This page is for anyone at a garment factory who must plan which tests an order needs and follow their results: a merchandiser, a production manager, or a quality controller. A buyer's order does not only specify a colour, a size range, and a delivery date. It also specifies a set of laboratory tests the fabric or the finished garment must pass before the goods can ship. These tests fall into two families: physical tests, which measure how a fabric or garment behaves under wear, washing, and handling, such as its strength or how much it shrinks; and chemical tests, which check for substances in the fabric or dye that could harm the wearer or breach a law in the buyer's country. This lesson is chiefly about the information flow of an order: knowing which tests apply, and reading their names correctly, before a single test is booked. Without this knowledge, a factory can send fabric or garments for the wrong tests, miss a required test entirely, or discover late that a test result the buyer needs was never requested, each of which can delay a shipment that a testing lab cannot rush.
You need: no previous lesson. This is the first lesson of Course T09-C03.
By the end of this lesson you can:
Not covered here: how colour fastness and shrinkage tests work in detail and what a failed result means (Lesson 3.2, next); reading a completed test lab report line by line (Lesson 3.3); what happens when a test fails close to shipment (Lesson 3.4); and building a complete testing tracker for an order (Lesson 3.5).
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Physical test | A test that measures how a fabric or garment behaves under wear, washing, or handling. |
| Chemical test | A test that checks a fabric, dye, or trim for a substance that could harm the wearer. |
| Colour fastness | A rating for how well a fabric's dye resists fading or bleeding, usually stated as a numeric grade in a report's colour fastness section. |
| Shrinkage test | A test measuring how much a fabric shrinks after washing or wet processing. |
| Tensile strength | The pulling force a fabric bears in a straight line before it tears. |
| Seam strength | The pulling force a sewn seam bears before its stitches break or the fabric tears along the stitch line. |
| Pilling | Small balls of loose fibre forming on a knitted garment's surface from wear friction. |
| Restricted substances test | A chemical test that checks for banned or limited substances against a named standard. |
| Independent testing lab | A third-party laboratory that performs these tests and issues a report both sides can rely on. |
A buyer's tech pack lists a testing requirement alongside its measurement spec and its bill of materials: a named set of tests the fabric, and later the finished garment, must pass. These tests split into two families. Physical tests measure how the fabric or garment performs in ordinary use: colour fastness to washing, rubbing, and light; shrinkage after washing; tensile strength and seam strength; and pilling. Chemical tests check what is actually in the fabric or dye: a restricted substances test looks for substances such as certain azo dyes or formaldehyde that a standard like OEKO-TEX or REACH limits or bans, because these substances can harm the wearer or breach a law in the buyer's country. A physical test answers "will this fall apart, fade, or shrink in normal use?" A chemical test answers "is there something in this fabric that should not be there at all?" Neither family replaces the other, and an order's testing requirement is not complete until both are covered.
| What can differ | The shapes you meet | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Which stage the test runs at | Some tests, such as colour fastness and restricted substances, are usually run on fabric before cutting; others, such as seam strength, need a sewn sample or a finished garment. | Running a test at the wrong stage can mean a real defect is found only after cutting or sewing, when it is far more expensive to fix. |
| Export order vs. domestic order | An export order, such as Delta Garments' Order A for Northline Apparel, usually names an international standard and an independent lab in its tech pack; a domestic order for a local brand may specify fewer tests or accept the factory's own in-house check for some of them. | A factory cannot assume a domestic order needs the same full test set as an export order; each buyer's tech pack states its own requirement. |
| Make to Order (MTO) vs. Make to Stock (MTS) | An MTO export order tests one confirmed fabric lot for one buyer before that lot ships; an MTS domestic order may test a fabric or garment style once and then reuse that result across repeat production runs of the same style. | An MTS brand that skips retesting a repeat run risks shipping stock against a test result from a different fabric lot that may no longer be accurate. |
| Knit fabric vs. woven fabric | A knit fabric, such as Order A's single jersey, and a woven fabric, such as denim, are both tested for shrinkage and colour fastness, but a knit is also commonly checked for pilling in a way a tightly woven fabric may not need. | Applying a knit-specific test to a woven fabric, or the reverse, wastes lab time on a test that does not answer the buyer's real question for that fabric. |
| Socks, terry, and home-textile product families | Hosiery, terry towelling, and bedding fabrics are checked against the same core categories, colour fastness, shrinkage, and restricted substances, though a towel adds absorbency as an extra physical property some buyers test. | The same testing logic this lesson teaches applies beyond basic apparel; only the extra, product-specific tests change. |
Delta Garments is producing Order A, 15,000 pieces of a basic cotton T-shirt in single jersey 180 GSM, for Northline Apparel, the export buyer that pays by letter of credit at shipment. Northline Apparel's tech pack for Order A states a testing requirement covering colour fastness to washing, rubbing, and light; shrinkage after washing; seam strength; and a restricted substances test against Northline Apparel's own chemical standard. Mona, the merchandiser at Delta Garments, must book every one of these tests with an independent testing lab, at the right stage, before Order A's fabric is committed to cutting. Skipping even one named test does not make the requirement smaller; it means the order ships without evidence the buyer's tech pack requires.
The worked numberNo cost figure is fixed for this lesson; the worked number is the count and shape of Order A's own testing requirement, exactly as its tech pack states it.
Six separate test lines, drawn from only two families, is Order A's whole testing requirement. Missing even one line, for example forgetting the restricted substances test because it is the only chemical line among five physical ones, still leaves the order without a complete, shippable test result.
The methodA common mistake is assuming that a fabric with no visible or physical fault, no fading, no obvious shrinkage, needs no chemical testing at all. A restricted substances test does not check how the fabric looks or feels; it checks what is actually in the fibre or the dye, a fact no amount of handling the fabric can reveal. A fabric can pass every physical test, colour fastness, shrinkage, and strength, and still fail a restricted substances test, because the two families check entirely different kinds of risk. Treating "it feels fine" as evidence against a chemical requirement leaves an order exposed to a failure that only a laboratory, not a hand, can catch.
Before a buyer's fabric or garment order can ship, it has to pass a set of lab tests. These tests split into two groups. One group checks how the fabric or garment behaves when it is worn, washed, or handled: does the colour fade or rub off, does it shrink, is it strong enough, does it pill. The other group checks what is actually inside the fabric or the dye: is there a harmful chemical that should not be there. A fabric can look and feel completely fine and still fail this second kind of test, because you cannot see or feel a chemical problem. Before cutting starts, someone at the factory has to read the buyer's tech pack, list every test it names, sort each one into the right group, and book it with an outside lab in time for the result to come back before it is needed.
Delta Garments is about to cut fabric for Order A, 15,000 pieces for Northline Apparel, the export buyer paying by letter of credit at shipment.
The tech pack line Mona is checking against, exactly as written:
Is booking only the washing test enough to satisfy this tech pack line? Decide before you open the decision.
No. The tech pack line names three separate colour fastness tests, to washing, to rubbing, and to light, each rated and reported separately; passing one does not stand in for the other two.
The two facts that decide this are the tech pack's own wording, "each rated and reported separately," and the fact that washing, rubbing, and light each test a different kind of dye failure. Mona should book the rubbing and light tests immediately, alongside the seam strength test once a sewn sample exists, so all six lines are complete before Order A's fabric is committed to cutting.
This lesson's cost is framed by delay risk rather than one fixed figure, because a missing test's cost depends on how late it is found. If Delta Garments discovers, after Order A's fabric is already cut, that colour fastness to rubbing was never tested, the factory faces two costs: paying for an expedited retest at the independent testing lab, and holding already-cut fabric until the result returns, both of which threaten Order A's fixed schedule of 16 weeks total and its port cut-off on day 13 of that schedule. Booking all six test lines at the fabric stage, before cutting, costs only the lab's normal fee and a few days of lead time, a fraction of an expedited retest with cut fabric already committed and waiting.
This course's testing tracker records one row per test: its name, the standard or method used, the sample stage it needs, the buyer's required result, the actual lab result, the date tested, and the result. Order A's six test lines each get their own row before cutting starts. [Download the tracker](templates/T09-C03-testing-tracker.xlsx).
| Test name | Sample stage | Booked? |
|---|---|---|
| Colour fastness to washing | Fabric | Yes |
| Colour fastness to rubbing | Fabric | Not yet |
| Colour fastness to light | Fabric | Not yet |
| Shrinkage test | Fabric | Yes |
| Seam strength | Finished garment | Pending sewn sample |
| Restricted substances | Fabric | Yes |
1. What are the two families every garment order's testing requirement splits into?
2. A fabric shows no fading, no shrinkage, and feels normal by hand. Does this mean it will pass a restricted substances test?
3. A new order for socks lists colour fastness, shrinkage, and restricted substances in its tech pack, with no seam strength line. Should the factory add a seam strength test anyway?
| EN | AR | FR | TR | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Physical test | اختبار فيزيائي | Essai physique | Fiziksel test | A test that measures how a fabric or garment behaves under wear, washing, or handling, such as its strength or how much it shrinks. |
| Chemical test | اختبار كيميائي | Essai chimique | Kimyasal test | A test that checks a fabric, dye, or trim for a substance that could harm the wearer or breach a law in the buyer's country. |
| Colour fastness | ثبات اللون | Solidité des couleurs | Renk haslığı | A rating for how well a fabric's dye resists fading or transferring onto other surfaces, tested separately for washing, rubbing, and light. |
| Shrinkage test | اختبار الانكماش | Test de rétrécissement | Çekme testi | A test measuring how much a fabric shrinks after washing or wet processing. |
| Tensile strength | قوة الشد | Résistance à la traction | Çekme mukavemeti | The pulling force a fabric bears in a straight line before it tears. |
| Seam strength | قوة الغرزة (الدرزة) | Résistance de la couture | Dikiş mukavemeti | The pulling force a sewn seam bears before its stitches break or the fabric tears along the stitch line. |
| Pilling | التكرّش (البيلينغ) | Boulochage (pilling) | Boncuklanma (pilling) | Small balls of loose fibre forming on a knitted garment's surface from wear friction. |
| Restricted substances test | اختبار المواد المقيدة | Essai de substances réglementées | Kısıtlı madde testi | A chemical test that checks for banned or limited substances, such as certain azo dyes or formaldehyde, against a standard such as OEKO-TEX or REACH. |
| Independent testing lab | مختبر اختبار مستقل | Laboratoire d'essai indépendant | Bağımsız test laboratuvarı | A third-party laboratory, not owned by the factory or the buyer, that performs these tests and issues a report both sides can rely on. |
This lesson named every main test category a fabric or garment order goes through. The next lesson goes deeper into the two tests a factory meets most often, colour fastness and shrinkage, and what a failed result on either one means for an order. Back to the course map