DEFINING FASHION: CMT

Welcome back to Defining Fashion, let’s decode another industry term.

Today: CMT, or Cut Make Trim.

Cut, Make, Trim is a fashion production term that you might hear if you work for a brand, in design, in production and logistics or want to build your own brand. It refers to the most common form of garment production - where after the design studio draws up their designs and puts together a ‘tech pack’ describing what they need, the production is handed over to a CMT factory who actually construct the pieces.

Generally speaking CMT factories work with smaller batches (eg. 300 cuts of an item for your small business) and make good quality products with precise cutting, attention to detail and communicative relationships with their brands.

What they do is pretty self explanatory:

Cutting the fabric based on the pattern provided.

Actually making the garment and stitching it all together.

Then adding the trimmings - buttons, zips, labels, and decorative trims too.

Is every factory CMT?

No - Some factories are FPP (Full-package production) which means that they also take care of the whole product development process, selecting and sourcing fabrics all the way through manufacture and up to final shipping.

So there you go - go into your next design job interview with a bunch of insightful questions about their production choices, or make more informed decisions about your own production plans.