How Are Seamless Leggings Made? Activewear Secrets
Transcript (auto generated):
What's up the design family and welcome to another episode of fit design TV! So glad to have you here today we're gonna be looking at seamless garments in sports or we're going to be defining what a seamless garment is how it's made and going through some of the pros and cons so if you've ever wondered what seamless products are this is the video for you [Music] welcome to fit design TV on this channel we'll explore what it takes to make it as an actor were a fashion brand whilst providing tips tricks and actionable steps towards starting your own product line whether an entrepreneur look at the start your own brand or just someone interested in fitness fashion there's something for you here [Music] if your interactive or sportswear you've undoubtedly heard the term seamless products or seamless manufacturing think of the gym sharp flex slugging or the athlete revival liking you may be asking yourself what is seamless sumos is exactly what it sounds like they're products that are made without seams and how that is achieved is through the Knitting of microfiber yards along a tube or a circular to sorts there are many different types of seamless production but the ones we're gonna look at our circular body meeting and that's the main type of seamless production that we think of when it comes to sports work believe it or not sumos production and seamless modes of production I belong for a long long time the Egyptians have been using it since the Coptic Aero and they've been using it to create familiar items like socks so it's something that we do take for granted but it has come into the limelight in the last couple of years with its popularity with major brands like Jeff Sharkey athlete for over 21 other major brands that are putting out sports were seamless is done on hu typically what you have is this continuous tube which has needles all around it and this garment is being knitted as it goes along and that's how you create your final product unlike traditional cut and sew methods where you have to sort of fabric you bring the fabric in you cut it down you stitch it into place with seamless you're ready to go as long as you have the microfiber guards and you knit that into the garment and that it's exactly where you end up with your finished garment so there are a couple of pros and cons to look at with seamless manufacturing when you comparing it to regular cotton so manufacturing so I'll go through the pros and I'll list them one by one and then I'll go for the consonants those by one by one I'll make my effective conclusion on how Silver's garments compare to cut it so we're seamless garments the time and effort required for seamless production is far or less than cut in so why is that with seamless you typically have one to two to three steps of production before you can come out with the finished product compare that to the nine or ten different steps that have to be taken for cotton so production between the production of the fabric the inspection of the fabric the packing of the fabric these shipping of the fabric the unloading of the faculty inspection of the fabric again the drawing of the patterns the cutting of a patterns the stitching of the patterns all of that adds up in time and effort and allows for a lot more mistakes to be made along that process and there's a lot more wastage the fabric he used with seamless your nating on a tube and you're making the fabric or the garment as you go along so that drastically reduces the amount of wastage when compared to traditional but insole methods at the same time when many many people love about seamless production is the flexibility to create cool and intricate designs if you've ever seen a knitted piece or you think of your grandma knitting a specific kind of like a beanie or whatever you're able to create these patterns within this lattice of knits and that's the same way that seamless production is done and that's what allows you to create these different sections within the product if you look at a pair of leggings that have a seamless knit through out where you have different patterns different textures maybe some perforations all that is done on the same tube and it's done as you go along it's programmed into the computer to tell the machine as it goes from point A to point B to change into this specific weave to create this specific pattern to create this density of knits and overall you end up with a fairy making fluid looking product if you think of the ship shark ombre leggings where they have this gradient to the fat going from the ankles to the thigh area that is achieved not by dipping those items into a certain dye but essentially it's achieved by knitting that color and creating that color as you go along and gradually changing up those yarns to create different colors and hues and saturations and that is what creates the final product that flexibility is unparalleled and it's one of the only ways to get certain types of effect is through seamless production you can get a really really technical law at the same time because seamless garments are made in such a controlled way the variety or the variance between product and product when you're looking at quality control is minimized each machine creates a one garment at a time and it cuts out the human factor as much as possible and because of that you're going to have a lot less mistakes on the garment as the Machine knits it you're able to and you're able to look at the garment and make your decision on whether a mistake has been made and pass it off as opposed to your main cut so production where you have garments being made on the line and everything's being done in batches and it's inspected at the end you have a lot more room for error on that front at the same time we also have to consider the lower lead time because far less product or production processes are required in seamless production you end up with a much faster lead time typically is a rule of thumb you'll be looking at around 30 to 40% faster lead times which is going to lead to an overall faster production to selling schedule which is awesome when you have a business that's constantly moving and you're looking to product more and more products on a faster scale we'll also look at the overall quality and durability of seamless comments because of that lack of variance and quality control where you end up with our products are a lot more durable or products that hold up and products that just work so with seamless production you're getting a lot of pros and the overall polish and finish of the garment and in most productions that we see active wear and sportswear they use Santoni machines that really allow you to do different things that have not been able before for for instance what am i referring to if you look at a seamless pair of light exposures or you see that the main body has different knits in weaves and that main body part actually blends seamlessly into your waistband area and seamless production allows you to continuously change up the knit from your main body part to the waistband and create a more thicker and compressive fabric so without having to cut and sew a double layer any of those parts you're able to achieve a single swoop of knit to basically cover all of your faces and that's something that is almost impossible with any other type of production in the console space so despite the many probes that we've seen there are some cons and a lot of those have to do with the advanced nature of seamless production seamless machines such as the Santoni machines are a lot more expensive so they're an upfront investment which means that only certain facilities will be able to offer these types of products it's not something that you're going to be able to source locally or you want to be able to source in certain areas of the world you have to go to very specific regions and locations and what that also means are because of their more advanced nature you need higher skilled labor to operate the machinery there's a higher upfront cost to operating the machinery which leads to higher prices and higher minimums that are required of the customer of the brand purchasing the product which means that it's not really a product that you can get into from a starting position which is unfortunate because it does afford you a ton of the design the color and a lot of just good quality products that you're able to offer to your customer base so that higher upfront cost leads to higher and moku's which makes it a not very accessible item for a lot of startup businesses and at the same time because of the nature of how one garment is knitted and wants you and have to wait until the entire tube is finished the Knitting process what ends up happening is a simple thing like a small hole or a small defect in the mid process as it goes long the tube can end up having you to discard the entire garment it's not like with a cut so garments where maybe you have a mistake on the sleeve you're able to just discard that sleeve recut and you sleep portion and then reapply it so you end up with a potential for higher wastage but that is accounted for with the much better fabric consumption those are pretty much the main items that you might look at or the main drawbacks that you might look at for seamless production but my opinion there's a lot more pros and there's a lot more areas that you can really benefit sometimes with seamless garments they're not quite aesthetically applicable to certain situations for instance in outerwear we need a lot more structured garments garments that are layered you might not want to have a seamless garment which is going to be a lot more flexible it's going to feel a lot more like a second skin a lot more readable because of the knit structure you may want a woven fabric and if you want to know the difference between knitted and woven fabrics check out our video we've done it and I'm sure you guys will enjoy any actor who describes the major differences between both types of fabric production knitted fabrics or woven fabrics hopefully you guys have learned a thing or two about seamless products seamless production you can see where you'd be able to apply those products and if it is suitable for you depending on where your brand is at it's always an absolute pleasure to bring topics like this for you guys if you have any other topics that you want to hear about any other production methods or any other types of products that you see in the active words sports were urban where space do feel free to leave it in the comments below it's always a pleasure to interact with you guys and to bring you guys content that you want to see so thank you for tuning in to the awesome food design TV until next time guys stay awesome.