Apparel Industry Glossary
Apparel manufacturing has a vocabulary of its own, and it trips up a lot of first-time brand founders. A supplier quotes a price "FOB Shanghai" and a founder isn't sure if that's the full landed cost. A factory offers "CMT" pricing and it's unclear what that leaves out. These aren't small misunderstandings. Pricing terms, production models, and role titles all carry specific meanings in this industry, and getting them wrong can throw off a budget or a timeline before production even starts.
This glossary covers the terms that come up most often in conversations with manufacturers, sourcing agents, and pattern makers. Inniss Pearl Group is a design and manufacturing team based in Vancouver, with production ties in Los Angeles and New York, and these are the terms our own team uses daily across sourcing, manufacturing, and cut-and-sew production.
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Industry Glossary
Los Angeles — New York
FOB (Free on Board)
FOB is a pricing term that shows up on nearly every manufacturing quote. It means the price quoted covers the product up to the point it's loaded onto a shipping vessel or aircraft at the origin port. Once it's on board, responsibility and cost shift to the buyer, including freight, insurance, customs, and duties.
A quote of "$8 FOB Shanghai" means $8 gets a unit onto a ship in Shanghai. Everything after that, ocean freight, import duties, trucking to a warehouse, is a separate cost the buyer needs to budget for. Founders new to sourcing sometimes mistake an FOB price for a landed cost, which leads to budgets that come up short once shipping and duties are added.
CIF (Cost, Insurance, and Freight)
CIF is another shipping term, and it's often confused with FOB. Under a CIF quote, the seller's price covers the cost of the goods, insurance during transit, and freight to the destination port named in the agreement.
The buyer still typically handles customs clearance, duties, and inland transport once the goods arrive at the destination port. CIF can look like a simpler number to work with since freight is bundled in, but it's worth confirming exactly which port the quote covers and what happens after arrival, since that's where CIF responsibility ends.
[ Production Models ]
CMT vs. OEM vs. Full Package
These three terms describe how much a factory takes on, and each one shifts a different set of responsibilities, and costs, onto the brand.
CMT (Cut, Make, Trim)
The factory only cuts, sews, and trims the garment. The brand supplies the fabric, trims, and often the pattern. CMT gives a brand the most control over materials, but requires the brand to manage sourcing separately.
OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer)
The factory produces a garment to the brand's specifications, often handling sourcing and materials in addition to cutting and sewing. The brand still owns the design and tech pack.
Full Package (FPP)
The manufacturer handles everything from design development through sourcing, production, and sometimes packaging. This is the model closest to how Inniss Pearl works with most brands.
Couture vs. Bespoke
These two terms both signal a made-to-measure, highly customized approach, but they come from different traditions and mean slightly different things.
Couture, and specifically haute couture, is a legally protected term in France, reserved for a small number of fashion houses that meet strict criteria set by the Chambre de Syndicale. Couture garments are made entirely by hand, to an individual client's exact measurements, using significant hand-finishing and embellishment.
Bespoke traditionally refers to made-to-measure tailoring, most associated with British menswear and Savile Row. A bespoke garment is built from scratch for one person, based on their own pattern, rather than adjusted from an existing block. Both terms describe custom, individually made garments, but neither describes how most apparel brands, including the founders we typically work with, actually produce and sell clothing at scale.
Wholesale vs. Retail
Wholesale and retail describe two different ways a brand sells product, and they carry different pricing structures. Wholesale means selling in bulk to another business, typically a boutique or retailer, at a discounted per-unit price. The retailer then marks the product up and sells it to the end customer.
Retail means selling directly to the end customer, whether through a brand's own website, a physical store, or a direct-to-consumer channel. Retail pricing is what the final customer actually pays.
A brand's cost sheet needs to account for which model, or mix of both, it's building toward, since a wholesale price typically needs to leave enough margin for a retailer's markup on top of it. This is one of the pricing decisions we help founders think through in our guide on how to start a clothing brand.
Costing Sheet
A costing sheet is the document that breaks down every cost that goes into producing a single unit of a garment. It typically itemizes fabric cost, trims, labor, packaging, freight, and factory overhead or margin, adding up to a total cost per unit at a given order quantity.
A costing sheet is what turns a design idea into a real business decision. It's also the tool that lets a brand compare quotes from different manufacturers on an apples-to-apples basis, since a lower total price can sometimes hide a missing line item, like trims or packaging, that gets added back in later. Costing sheets are typically finalized once a tech pack is locked, since fabric and construction details drive most of the per-unit cost.
Seamstress vs. Tailor
Both roles work with garments, but the scope of the work is different. A seamstress typically sews pre-cut pieces together, following a pattern, and may also handle alterations and repairs. The work is focused on construction and assembly.
A tailor's work usually goes further, including drafting or adjusting a pattern to fit an individual body, and often making structural decisions about how a garment should be built for a specific fit. Historically, "tailor" also carried a menswear association, though the term is now used more broadly.
In a manufacturing context, most factory-floor sewing work is closer to the seamstress role, done at scale by trained machine operators, while pattern making and fit adjustments sit with pattern makers and technical designers, roles our design and development team handles directly.
Why These Terms Matter
None of these terms are academic. A misread FOB quote throws off a launch budget. Confusing CMT with full package pricing leads a founder to expect sourcing help a factory was never going to provide. Not knowing the difference between wholesale and retail pricing can leave a brand with margins too thin to survive a retailer relationship.
Vocabulary is a small thing to get right compared to design and fit, but it's often the first filter a manufacturer uses to gauge how prepared a founder is. Coming into a first conversation with a factory or sourcing agent already fluent in these terms tends to lead to more direct, more useful conversations, and fewer costly surprises later. For a broader walkthrough of the decisions these terms feed into, our guide on how to start a clothing brand covers the full process from idea to launch.
FAQs
What does FOB mean in a manufacturing quote?
FOB, or Free on Board, means the quoted price covers the product up to the point it's loaded onto a ship or plane at the origin port. Freight, insurance, duties, and inland transport after that point are separate costs the buyer covers.
What's the difference between FOB and CIF?
FOB pricing ends once goods are loaded onto a vessel at the origin port. CIF pricing includes the cost of the goods plus insurance and freight to a named destination port, though the buyer usually still handles customs and inland transport from there.
What is CMT in clothing manufacturing?
CMT stands for Cut, Make, Trim. It's a production model where the factory only cuts and sews the garment, while the brand supplies the fabric, trims, and pattern separately.
What's the difference between CMT, OEM, and full package manufacturing?
CMT means the factory only cuts and sews, using materials the brand supplies. OEM means the factory produces to the brand's specs and often sources materials too. Full package means the manufacturer handles everything from design development through sourcing and production.
Is couture the same as custom-made clothing?
Not exactly. Haute couture is a legally protected term in France reserved for a small number of fashion houses meeting strict criteria, involving significant hand-finishing. "Custom-made" is a broader, informal term that can describe many kinds of made-to-order clothing.
What's the difference between wholesale and retail pricing?
Wholesale pricing is what a brand charges another business, like a boutique, buying in bulk at a discounted rate. Retail pricing is what the end customer pays, after the retailer marks the product up.
What is a costing sheet used for?
A costing sheet itemizes every cost that goes into producing one unit of a garment, including fabric, trims, labor, packaging, and freight. It's used to set pricing, compare manufacturer quotes, and confirm a product will be profitable.
What's the difference between a seamstress and a tailor?
A seamstress typically sews pre-cut pieces together and handles alterations. A tailor's work usually includes drafting or adjusting a pattern to fit an individual body, going beyond assembly into structural fit decisions.
What does bespoke mean in fashion?
Bespoke traditionally refers to made-to-measure tailoring, historically associated with Savile Row menswear. A bespoke garment is built from an individual pattern created for one specific person, rather than adjusted from an existing block.
Why do these manufacturing terms matter for a new brand founder?
Misreading pricing or production terms can throw off a launch budget or lead to unexpected gaps in what a manufacturer actually provides. Understanding these terms upfront leads to clearer conversations with factories and fewer costly surprises during production.
Have a Term We Didn't Cover?
This glossary covers terms that come up most often with new brand founders, but the industry has plenty more. If you're mid-conversation with a supplier and something doesn't add up, or you're ready to start scoping a production run of your own, our team is happy to walk through it with you. Explore how we approach production from first sketch through delivery in how to start a clothing brand or reach out directly.
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