Lingerie today has ceased to be the traditional basic piece of essential garment and has entered into a more functional, aesthetic phase with huge complexities in such small sizes. In such a scenario, what are the factors one should keep in mind that is both efficient and cost-effective?

2. CONCEPT
• Lingerie - an attractive, innovative and functional innerwear and
intimate clothing for women, with styles and categories .
• With such a level of complexity and such small sizes of the garment, the
cutting process in lingerie manufacturing is complicated.
• Along with cutting, assessing the fabric consumption is also complex for
lingerie, due to the multiple shapes and sizes involved.

3. Order quantity - Sets
• Most of the time, lingerie order quantity is in
sets.
• Bras and panties are manufactured in sets,
rather than a single garment of the two being
manufactured independently.
• Thus the patterns of both have to be cut
together. In some cases where there is a part
set order, then the sets will be cut together, and
then independent pieces will be cut separately,
using the fabric leftover post cutting the sets.

4. Pattern Sizes
• Bra-sizing: the x-axis has the band size, and the y-axis has the cup sizes.
The matrix thus created has all the sizes.
• The pattern surface area is a function of both band and cup size, thus it
doesn’t ensure that a bra with band size larger, like 34B, necessarily has
biggest pattern surface area than 32D size.
• Pattern sizes being very small, any variation in the sizes and shapes or
specifically pattern surface area cannot be visually determined.

5. Pattern Sizes

6. Material Consumption
• In industry, garment’s fabric consumption is generally calculated in yards or
meters, but since in lingerie consumption varies in centimetres, yards and meter
are not the right units of measure.
• To simply consumption calculations dozens are used, i.e. the consumption per
dozen of the garment.
• Since the size is so small for all the patterns, we get a large number of splice
points in the marker, from which a limited number of splice points are selected
ensuring minimum overlap and spread throughout the lay.
• Mostly, face to face laying is used in lingerie cutting, so both the left and the
right parts of a garment are cut together, as they are mirror images of each other.

7. Material Consumption
• Since many small parts with no specific visual distinction are there, the chances
of size mixing during bundling is high, thus instead of a garment, the whole
stack is taken and the left and right being in single stack helps in bundling.
• Fabric consumption:
• The marker stating point on the table (the lay end away from the roll) is
considered the zero point .
• The plies facing each other are considered as one ply of double the length
of the lay
• the nap direction in face to face laying is kept same

8. Machinery
• Many materials are involved in
manufacturing lingerie, and thus different
kinds of machinery are needed to cut
different material.
• This situation escalates especially when
moulded cups have to be cut, as a round
shape has to be obtained from a flat fabric.
• Moulding material is cut into rectangular
shapes for the moulding machine, and
based on the machine requirements; the
size of the rectangle is kept consistent for a
large array of sizes.

9. Order handling - Parts Mixing
• Lingerie can be categorized as the garment having multiple small parts,
using varied fabrics and materials, and above all having many sub-
categories.
• The consumption in each category differs, and thus the way each sub-
category cutting is managed on floor is different from the other.
• In lingerie cutting, rather than saving end bits for part changes, splicing
is preferred, as for pattern size as small as this, laying down small end
bits and cutting small parts from them is a very tedious task.
• With so many small patterns in the marker, many splice points can be
created, which further can help in minimizing end bits generation.

10. For an elaborate insight on the topic, visit
www.stitchdiary.com