-made natural fibers are anything that is based off a plant like cotton bamboo jute and then you have natural fibers that are animal based they're animal hairs like wool alpaca cash uh camel hair and then you have silk it comes from silk silkworms and then you have man-made fibers manufacturer fibers a lot of them are oil-based like polyester nylon spandex lycra is a brand name for spandex okay people use them interchangeably like people say tissue and kleenex and then uh acrylic is also another one you know you have plant-based manufactured fibers like rayon and acetate so there are those categories and then you have staple fibers and filament fibers and you can have natural staple fibers and natural filament fibers and you can have man-made staple fibers and man-made filament fibers what are staple and water filament fibers staple fibers are short okay classic example is cotton okay you guys know the cotton ball it looks a lot like the cotton ball you swab on your face and it's all these short anywhere from like this short to about yay long fibers and you have to amass them and comb them and card them and twist them into long twisted strands to make yarns filament fibers are just one long skinny strand intact okay silk is a classic example of a natural filament fiber like they just get spun in one long strand polyester the way it's made polyester is funny it starts off as a colored liquid and it gets shot out of these things that look like shower heads and each like stream of this like liquid polyester becomes a filament fiber okay so filament fibers super super long and skinny and go for as long as you want to make them how do you create blends because blends are very common you know one very common blend is like wool rayon or wool polyester and so how do you blend a staple and a filament typically you have your filament fiber core and then you wrap your staple fibers around it so that you have the strength of the polyester but you have the texture and the softness and the the moisture wicking comfort the breathability of the wool okay because wool is not actually that strong by itself okay it's not a performance fiber like polyester is let's talk about the supply chain you get your fibers from your ranchers your herders your farmers you know they shear sheep they uh you know make polyester fibers etc and fiber factories ship to yarn mills and you might be thinking isn't yarn just that chunky fuzzy stuff my grandma makes my sweaters out of no yarn is any strand of twisted fibers and they are the building blocks for your fabrics yes they are also the things that your grandma knit sweaters with and they make knits like t-shirt knits like this gorgeous modal jersey okay so those are called yarns some people call them threads they should really be calling them yarns you have all kinds of different yarns you have simple yarns that are comprised of a single fiber content you have complex yarns with multiple fiber content you can have tweed yarn slub yarns you have specialty yarns like blue clay yarns and chenille yarns and then you have stretchy yarns where you have the elastic core and then fibers are wrapped around the elastic core to create stretchy yarns to create stretchy fabrics so yarns are made and then gets sent to textile mills when the knits and wovens get done up into fabrics you know knit or woven into yardage this stage they're called grayish goods okay and they look like it sounds great okay these are unfinished unwashed just not recognized as suitable for final garments okay muslin is a classic example of a greyish good that gets used okay muslin is what designers use to create their toils their sap for samples uh what they use to drape on dress forms and it's unbleached unwashed is stiff you don't want to use it for your final thing unless you're making some you know art piece whatever but it's not comfortable to wear textiles take the grayish goods and they send them to finishing mills and the finishing mills will do a bunch of different things number one they'll scour your grayish goods that means they're cleaning them and then they'll bleach your greyish goods because grayish goods they're called grey because they look great like a gray beigey natural not white okay and you don't want to die over that color it's hard to match you know because remember we are always talking about how you take your pantone color you send it to your dyer to make sure that you get that color that you want right and so it's hard to predict that when you're dying on top of another color and so you want to bleach the fabric white so that it's easier for the dyer to mix up the dye to match your pantone color or to match whatever you know someone else wants whatever whoever their customer is right and so when the fabric is scoured and bleached then your greyish goods have become pfd prepared for dyeing or pfp prepared for printing and a lots of companies sell these pfd pfp goods to designers who are like yeah i want to custom dye them to match the pantone chips that are my color story or i have a print in mind it's a custom i designed it i just need the the base fabric to print my stuff and so you order pfp goods and then you send them off to your printer who will do the printing for you and yes i'm gonna have a video about printing processes don't worry okay this series is gonna be thorough you're like zoe all your videos are thorough i know that's my middle name so you have your pfp goods your pdf pfd goods do not get it confused with pdf pdf is some you know acro adobe photoshop file extension not pdf pfd that's kind of the basic supply chain there are variances because there are a lot of different ways to die and so you can die at the fiber stage at the yarn stage at the garment stage so but that's the general process of how a fabric gets done up and then after your fabric has been printed or dyed you're going to add finishes on top of that for aesthetics or for function like you could make a fabric water resistant by adding a coating when you are talking to your sales rep your sales rep will say things like this is a converter and you know this is how they do business or this mill has this line of fabrics and you're like what the hell is the difference converters they buy graige goods from textile mills and they do the finishing or the converting fabric to produce fashion fabrics okay the converter they have a style okay just like designers have a style they're known for converters also have a style because and then you know designers we seek out these converters because we know that they're going to produce a look that we're going for like a converter can be known for denims and chambrays their indigo colors are always beautiful and they have these you know casual relaxed prints that really work well with chambray like that's a look from a converter and you're like okay i want something like a fun casual print that goes great with denim oh yeah that guy okay so they also work under the premise of a look to present to designers who are their customers so that and they have to be consistent to their look and their brand just as much as designers are okay when you walk into a banana republic you pretty much know what you're gonna get because you have certain expectations for their style okay brand integrity their style their look converters are the same there are mills and they are the mills vertical mills they do all the things anytime you hear um the word vertical in any kind of production capacity like vertical apparel production it means that facility does all the things they do the sample making they do the cutting and the pattern making and the marking and the grading and the sewing and the finish like they do all the things in one place okay vertical mills are the mills that take the fiber and they turn it into yarn and they turn it into textiles and they do the scouring and the bleaching and the dyeing and the like they do it all in one place or a lot of them maybe not every single thing but a lot of them and yeah there are pros and cons to you know vertical facilities okay so you have mills who do the things converters who just take the greyish goods and they do the final steps and then you have distributors who do none of those things they just help converters and mills get their product out into the world and into the hands of us designers who want to look at all the pretty things before they make up their mind every season you can buy wholesale from converters distributors and mills and then there are jobbers jobbers are fabric suppliers who you know jobbers are so important they buy leftover fabric they buy slightly damaged fabric they buy rejected things you know cancelled orders from mills design companies who have leftovers like they bought too much overage you know typically you know they run people cut purchase orders for like five percent over or somebody council order and they have like two pieces of fabric like sitting around they'll sell them to jobbers instead of ditching them into a landfill and then the jobber will sell them to the public or to startup designers who are doing very small production runs okay so if you are someone who's shopping at a jobber like those awesome places downtown in like downtown l.a garment districts and stuff in different cities just keep in mind that you can find some really great deals but you're never going to be able to reorder them the only things that you could possibly reorder are super basic things that people are constantly selling like when i had my design line i bought muslin at jobbers because muslin whatever it's muslin right there it's everywhere and it's always cheapest at jobbers uh if i needed say like black chiffon okay because that's so readily available it's a kind of fabric that's made constantly by so many different people that if i get some black chiffon on sale from a jobber it's fine because i can find black chiffon anywhere so be careful when you source from jobbers if you're someone who's just gonna make a dress just one dress go to a jobber that's perfect so you have the mills the converters and the distributors they make sim samples they makes headers color cards and they are distributed to sales rep and those sales reps work with the designers to get your money they also work with merchandisers don't forget merchandise designers and merchandisers and they work via private appointment in their office they visit design offices traveling sales reps or they have their own textile trade shows okay they are generally separate from apparel trade shows unless you are talking about a juggernaut like magic where there are sections for everything and yes i have a video on trade shows coming up soon it's a there's a list you guys know there's a list i can't memorize that list nobody can memorize that list so just a few fabric orientation terminology so i i talked about what a piece was okay and a piece you know it's such a vague word okay but when fabric sales reps say you know the minimum is a piece they mean one rule one piece equals one roll when a fabric sales rep talks to you like that and it's your responsibility to ask hey how many yards are in a piece because every company does it differently so typically it'll be like all right so the minimum for production from this converter is one piece okay and it's going to be this dollar amount per yard and you say how many yards are in a piece and they'll say anywhere from 50 to 55 yards and if they ship you 55 and you only want it 50 you still have to pay for the 55 even if you order just the 50. okay you'll order one piece and then you'll make a note it's 50 to 55 yards in one piece that's like what you are agreeing on that's what the information was given to you and then the price that goes with that but that's how it goes okay so when your fabric sales rep says one piece you say how many yards okay that should be your automatic this is a straight grain it runs the length of the fabric it goes all the way down the length of the fabric this is the straight grain and in woven fabrics called the warp and the cross grain is the perpendicular and in woven's this is called the weft and how do you remember the two when you cut a garment typically your straight grain runs up and down right center front runs along the selvage along the straight grain and that's your warp and your cross grain runs across like this and it runs left to right weft so left to right like you have a lisp and you're trying to stay left or like a five-year-old is trying to stay left okay weft equals left to right warp is the other way and then you have bias and bias is when garments are cut on the diagonal and the only thing you can do is to cut at a 45 degree angle okay so this 45 degree angle okay we'll run like this and when you work on a 45 degree angle see how much stretch and pliability you have okay that's the fun part of working with bias you can get like really smooth beautiful fits without a million darts when you cut on the bias the front of your fabric is called the face and the back of your fabric is called the back and yes that was incredibly difficult most fabrics have a face and a back and you need to make that clear with everyone something like this you could put a bullet to my head and offer me a million dollars and i'll be like looks the same to me i don't know but most fabrics there is a face and a back and sometimes you literally have to shove something in your face you know if you decide that you're in love with the back of the fabric and that's what you want to use as the face of the fabric that's your prerogative as a designer but you better let everyone and their mother know that that's what you want and be clear like i love the back i want to use the back here's the swatch this is the back and this is the side i want to use and then selvage is the finished edge this is a gnarly piece of fabric that i use as a pressing cloth but it had like i i use this for the demo because the selvage is so obvious it's like finished and tight and won't fray this is polyorganza it frays like nobody's business but it won't fray along the finished edge last but not least let's quickly go over the four categories of materials that you can use to create garments and i say that knowing that you can make garments out of all kinds of crazy things my thing that i say to designers all the time is what is the difference between a dress and a sculpture you got to get a body and a dress the reason i say that is twofold number one with the dress you always have to think about the construction we have to think about how to make it we have to figure out how to open it get a body in it and then close it okay so that is me reminding designers and students always remember the body we can never forget the body we cannot design without thinking about the body we are addressing and then the second reason i say that to designers is there is no limit to how wearable commercial completely bananas avant-garde you make your dress the sky's the limit on the actual visual as long as it functions enough for somebody to put it on and take it off it can be a dress and you can just make it look however you want the four basic categories of materials are number one wovens wovens are fabrics that have warp yarns running along the length and weft yarns running along the cross they get woven at 90 degree angles in various patterns basket weaves twill wheeze satin leaves jacquard weaves and i will cover all those things okay but they're weave they're woven at 90 degree angles and then the second category is knits and knits whether they are chunky sweater knits or really thin t-shirt nets they're loops loops looped on top of each other and that's what makes a knit you're like how can you tell most of the time knits are stretchy okay you can have interlocks that are a very rigid kind of knit but for the most part knits are a little bit stretchy and yeah you can have stretch fibers and wovens so there's that knits don't fray okay you can't like hold them up though like you see that that's just dust like little tiny individual fibers floating if you can if the camera is actually picking that up but it doesn't fray because they're looped and locked into each other okay whereas with fabric or with wovens i mean i can just it'll fray organza i love and hate you so much and then you have single knits like jerseys you have double knits you have tricos and rochelle knits that are more like open weave they look more like lace uh loop piles like terry cloth and uh cut pile like velour which is the knit version of velvet and we also have jacquard nets fair isle i'm gonna talk about that too and then third there are non-wovens and the two most common non-wovens that you probably have heard of number one is felt the king of arts and crafts the way felt is made is you have all these fibers and yarns and you spread them out in a sheet in no discernible order and you like swirl and mat them down with some moisture and then you suck the moisture out and you have like basically mats of tangled fibers and that's why when you cut felt you don't have to finish the edge and it never frays because everything is all tangled together and that's how kids can make all those arts and crafts and cut hearts and stars out of felt and nothing frays it keeps its shape that's the awesome thing about felt and they come in different thicknesses different colors and then the other really common form of non-woven are these interfacings and not all interfacings are non-woven but this one is and it's basically filament fibers that have been melted together and then these little glue dots have been added to one side so you know you're gonna take this put it on top of your fabric and press it down the glue will melt and adhere to your fabric okay so here's a non-woven inner lining the last category is hides and that involves leathers where one side is smooth and finished this is a distressed cow plunge and i'm going to explain all those terms to you in a later video and then you have suede that looks like the reverse of leather but it's far more finished you have furs i do not include faux furs in this category because faux furs are typically a knit why are they in it can you imagine if you had a woven faux fur with all those hairs and it started fraying because it was a loosely woven woven loosely woven woven the hairs would just go everywhere it would be a freaking nightmare and faux fur is already it tends to shed anyway but with the knit construction on the back i mean that is minimized a lot and the way you construct with faux fur is completely different and that's why it's in the knit category and fur real fur is in the hides category and shearling shearling where it is some kind of fur or hair sheep hair on one side and a finished leather on the other side and you see those shearling jackets where it's leather on the face and then the facing folds back and you see the shearling or the hair that's not lining that's typically one piece okay that's the skin and so the nice soft warm stuff is next to your body and then it folds out and you have those nice shearling lapels and collars like that okay so those are the four main categories for materials used to create garments and then within all these within the four categories you have to think about weights so when you're talking to your fabric person you can say things like i'm looking for a bottom weight i'm looking for a top weight okay and that will really help you well no that'll really help your sales rep help you find what you're looking for because you always want to go into a meeting with the sales rep with a clear plan even if you walk in and say i need all my fabrics for my next collection you still have to give them an itemized list like i need two bottom weights and they both need to be cotton because this is springtime and i need three bottom weights and i want two of them to be prints and the kind of prints i'm looking for are fun super colorful geometric prints right you have to be really specific the more specific you are the more serious and professional you appear to your sales rep especially if it's the first time working with them and secondly it really helps your sales rep because sales reps rep multiple lines and they have headers crawling out of their ears and the more descriptors you use to explain what you're looking for what's going on in your head the better it is going to be for you so you have you can go in there and be like i'm looking for a fall bottom weight which is this nice well bottom weights are fabrics you use for pants for jackets sometimes for coats sometimes you want to actually say coat weight like you want something super heavy duty and then you have top weights like this beautiful silk crepe and some people call them blouse weights you would not make pants out of these i mean you could but then everyone would see your business and i don't know how much you want that this knit also a top weight also can be considered a dress weight and so use those words and your sales rep will read them as okay this is the kind of weight they're looking for this is how they're gonna use them and that helps them help you as well did you learn enough was that enough did you take notes there's gonna be a quiz it's class right there's going to be a quiz and if you fail i decide the feet of your future forever i'm kidding and i will have a new fabric video with more things in a few weeks as usual if you found this video helpful please hit the thumbs up button and share with your friends who need to learn more about fabric vocabulary hit the subscribe button if you want an alert for when the next in the fabric series comes out i think at this point a lot of youtubers have heard about the glitch that's going around that youtube is unsubbing people or not sending notifications things like that my videos aren't showing up there on their subscription tab i have heard that it helps if you hit the little bell like if you see the little white box that says subscribe and there's a little bell and then there's like a number i think of like how many subscribers i have if you click on that little bell it'll turn notifications on and i hear that helps okay so if you want to do that that'd be awesome that's it for today i will see you in the next video

Channel: Zoe Hong

Views: 938,323

Keywords: fabric, textiles, fabrics, textile design, tutorial, lesson, lecture, fibers, fiber technology, silk, polyester, cotton, wool, rayon, warp, weft, selvedge, bias cut, yarn, how to, sales, converters, distributers, mills, apparel design, garment design, fashion, fashion design, fashion fabric, pfd, pfp, Zoe Hong, Zoe Hong Teaches, sewing

Id: -B4tfduOQ7w

Length: 31min 0sec (1860 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 18 2016