One major piece of the garment-building production puzzle is labeling.

Clients often forget this component, but it’s a necessary one.

First, you need to know what type of label you want on your garment. The most popular and obvious are:

• Tagless, or heat transfer labels that are applied directly to the garment
• Woven or Satin labels that are sewn to the garment
• Tear-away labels that are sewn into the seam of a garment and can be ripped away after purchase if you don’t want the thing scratching at you while it’s being worn.

A good exercise might be to look in your closet or go shopping to see what other brands you like are doing.

Once you figure out the label quality you like, you’ll need the following information for the label(s):

• Company name or Logo (optional, but why wouldn’t you put this?)
• Size
• COO (Country of Origin, or where the garment was made) *Note – even if your garment is made in the USA but you are importing your fabrics, you need to state that. It would read, for example, “Made in the USA of imported fabric”.
• Wash care instructions *Note – your fabric vendor/mill should be able to share this information with you.

Here are some basic care symbols, FYI