Glossary

Uniform fabric, term by term.

The vocabulary that turns up on spec sheets, quotations and tender documents, defined in a line or two. Where a term deserves more than that, it links to the guide that covers it properly.

A

AATCC: The American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists, whose numbered test methods are widely cited in tender specifications alongside ISO ones. Like any method body, it defines the procedure and the reporting scale, not the pass mark, which the buyer sets.
AATCC 100: A quantitative anti-bacterial test reporting percent or log reduction in a named organism after a stated contact time. The organism and the contact time have to be printed with the result, or the percentage means nothing. Read the guide
AATCC 124: The American test method for smoothness appearance after home laundering. The washed specimen is graded against six three-dimensional replicas rated 1, 2, 3, 3.5, 4 and 5, where 5 is perfectly smooth and 1 is heavily wrinkled. It is the number behind a durable press or easy-care claim. Read the guide
AATCC 135: The American method for dimensional change in home laundering, with its own set of wash and dry options. A requirement written against it should state which of those options applies, and the limit should be given as two numbers, warp and weft. Read the guide
AATCC 20A: The American test method for quantitative fibre analysis, the AATCC counterpart to ISO 1833. Buyers accept either where a blend ratio has to be proved on paper. Read the guide
AATCC 76: The American test method for the electrical surface resistivity of a fabric, which is the number behind an anti-static claim. It is measured on conditioned cloth, so the humidity the test ran at matters as much as the result. Read the guide
Abrasion resistance: How well a fabric withstands rubbing before its surface breaks down. It is the property that decides whether a uniform still looks presentable after a year of wear rather than only after a wash. Read the guide
Accredited laboratory: A testing laboratory whose competence for named methods has been assessed by an accreditation body, which is what makes its report acceptable to a tender committee or a certification scheme. We weave in-house and run dyeing, finishing and testing through partnered processing houses rather than an accredited laboratory of our own, so where a programme needs a physical-strength number on record it comes from an independent laboratory. Read the guide
Air permeability: How readily air passes through a fabric under a set pressure difference, measured by a laboratory method rather than judged by hand. It contributes to what a wearer calls breathability but is not the whole of it, since moisture movement matters as much as airflow. Read the guide
amfori BSCI: An audit methodology against a code of conduct, run by the amfori business association. Like SMETA it produces a dated audit report and rating rather than a certificate, so the questions worth asking are when the audit was done, which site it covered and what findings remain open. Read the guide
Anti-microbial finish: A chemical treatment applied at finishing that slows bacterial growth on the fabric surface, mainly to control odour and staining between washes. It is rated for a number of wash cycles rather than being a permanent property, so the specification should state how many. Applied at the processing house, not at the loom. Read the guide
Anti-static finish: A finish applied at the processing stage that lets static charge dissipate instead of building up on a synthetic fabric. It is specified for electronics, petrochemical and cleanroom workwear, and it is a finish rather than a fibre property, so it fades with laundering unless the fabric carries a conductive grid. Read the guide
ASTM: ASTM International, a standards body whose textile test methods are widely cited in specifications, particularly in North American buying. It sits alongside ISO and AATCC methods, and a specification should always name which body's method applies, since results from different methods for the same property are not interchangeable. Read the guide

B

Bid security: A deposit or declaration submitted with a tender bid, returned when the tender is awarded or the bid rejected, and forfeited if the bidder withdraws or refuses the award. Also called earnest money deposit or EMD. Read the guide
Bill of lading: The carrier's document of title for a sea shipment. The line releases the container against a delivery order, and issues that only once the bill of lading has been surrendered, so a delay in getting it from the mill or through the banks holds the cargo while the free days are already running. Read the guide
BIS: The Bureau of Indian Standards, India's national standards body. It writes the IS documents that tender specifications cite, runs the ISI certification mark scheme, and is the certifying authority under Quality Control Orders that make certain product standards compulsory. Read the guide
Bleaching: A preparation step that removes natural colour and residual impurities before dyeing or before a white is finished. Oxygen bleach is the safe route on blends; chlorine bleach degrades the fibre and sets yellowing rather than clearing it. Read the guide
Blend ratio: The proportion of each fiber in a fabric, written as percentages such as 65/35 or 70/30. It drives handle, cost, shrinkage and how the fabric takes dye. Read the guide
Blue wool scale: The 1 to 8 scale used to rate light fastness, where each step represents roughly twice the exposure of the one below. It is a different scale from the 1 to 5 grey scale used for wash and rubbing fastness, and the two are often confused on spec sheets. Read the guide
Bowing: A finishing fault where the weft yarns curve across the fabric instead of running square to the selvedge. It is most visible on checks and stripes, where the pattern reads as sagging in the middle. Read the guide
Breathability: How readily a fabric lets air and water vapour pass through it, which is what decides whether a uniform feels stifling in heat. It is a function of fibre, yarn and how tightly the cloth is set, not of a finish. Read the guide
Buffer stock: Extra fabric held beyond the calculated requirement to absorb size-mix variation, cutting wastage and late additions. Ordered with the main batch it stays in the same dye lot; ordered later it may not, which is the whole argument for planning it up front. Read the guide
Bulk approval: The buyer's sign-off on a cutting taken from the actual production lot, given before the lot is despatched. It is the last checkpoint after the lab dip and the pre-production sample, and it approves the delivered cloth rather than a representation of it. Read the guide
Bulk lot: The full production batch dyed and finished against an approved shade, as opposed to the lab dip or trial length that came before it. Shade is judged lot to lot, so the bulk lot is what a reorder has to match. Read the guide
Burn test: A rough field check on fibre content, where a small snippet is burned and the flame behaviour, smell and residue are read: polyester melts to a hard bead, viscose burns like paper to a soft ash. It indicates a blend rather than measuring it, so it settles an argument at a counter, not a specification. Read the guide

C

Calendering: A finishing process where fabric is passed between heated rollers under pressure, flattening the surface and closing it up. It makes a cloth smoother and more opaque than its construction alone would be, and some of that effect relaxes over the first few washes. Read the guide
Call-off: A drawdown against a larger agreed quantity, where the buyer books the total meters up front and takes delivery in parts through the year. It holds one shade and one specification across a program without taking all the fabric at once. Read the guide
Carded yarn: Yarn spun after carding only, so it still contains the short fibers. It is cheaper than combed yarn, slightly hairier in handle, and more prone to pilling. Read the guide
CBM: Cubic metre, the volume measure freight is quoted and containers are planned in. Fabric rolls are bulky rather than heavy, so a shipment usually reaches a container's volume limit long before its weight limit. Read the guide
CEPA: Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, a bilateral trade agreement covering goods, services and investment. India has one with the UAE; it applies to that country alone and does not extend to the other Gulf Cooperation Council states.
Certificate of conformity: A document issued under a destination country's own standards regime confirming that a product has been assessed against the applicable technical regulation before import. It is separate from a certificate of origin, which is about country of manufacture and duty, and separate from a buyer's own pre-dispatch inspection, which exists because the contract asked for it. Read the guide
Certificate of origin: A document certifying the country where goods were produced, issued by an authorised chamber or agency and presented at import. It is what a preferential duty claim under a trade agreement is built on, alongside the product specific rule that decides whether the goods qualify. Read the guide
CFR: Cost and Freight, also written informally as CNF or C&F. The mill pays sea freight to the destination port but not insurance, so the buyer arranges cover for the voyage separately. Only CFR is the official Incoterms spelling. Read the guide
Chain of custody: The documented trail showing that certified material stayed certified at every step from fibre to finished cloth. A content claim such as recycled polyester is only verifiable where the chain of custody is documented, which is why the certificate is held per supply chain rather than per fabric. Read the guide
Chambray: A plain-weave fabric woven with a coloured warp and a white weft, which gives it a soft mottled surface. Common in shirting, and often mistaken for denim, which is a twill. Read the guide
Chlorine bleach: Sodium hypochlorite bleach, used in institutional laundries to whiten and disinfect. On polyester and poly-viscose it does not whiten and can leave yellowing over repeated cycles, and it attacks elastane and many dyes. Oxygen bleach is the safer choice for coloured or blended uniforms. Read the guide
CIE whiteness: A single number describing how white a cloth measures under a stated illuminant, normally D65. Specify a tint tolerance with it, because two cloths can measure at the same whiteness and still lean visibly pink or green. Read the guide
CIF: Cost, Insurance and Freight. The mill pays both sea freight and insurance to the destination port. Import duty and inland transport at the destination remain with the buyer. Read the guide
Collar band: The narrow strip of cloth that joins a shirt collar to the neckline and carries the top button. It is usually fused and takes more strain than the collar leaf, so it is a common place for a shirting to fail before the body does. Read the guide
Colour fastness: How well a fabric holds its colour against washing, light, rubbing and perspiration. Reported as a grade on a numbered scale rather than as a pass or fail. Read the guide
Combed yarn: Yarn spun after an extra combing step that removes the shortest fibers. Smoother, stronger for the same count and less prone to pilling than carded yarn, and more expensive. Read the guide
Composition: What a fabric is made of, by fiber and percentage. It is the first field on any spec sheet, because almost every other property follows from it. Read the guide
Conditioning: Holding fabric at a standard temperature and humidity before it is weighed or tested, so moisture in the air does not distort the result. It is why a GSM figure from a conditioned sample is not the same as one taken off a damp godown floor. Read the guide
Consent to operate: The permission a state pollution control board grants a unit to run, stating the process and capacity it covers and the conditions attached, including how effluent is handled. On fabric it is held by whoever does the wet processing rather than by the weaving mill, so the name and address on it matter as much as its existence. Read the guide
Consignment: One shipment of goods moving under a single set of documents, from one seller to one buyer. Fabric is inspected, invoiced and cleared consignment by consignment, so one order split across two dispatches is two consignments. Read the guide
Construction: How a fabric is built on the loom: the weave, the yarn counts and the number of yarns per unit width and length. Two fabrics of identical composition and weight can behave differently because of it. Read the guide
Counter sample: The mill's retained half of an approved reference, filed against the buyer's programme rather than against a single order. It is the copy that answers a dispute or a reorder placed years later by someone who was not part of the original approval. Read the guide
Cover factor: How much of a fabric's surface area the yarns actually occupy, driven by yarn thickness and by the ends and picks per inch. It, not GSM, is what decides whether a white or pale shirting shows through. Read the guide
Crease recovery: How well a fabric springs back after being folded or crushed, which is why a poly-viscose blend comes out of a shift looking flatter than a cotton-rich one. Resin finishes raise it, and usually cost some tensile strength and softness in exchange. Read the guide
Crimp: The waviness a yarn takes as it interlaces over and under the opposing yarns in a woven fabric. It is why a fabric always consumes more yarn than its flat dimensions suggest, and why a fabric relaxes and shortens slightly when tension comes off. Read the guide
Crocking: Colour transferring off a fabric when it is rubbed, either dry or wet. It usually points to unfixed surface dye rather than to the dye itself being weak. Read the guide
Customs broker: The licensed agent who files the import entry in the destination country on the buyer's behalf. The broker, not the mill, decides which origin form and which supporting documents a given entry needs, so a question about clearance paperwork is answered faster by asking them first and telling the mill the answer before the order runs. Read the guide
Customs notification: The instrument by which the Indian government sets or changes a duty rate, an exemption or a condition. A trade-press report of a duty change is not operative until the matching customs notification is issued.
Cuttable width: The usable fabric width once the selvedges are excluded. It is the figure that decides how many garment panels you get per metre, and it is always less than edge-to-edge width. Read the guide

D

D65: A standard daylight illuminant used in colour assessment, approximating average north-sky daylight. Shade approvals are judged under a stated illuminant such as D65 precisely so that two people in two places are looking at a colour under the same conditions. Read the guide
DDP: Delivered Duty Paid, the Incoterm where the seller carries every cost and risk to the buyer's named place, including import clearance and duty. It is the term that puts a moving import tariff on the seller's side of the line, which is why it should never be agreed into a market whose rate is unsettled without pricing that risk. Read the guide
Declaration of conformity: A statement signed by the manufacturer or supplier that a product meets the requirements of a named regulation or specification. It is the mill's own word rather than a third party's, which is why regulations that require one usually also require independent test reports behind it. Read the guide
Delta E: A single number expressing the measured difference between two colours, used alongside visual assessment in shade approval. A smaller value means a closer match. Read the guide
Demurrage: A charge for holding a container or cargo past the free days allowed. Internationally it means the full container sitting inside the terminal, while Indian port and container freight station tariffs use the same word for the custodian's cargo storage charge, so read the charge head against what it measures rather than against the word. Read the guide
Denier: A direct count system for filament yarn: the weight in grams of 9,000 metres of it. Higher denier means a thicker yarn, which is the opposite direction to the Ne count used for spun yarns, where a higher number means finer. Read the guide
Denim: A warp-faced twill woven with a dyed warp and an undyed weft, which is what gives it a coloured face and a pale back. It is a construction rather than a fabric category, so denim says nothing on its own about weight, blend or finish. Read the guide
Desizing: The wet-processing step that washes out the size applied to warp yarns before weaving, so that dye and finish can reach the fibre evenly. Incomplete desizing shows up later as patchy dyeing or stiff streaks.
Detention: The shipping line's charge for a container held outside the terminal in the consignee's possession past the free days, running until the empty container is returned to the line's nominated depot. It is billed separately from any storage charge raised by the terminal or container freight station. Read the guide
Digital product passport: An EU requirement for a machine-readable record of a product's composition, origin and environmental attributes, accessible from the product itself. For an Indian fabric exporter it means the data behind a claim has to exist in a structured form, not only in a test report. Read the guide
Dimensional stability: How well a fabric holds its length and width after washing. Usually specified as a maximum permitted shrinkage percentage after a stated wash cycle. Read the guide
Disperse dye: The dye class used for polyester, applied as a fine dispersion at high temperature because polyester has no sites for water-soluble dyes to bond to. On a poly-viscose blend the polyester is dyed with disperse dyes and the viscose with another class, which is why a blend takes two dyeing stages to reach one shade. Read the guide
Dobby: A weave that uses a dobby mechanism on the loom to produce small repeating geometric figures in the cloth itself, rather than printing them on. It gives texture without added colour. Read the guide
Double rub: The unit of the Wyzenbeek abrasion test, one back-and-forth pass of the abradant across the specimen. Double rubs and Martindale cycles are not convertible, so a limit written in one cannot be evaluated against a result in the other. Read the guide
Double-width: A loom class that weaves cloth at roughly twice the width of a single-width machine, so one pick of the loom covers more fabric. It sets the widths a mill can offer and it is generally more efficient per metre on the same construction. Read the guide
Drape: How a fabric falls and folds under its own weight, from stiff and structured to soft and fluid. It is set by fibre, yarn twist, weave and finish more than by GSM alone, which is why two fabrics of the same weight can hang very differently. Suiting for blazers and trousers wants a controlled drape; shirting wants a softer one. Read the guide
Drill: A strong warp-faced twill, heavier and more tightly woven than a shirting twill, long used for workwear, security and institutional uniforms. Khaki drill is the form most Indian buyers mean when they say drill. Read the guide
Dry cleaning: Cleaning in an organic solvent rather than water. It moves oily soil well and barely swells the fibre, but a solvent bath carrying too much suspended soil can redeposit it and grey a dark cloth, and a topical water-repellent or soil-release finish usually needs reproofing afterwards. Read the guide
DTY: Draw Textured Yarn, polyester filament that has been drawn and texturised so it gains bulk, stretch and a less flat surface than flat filament. It is a direct input to polyester and poly-viscose suiting, so its price feeds through to fabric cost.
Durable press: A finish that sets a fabric's smooth appearance so it recovers from creasing through repeated washing rather than only when new. On shirting it is usually achieved with a resin treatment, which is why its performance and its side effects are discussed together. Read the guide
Dwell time: How long a material is held under heat and pressure for a process to complete, most often quoted for fusing an interlining to a collar or cuff. Too short and the bond fails in wash, too long and the face cloth shines or shrinks. Read the guide
Dye lot: One batch of fabric dyed together as a single unit. Fabric from the same lot matches; fabric from two lots of the same shade can differ slightly, which is why lot numbers matter on reorders. Read the guide
Dye recipe: The exact combination of dyestuffs, auxiliaries, temperature and time used to produce an approved shade. It is recorded against the approved lab dip so the same shade can be reproduced on a later lot. Read the guide

E

E-way bill: An electronically generated document that accompanies a consignment of goods above a threshold value while it is in transit, linking the shipment to its invoice. Read the guide
Easy care: A finish and construction combination intended to reduce ironing: the fabric creases less in wear and drops most of its creases after washing. It is a degree rather than an absolute, and it is usually traded against some tear strength and some handle. Read the guide
Effluent: The wastewater a wet-processing unit discharges after dyeing and finishing. It is treated either at the unit's own plant or at a shared plant serving a cluster, and it is a question about a facility rather than about the cloth. Read the guide
Elastane: A highly extensible synthetic fiber added in small proportions to give a woven fabric stretch and recovery. It is sensitive to chlorine bleach, which is why an elastane content needs checking against the laundry a uniform will actually go through.
EMD: Earnest money deposit: a refundable amount a tendering body requires with a bid, as a guarantee that the bidder is serious. The amount and terms are set in the tender document. Read the guide
EN 1149: The European standard series for the electrostatic properties of protective clothing. It measures the same property as the American methods and differs only in the document number, which is why a Gulf or European tender asks for it by name. Read the guide
EN ISO 11612: The European standard for protective clothing against heat and flame, for industrial wearers rather than firefighters. Compliance is rated by letter and level codes for convective, radiant, molten metal and contact heat, and is normally held at garment level rather than on a length of cloth. Read the guide
EN ISO 20471: The European standard for high-visibility clothing. It sets minimum areas of fluorescent background material and retroreflective tape by class, so compliance depends on the garment design and the tape as well as the base cloth. Read the guide
Ends and picks: Ends are the warp yarns running along the fabric length; picks are the weft yarns running across it. Counts of both per unit length describe how densely a fabric is woven. Read the guide
EPR: Extended Producer Responsibility: a regulatory scheme that makes the company placing textiles on a market pay for their collection and end-of-life handling, usually through a fee per item. The EU is extending it to textiles. The obligation falls on the importer or brand, but exporters get asked for fibre and weight data to support it. Read the guide
Export declaration: The declaration an exporter files with its own customs authority before goods leave the country, stating value, classification and quantity. In India it is the shipping bill filed with Indian Customs. It normally stays on the exporter's side of a transaction, because it exists to satisfy the exporting country's requirements rather than the buyer's. Read the guide
Exporter of record: The party that files the export declaration with the customs authority of the exporting country and is answerable for it. On an Indian fabric shipment that can be the mill, the mill's export arm, a merchant exporter, a trading house or a consolidator, and which one it is decides who actually holds the export paperwork for your consignment. Read the guide

F

Fabric yield: How many usable pattern pieces come out of a given length of fabric. Yield is always lower than length times width, because pieces have to be laid to the grain and around the pattern, and it is why a wider fabric can cost less per garment than a cheaper narrow one. Read the guide
Fastness grade: The numbered rating given to a colour fastness test result, assessed against a reference scale. A claim that a fabric is colour-fast means little without the grade and the test it refers to. Read the guide
FCL: Full Container Load, where the shipment fills a container booked for one consignee. It is priced per container rather than per cubic metre, which is why the cost per meter falls sharply once a consignment approaches a full container. Read the guide
Filament yarn: Yarn made from continuous strands rather than short fibres spun together, which is what staple yarn is. Filament gives a smoother, cooler, shinier cloth with little hairiness; staple gives a softer, more cotton-like handle and is what spun poly-viscose shirtings and suitings are built from. Read the guide
Finish: Any treatment applied to fabric after weaving and dyeing, from a basic wash and set to wrinkle resistance, water repellency or an anti-microbial treatment. Read the guide
Firm price: A price held for a stated quantity and period regardless of input movement in between, as distinct from a price quoted subject to confirmation at each call-off. On an annual plan it is what converts a rate into something a budget can rely on. Read the guide
Fit sample: A single garment stitched to check pattern and fit before a size set is made. It only tells you the truth if it is stitched from the approved fabric lot, since a substitute cloth drapes and shrinks differently. Read the guide
Float: A length of yarn that passes over two or more opposing yarns before interlacing again. Floats are what make a twill diagonal and give it drape, and they are also why a longer float snags more easily than a plain weave's one-over-one-under structure. Read the guide
FOB: Free On Board. The mill's responsibility ends once the fabric is loaded on the ship, and the buyer arranges freight and insurance from there. It does not cover import duty or inland transport at the destination. Read the guide
Forced labour: Work exacted from a person under threat of penalty and not offered voluntarily, following the definition in ILO Convention No. 29. It is the trigger concept in the EU Forced Labour Regulation and in the Indian export declaration requirement introduced alongside it, both of which turn on whether goods were made with it at any stage.
Formaldehyde: A residue that can remain on fabric finished with a crosslinking resin, which is the chemistry behind most easy-care and wrinkle-recovery finishes. It is measurable in parts per million, and several destination markets set a limit by product category. Read the guide
Four-point system: The trade standard for grading woven fabric, scoring each defect by its length and totalling points across a measured area. The acceptance threshold is agreed between buyer and supplier. Read the guide
Four-way stretch: Trade shorthand for cloth that gives along both the warp and the weft. It needs elastane in both directions or a knitted structure, costs more than weft stretch, and is rarely what uniform tailoring requires. Treat it on a quotation as a question about construction rather than as a feature. Read the guide
Free time: The number of days a carrier or a terminal allows before time-based charges begin. It is set per facility and per direction rather than by a global rule, and charges beyond it escalate in slabs, so the free days for the actual destination port are worth getting in writing before the vessel sails. Read the guide
Freight forwarder: The agent who arranges carriage, consolidation and documentation for a shipment without carrying the goods themselves. Which of the buyer or the seller appoints one, and who pays, follows from the Incoterm rather than from custom. Read the guide
Fusing: The garment-side operation that bonds an interlining to a shell fabric under heat and pressure, turning collars and cuffs into a single stiff board. The shell caps the safe temperature, so a high-polyester shirting fused at cotton settings can glaze or shrink locally. Read the guide

G

Gabardine: A tightly woven twill with a clear diagonal rib on the face and a smooth back. Firm, hard-wearing and long used for uniform trousers and outerwear. Read the guide
Gaj: The Hindi word for a yard, still used in retail and tailoring conversation alongside metres. Converting before you order avoids a quantity being read as yards at one end and metres at the other. Read the guide
Ganz-Griesser: The whiteness formula usually named where optical brightener levels are high. Because a brightener fluoresces, a UV-included and a UV-filtered measurement will not agree and neither is wrong, so the UV calibration condition has to be stated with the figure. Read the guide
Godown: A warehouse or storage room, in Indian trade usage. Storage matters for fabric, because cloth takes up moisture from the air and stored rolls can mark or fade if they are stacked badly or left in light. Read the guide
GOTS: The Global Organic Textile Standard, a certification scheme covering organic fibre content along with processing and social criteria, verified through a certified supply chain rather than a single test report. Buyers asking for it are asking for chain-of-custody documentation, not a fabric property. Read the guide
Greige: Fabric as it comes off the loom, before dyeing or finishing. Pronounced grey-zh, and sometimes written grey fabric. Read the guide
Grey scale: The 1 to 5 visual scale used to rate colour fastness results, with separate scales for change in the fabric's own shade and for staining onto an adjacent white. Grade 5 is no perceptible change, grade 1 is severe. Read the guide
Ground rent: A container freight station or inland container depot's charge for the ground a container occupies at the facility. Laden containers carry their own free days and slab rates, separate from both the cargo storage charge and the shipping line's detention. Read the guide
GRS: The Global Recycled Standard, a chain-of-custody certification for recycled content that also sets social and environmental criteria at certified sites. It tells you how much of the fibre is recycled and that the claim was tracked through the chain; it does not test the finished fabric for harmful substances. Its owner has announced that GRS and RCS are to be absorbed into a successor Materials Matter Standard, with certification opening from the end of December 2026. Read the guide
GSM: Grams per square metre: the standard measure of fabric weight. It is the single most quoted figure in uniform fabric, and it is not a measure of quality on its own. Read the guide
GSP: The Generalised System of Preferences, a scheme under which a developed market grants reduced or zero duty on imports from designated developing countries. The EU's enhanced tier, GSP+, adds deeper preferences in return for ratifying a list of conventions. India is not a GSP+ beneficiary, which is part of why Indian cloth can pay more duty into the EU than cloth from some neighbouring countries.

H

Handle: How a fabric feels to the hand: soft, crisp, dry, smooth. It is subjective but consistent enough between experienced buyers to be worth discussing against a physical sample. Read the guide
Header card: Another name for a sample book, a mounted set of cuttings across qualities. Worth knowing as a separate term because asking a mill for a header card and asking for a shade card request two different things, and the wrong one arrives either a stage too early or a stage too late in the approval sequence. Read the guide
Heat-setting: Passing a polyester-rich fabric through controlled heat to lock its dimensions. It is the polyester equivalent of sanforizing, which applies to cotton. Read the guide
HSN code: A code from the Harmonised System of Nomenclature that classifies goods for tax and customs. Fabric is classified by fiber and construction, not by the garment it will become. Read the guide

I

Importer of record: The party legally responsible for a consignment at the destination customs: filing the entry, paying the duty and holding the records. It follows from the Incoterm and the contract, and it is not always the party that placed the order.
Incoterms: Standard three-letter trade terms such as FOB or CIF that define who arranges and pays for transport, insurance and customs at each stage of an international shipment. Read the guide
Input tax credit: The mechanism by which tax paid on a business purchase can be set against tax collected on your own sales, subject to conditions, so it is not absorbed as a cost. Read the guide
Inspection frame: The backlit frame fabric is run over so faults can be seen and marked as the roll passes. It is where four-point inspection is actually carried out, at the mill and again at the buyer's end. Read the guide
Interlining: The layer bonded or sewn behind a collar, cuff or placket to give it structure the shell fabric was never meant to provide. It has to be matched to the shell's shrinkage, because two bonded layers that shrink at different rates buckle and show as bubbling. Read the guide
Inverted duty structure: A tax or duty structure where the rate on an input is higher than the rate on the finished goods made from it, leaving the manufacturer with credit or cost it cannot pass on. India's GST version in textiles was removed in September 2025 when fibre, yarn and fabric all moved to a flat 5 percent; customs duty on imported inputs is a separate instrument and can still be inverted.
IS 15853: The Indian standard for polyester blended woven suiting for uniforms, the one most public tenders reach for. It sets requirements for width, mass, blend composition, strength, dimensional change and colour fastness, and includes a minimum pilling grade of 4. Confirm the current edition before citing it in a contract. Read the guide
IS 17630: The Indian standard for bed sheets and pillow covers. It matters because the Medical Textiles Quality Control Order makes conformity to it mandatory for the products it covers, so it is a licensing question and not only a quality one. Read the guide
ISI mark: The certification mark showing a product is certified by BIS against a named Indian Standard. It applies only to products that have been notified, so many fabrics have no ISI mark to carry. Read the guide
ISO 105: The family of international colour fastness test methods. Each part covers one influence: C06 washing, X12 rubbing, B02 light, E04 perspiration. A test report should name the part used, because a grade means nothing without the method behind it. Read the guide
ISO 105-B02: Colour fastness to artificial light, tested under a xenon arc lamp. It is graded 1 to 8 against blue wool references, not on the 1 to 5 grey scale the wash and rubbing tests use, so a light fastness number never compares directly with the others. Read the guide
ISO 105-C06: Colour fastness to domestic and commercial laundering. It reports two things, change in the shade itself and staining of adjacent white fabric, which is why a single wash fastness figure on a spec sheet is usually incomplete. Read the guide
ISO 105-E04: Colour fastness to perspiration, run separately in acid and alkaline solutions. It is the test behind collar and underarm discolouration on shirting, and a tender that specifies it usually wants both results. Read the guide
ISO 105-J02: Instrumental assessment of relative whiteness. The usual output is a CIE whiteness value under D65 illumination together with a tint value, which is how a white can be specified as a number instead of only as a swatch. Read the guide
ISO 105-X05: Colour fastness to organic solvents, which is the test behind a dry cleaning claim. It answers whether the dye survives the solvent, not whether the garment survives the finishing press, which is where most dry cleaning complaints actually start. Read the guide
ISO 105-X12: Colour fastness to rubbing, also called crocking. It is run dry and wet, and the wet figure is normally the lower of the two, which is what decides whether a dark trouser marks a light shirt. Read the guide
ISO 11092: Water-vapour resistance, where a lower value means vapour passes more easily. It is measured under steady-state laboratory conditions, and it is a different property from liquid moisture transport even though both are sold as moisture management. Read the guide
ISO 12945: The international test method for pilling. Part 1 uses a pilling box with the specimen on a tube, part 2 uses the Martindale instrument along a figure-of-eight path. Both return a visual grade from 1 to 5 against reference photographs, and neither sets a pass mark: the grade a fabric has to reach is set by the buyer or by a product standard. Read the guide
ISO 15797: Industrial laundering procedures for testing workwear, which run hotter and harsher than domestic wash methods. Uniform that will be laundered by a commercial contractor should be tested on this family rather than on a home-wash method. Read the guide
ISO 1833: The international test method series for quantitative chemical analysis of fibre mixtures, used to verify a stated blend ratio such as 65/35. It dissolves one fibre and weighs what is left. Read the guide
ISO 20743: The international quantitative method for the anti-bacterial activity of textile products, reported as a reduction against a named organism. Like its American counterpart it should be quoted with the number of launderings the sample had been through. Read the guide
ISO 22196: Antibacterial activity on a non-porous surface. It is written for plastics and hard surfaces rather than for textiles, and it still turns up cited on fabric test reports, which is a signal to ask what was actually tested. Read the guide
ISO 3759: The companion standard that covers how a specimen is prepared and marked before a shrinkage test, with reference points a stated distance apart. Without it the before measurement is not defined, so a shrinkage figure quoted with no marking standard is weaker than it looks. Read the guide
ISO 45001: A management-system certification for occupational health and safety, covering how a site identifies and controls risk to workers. It is adjacent to a social audit and is not one, since it says nothing about wages, working hours or freedom of association. Read the guide
ISO 5077: The test method for the dimensional change of a fabric after washing and drying. It only produces a comparable number when the wash procedure and the drying method are named alongside it, because the standard does not fix either on its own. Read the guide
ISO 6330: The domestic laundering procedures used to condition a specimen before it is measured for shrinkage or appearance. It is a menu of procedures and temperatures rather than one wash, so citing it without naming the procedure inside it settles nothing. Read the guide
ISO 9001: A quality management system standard. It certifies that a company runs documented, audited processes and keeps records, so it says something about consistency of process. It is not a product test, an environmental standard or a labour standard, and it makes no claim about the fabric itself. Read the guide
ISO 9237: The test method for air permeability, measured as the airflow through a fabric at a stated pressure difference. The figure is meaningless without that pressure difference printed alongside it, and it does not convert to the American method. Read the guide
Issuing agency: A body authorised to issue certificates of origin, in India typically a chamber of commerce or an export promotion council designated for the purpose, which the exporter applies to through the Directorate General of Foreign Trade's electronic system. The mill never issues its own certificate of origin. Read the guide

L

Lab dip: A small trial dyeing produced on the actual fabric to match a colour reference before any bulk quantity is committed. Once approved it becomes the shade standard. Read the guide
Landed cost: The total cost of getting fabric to your own door: the ex-mill price plus freight, insurance, import duty, port and clearance charges and any local handling. It is the only number worth comparing between suppliers in different countries, because duty and freight can outweigh the difference in cloth price. Read the guide
LCL: Less than Container Load, where a consignment shares a container with other shippers and is priced by volume. It suits smaller fabric orders, and it carries extra consolidation and deconsolidation handling that a full container does not. Read the guide
Lead time: The time from order confirmation to despatch. For a custom shade it is counted from shade approval rather than from the order date, since dyeing cannot start before approval. Read the guide
Letter of credit: A bank undertaking to pay the seller once the stated shipping documents are presented and match the credit exactly. It shifts the payment risk from the buyer's balance sheet to a bank, at the cost of strict documentary discipline: a discrepancy in a document delays payment even when the goods are correct. Read the guide
Light fastness: How well a dyed fabric holds its shade under exposure to light, tested by exposing a specimen alongside a set of references and reporting where the change becomes visible. It is the reason an outdoor uniform can fade while the same cloth indoors does not. Read the guide
Linen: On this site the word almost always means institutional bed and ward linen, meaning sheets, pillow covers and similar flat goods, rather than fabric made from flax fibre. Both senses are in ordinary trade use, so it is worth confirming which one a specification means. Read the guide
Lining: A secondary fabric used inside a jacket, blazer or skirt, chosen for smoothness against a garment or shirt rather than for outer durability. It is a separate purchase from the shell cloth and is easy to leave out of a fabric estimate. Read the guide
Liquidated damages: A contractual deduction for late delivery, charged on the value of the delayed consignment at a stated rate per period up to a ceiling. It applies regardless of where in the supply chain the delay started. Read the guide
Local content: The share of a supplied item's value that originates domestically, used in Indian public procurement to class a supplier as Class-I or Class-II local. Because fabric is usually the largest material input in a uniform, where the cloth is woven moves the number more than anything else in the bill of material. Read the guide
Lot number: The code identifying which dye lot a roll came from, marked on the roll and carried on the packing list. It is the link between a roll on the cutting table and the shade record it was approved against. Read the guide
Lycra: A brand name for elastane that is used generically in the Indian trade, so a quote reading two percent lycra means two percent elastane. The percentage is small by weight and large in effect, since a few percent is what gives a trouser or a fitted shirt its recovery. Read the guide

M

Manufacturer declaration: The mill's own written statement of what it produced, where and to what specification. It carries no official standing on its own and it is what supports an origin application or answers a buyer's vetting, so it should not be presented or accepted as a certificate. Read the guide
Marker: The cutting layout that arranges every pattern piece for a size set across the fabric width before cutting. Marker efficiency, the share of cloth that ends up in garments rather than offcuts, is what turns a per-metre price into a real cost per uniform, and it changes with fabric width. Read the guide
Martindale: A test instrument that rubs a fabric specimen in a repeating figure-of-eight motion, used for both abrasion resistance and pilling assessment under separate standards. The method sets a procedure, not a pass mark; the acceptable result is whatever the contract specifies. Read the guide
Matty: A basket-style weave where yarns are grouped rather than crossing one over one, giving a flat textured surface. Common in institutional and school uniform fabric. Read the guide
MEG: Monoethylene glycol, the second feedstock behind polyester, reacted with PTA to make polyester chip. Like PTA it is dollar-priced and tracks crude, so both legs of the polyester chain move with energy markets rather than with fabric demand.
Melange: A flecked or heathered effect produced by dyeing fibers before they are spun and blending shades in the yarn, rather than dyeing the woven cloth. The effect hides light soiling well, and the shade is fixed at the spinning stage rather than adjustable later in the dyehouse. Read the guide
Mercerising: A caustic treatment of cotton under tension that increases lustre, strength and dye uptake. It applies only where cotton is present, and means nothing on an all-polyester fabric. Read the guide
Metamerism: Two samples matching under one light source but visibly differing under another. It is a real property of the dyes involved, not an error of perception, and it is why shades are approved under defined lights. Read the guide
MFN tariff: The most favoured nation rate, meaning the standard import duty a country applies to goods from any WTO member it has no preferential agreement with. It is the rate your fabric pays by default, and the one a trade agreement or a preference scheme reduces.
Moisture regain: The moisture a fibre holds at standard conditions, expressed as a percentage of its dry weight. Viscose and cotton have high regain and feel cooler against the skin; polyester is close to zero, which is why a high-polyester blend dries fast but can feel clammy in humid heat. Read the guide
MOQ: Minimum order quantity: the smallest quantity a mill will supply, set per shade because dyeing runs in batches. Ours is 50 m per shade from ready stock and 500 m per shade for a custom shade or construction. Read the guide

N

NABL: India's accreditation body for testing and calibration laboratories, which accredits a laboratory against ISO/IEC 17025. Accreditation covers the laboratory's competence for named tests, not the product it tests. Read the guide
Ne: English cotton count, an indirect yarn numbering system in which a higher number means a finer yarn. It is the opposite convention to denier and tex, where a higher number means thicker, so a count is only readable once you know which system it is in. Read the guide
Nomination: An arrangement where the buyer specifies which mill and quality the stitching vendor must buy the cloth from, while the vendor still places the order and carries the payment. The buyer gets the specification, not the commercial relationship. Read the guide
Non-preferential certificate of origin: A certificate of origin that states the country of manufacture for clearance, compliance and trade-remedy purposes and carries no duty benefit. It is a different document from the preferential certificate, so a buyer intending to claim a concession has to ask for the right one. Read the guide

O

OEKO-TEX: A family of certification schemes, best known for STANDARD 100, that tests textiles against limits on substances harmful to human health. It certifies a specific article through an accredited institute, so it is a document a buyer asks for rather than a property you can see in the cloth. Read the guide
Oil repellency: A finish property measured separately from water repellency, because oils have a lower surface tension and will wet a fabric that sheds water perfectly well. A workwear specification exposed to lubricants or kitchen splash needs it named in its own right. Read the guide
Opacity: How much light a fabric blocks, which on shirting decides whether skin or an undergarment shows through. It is driven by construction and finish as much as by weight, so two cloths at the same GSM can differ visibly. Read the guide
Optical brightener: A finishing agent that absorbs ultraviolet light and re-emits it as faint blue, cancelling the natural yellow cast of fibre so a white reads brighter than a neutral white could. It is a finish, not a fibre property, so it washes out gradually and a whites-specific detergent puts part of it back. Read the guide
Origin declaration: A statement of originating status completed by the exporter or producer, usually on the invoice, which some trade agreements accept in place of an agency-issued certificate. The India-UK agreement is one that does, so the form a claim takes depends on the agreement rather than on the mill. Read the guide
Oxford: A shirting construction in which grouped yarns are woven in a basket-derived plain weave, giving a soft, slightly textured surface. Heavier and less crisp than poplin, and common on corporate and hospitality shirts. Read the guide

P

Packing list: The document listing what is physically in a shipment, roll by roll, with numbers, lengths, gross and net weights and carton or bale marks. Customs and the buyer's receiving team both reconcile against it, so a packing list that does not match the rolls delays clearance regardless of whether the cloth is right. Read the guide
Panna: The trade word for fabric width, used across Indian fabric markets. Quoting a rate without stating the panna makes the price meaningless, since a wider cloth yields more garments per metre. Read the guide
Pantone TCX: The cotton-based version of the Pantone colour reference system used for textiles, supplied as dyed cotton swatches. A TCX number names a target colour; it does not guarantee that a given fibre and construction can reach it, which is what the lab dip decides. Read the guide
Performance security: Security furnished after a tender is awarded, usually as a bank guarantee, and released only once the last consignment is accepted. Because it stays lodged for the contract term, it is working capital committed for the whole programme. Read the guide
Pick glass: A small magnifier with a marked window, used to count ends and picks inside a measured square of fabric. It is the standard way to read an unknown cloth's construction from a sample or a worn garment.
Piece-dyed: Fabric woven first and then dyed as finished cloth. Simpler and faster to reorder than yarn-dyed fabric, and the normal route for solid institutional shades. Read the guide
Pilling: Small balls of tangled fiber forming on a fabric surface under abrasion. Carded yarns pill more readily than combed, because the short fiber ends that cause it are still present. Read the guide
Plain weave: The simplest weave, each weft yarn passing over one warp yarn and under the next. Flat, stable and economical, with no diagonal line on the face. Read the guide
Poly-cotton: A blend of polyester and cotton. It trades some of cotton's breathability for polyester's strength, faster drying and lower shrinkage. Read the guide
Poly-viscose: A blend of polyester and viscose, the workhorse of Indian uniform suiting. Polyester brings durability and shape retention, viscose brings a softer handle and better drape. Read the guide
Poplin: A plain weave with a fine warp and a slightly heavier weft, producing a smooth surface with a faint crosswise rib. It presses crisply, which is why it is a standard shirting for formal and corporate uniforms. Read the guide
POY: Partially Oriented Yarn, the intermediate polyester filament yarn taken off the spinning line before it is fully drawn. It is not woven as it is; it is the feedstock that texturising converts into DTY.
Pre-dispatch inspection: Inspection of a finished lot before it leaves the mill, as opposed to inspection on arrival at the buyer's end. Some destination conformity schemes require it, and where they do it has to be arranged before the goods ship rather than after. Read the guide
Pre-export verification of conformity: A scheme under which imported goods are inspected or tested in the country of origin, before shipment, by a contractor appointed by the destination country's standards body. Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda run schemes of this shape. The defining feature is that it cannot usually be completed once the goods have sailed. Read the guide
Pre-production sample: The last sample cut before a full run starts, taken from the actual bulk lot and finished the same way, so the buyer can approve shade, handle and weight against the earlier approved standard. Once signed off it becomes the reference the bulk delivery is inspected against. Often shortened to PP sample. Read the guide
Preferential certificate of origin: A certificate of origin issued under a trade agreement, and the document an importer's customs needs before it will apply a concessional duty rate. What qualifies the goods is the product-specific rule in the agreement's origin annex; the certificate only evidences it. Read the guide
Proforma invoice: A pre-invoice issued before goods ship, setting out quantity, specification, price, Incoterm, payment terms and delivery, so the buyer can open a letter of credit or arrange payment against it. It is not a demand for payment; it is the document the commercial terms are agreed on.
PTA: Purified terephthalic acid, one of the two feedstocks behind polyester. It is produced from paraxylene, traded internationally in dollars, and its price is a large part of why a polyester or poly-viscose quote moves without anything changing at the loom.
Puckering: A wavy or gathered surface that appears around stitching or after wash, caused by thread tension, dense stitch areas pulling a loosely set cloth, or differential shrinkage between cloth and thread. It reads as a fabric fault to the wearer and usually originates at the making stage. Read the guide

Q

Quality Control Order: A government notification that makes conformity to a named Indian Standard compulsory for a named product, so it cannot be made, imported or sold without BIS certification. A standard existing is not the same as a standard being compulsory. Read the guide
Quantity tolerance: The percentage either side of the ordered quantity that a supply agreement accepts as a complete delivery, since woven fabric is not produced to an exact metre. The invoice is normally raised on the measured despatch, not the ordered figure. Read the guide

R

Rapier loom: A shuttleless loom that carries the weft across the shed on a rigid or flexible arm. It handles a wide range of yarns and colour changes well, which makes it the common choice for suiting and for yarn-dyed checks and stripes.
Rate contract: An agreement fixing price and specification for a defined period, against which orders are placed later as they are needed. Common in institutional and government buying, where the tender awards the rate and the quantity follows as call-offs. Read the guide
Reactive dye: The dye class used for cellulosic fibres such as cotton and viscose, which forms a chemical bond with the fibre and so holds up well to washing. On a poly-viscose blend it dyes the viscose portion while the polyester is dyed with disperse dyes. Read the guide
Ready stock: Fabric already woven, dyed and finished, held in running shades and available to despatch without a new dye lot or loom setup. It carries lower minimums and much shorter lead times than cloth woven to order, at the cost of taking the shade as it is rather than matching one. Read the guide
Recycled content: The share of recycled input claimed in a fabric. No laboratory can read it off the cloth, so it is a chain-of-custody claim evidenced by transaction documents through every stage, which is a different kind of proof from a test report. Read the guide
Recycled polyester: Polyester fibre made from reclaimed material, most often post-consumer PET bottles, rather than from virgin feedstock. It generally costs more than virgin polyester rather than less, because collection, sorting and cleaning sit ahead of the fibre stage.
Reed: The comb-like part of the loom that spaces the warp ends and beats each weft pick into the fabric. Its spacing sets the ends per inch, and a damaged or wrongly set reed shows in the cloth as a lengthwise streak. Read the guide
Reed mark: A fine line running along the fabric length, caused by a damaged or wrongly set reed on the loom. It shows as a streak rather than a spot. Read the guide
Repeat size: The distance over which a check or stripe pattern completes before starting again, measured along the warp and the weft. It sets how much extra cloth a cutting room needs, because every panel has to be positioned to the pattern rather than to the roll. Read the guide
Residual shrinkage: The shrinkage still left in a fabric after pre-shrinking at the mill, stated as a percentage. It is the figure worth asking about, rather than accepting the word sanforized alone. Read the guide
Resin finish: A chemical crosslinking treatment applied at finishing to hold the fabric's flat state, which is what makes an easy-care or wrinkle-resistant cloth behave that way. It is applied at the processing house and cannot be added later to fabric that has already been finished. Read the guide
Reverse auction: A procurement mode in which technically qualified bidders compete downward on price in a live window. It rewards knowing your floor before the window opens, because the cloth still has to be woven, dyed and finished at whatever price is left. Read the guide
Risk purchase: A tender clause allowing the buyer to procure the undelivered balance elsewhere and recover the extra cost from the defaulting supplier, over and above any liquidated damages already deducted. Read the guide
RoDTEP: Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products, an Indian scheme refunding embedded duties and taxes that are not otherwise credited, at notified rates with value caps. It runs on notified periods rather than indefinitely, so an export quote that spans an expiry carries an open question.
Rules of origin: The conditions in a trade agreement that decide whether goods count as originating in a country and so qualify for a preferential duty. For woven fabric they usually turn on where the yarn was spun and where the fabric was woven, which is why the headline tariff cut matters less than the annex.
Running metre: A metre of length taken along the roll at whatever the fabric's actual width happens to be, which is how woven cloth is sold and invoiced. Two orders of the same running metreage in different widths are not the same amount of cloth, which is why a quantity is meaningless without the width beside it. Read the guide
Running quality: A construction a mill already weaves in its standing range, as against one woven to order. It repeats more reliably, reaches you faster and carries no custom minimum. The trap is at bid stage: a sample pulled from the nearest running quality rather than woven to the specified construction can pass a visual check and then fail laboratory testing, which disqualifies the bid. Read the guide

S

SA8000: A social certification of a workplace, audited against the standard by a body accredited for the purpose, with a certificate that can be checked on the scheme's own register of certified organisations. It is the labour scheme that genuinely issues a certificate, unlike the audit methodologies it is often confused with. Read the guide
Sample book: A bound set of small cuttings spanning several different fabric qualities, used to compare weight, weave and handle before a cloth has been chosen at all. It is not a shade card: it shows different fabrics rather than the colour range of one, so a shade liked on a sample book has not been approved on the cloth you will actually buy. Read the guide
Sanforized: Cotton-containing fabric that has been mechanically pre-shrunk under steam so most first-wash shrinkage has already happened. It reduces shrinkage rather than eliminating it. Read the guide
Scouring: Washing the fabric with alkali and detergent to strip out oils, waxes and residues left from spinning and weaving, so that dye can penetrate evenly. Uneven scouring shows up later as patchy dyeing that no amount of correction at the dye stage fully fixes.
Sealed sample: The approved reference cutting, tagged, dated and identified, that both the buyer and the mill hold a piece of from the same length. Every later delivery and reorder is judged against it, which is what stops a programme drifting from one batch to the next. Read the guide
Seam slippage: A failure where yarns pull away from each other alongside a stitch line under load, opening a gap at the seam without the thread breaking. It is a construction and setting issue rather than a strength issue, and smooth, loosely set fabrics are the most prone to it.
Selvedge: The finished edge on each side of a woven fabric, formed as the weft turns back. It stops the fabric fraying and is excluded from cuttable width. Read the guide
Serge: A twill with a distinct diagonal rib visible on both faces of the cloth. Long associated with uniform and service dress. Read the guide
Shade band: The agreed tolerance either side of an approved shade, usually expressed as a light and a dark limit the buyer has signed. A delivery inside the band is accepted; one outside it is not. Setting a band before bulk avoids arguing about whether a small difference counts as a rejection. Read the guide
Shade card: A supplier's set of available colours in a given fabric, presented together. Distinct from a swatch, which is a piece of one specific fabric in one specific shade. Read the guide
Shade family: A group of closely related shades built on the same base colour, such as several navies or several khakis. Naming the family early narrows a shade card fast, well before any single shade is approved. Read the guide
Shade standard: The approved physical reference that every production lot of a program is matched against. Matching each lot to the previous delivery instead is how a program's colour drifts. Read the guide
Shirting: Woven cloth made for shirts and blouses, lighter and finer than suiting, where opacity, collar behaviour and wrinkle recovery matter more than abrasion resistance. It is specified and priced separately from the suiting on the same programme, and the same shade name on both will not read identically. Read the guide
Shuttleless loom: A weaving machine that inserts the weft by rapier, air jet or projectile instead of by a flying shuttle. It runs faster and quieter than a shuttle loom and gives a more consistent pick density, and it leaves a tucked or fringed selvedge rather than a woven one.
Singeing: Passing fabric over a flame to burn off the protruding surface fibres before dyeing and finishing. It is one of the main defences against pilling and it is what gives a cleaner, flatter surface and sharper colour on a finished suiting. Read the guide
Size mix: The distribution of garment sizes inside one order. It is why a per-uniform meterage is a planning figure and not a yield: a run weighted towards the larger sizes consumes more cloth at the same width, so an estimate built on an average runs short before the last size is cut, and the top-up lands in a different dye lot. Read the guide
Sizing: A temporary protective coating applied to warp yarns before weaving so they survive the abrasion of the loom. It is washed out again at the desizing stage, and size that is unevenly applied or incompletely removed is a common origin of woven defects. Read the guide
Skewing: A finishing fault where the weft runs at a slope across the fabric rather than square to the selvedge. Like bowing, it shows up worst on checks and stripes. Read the guide
Slub: A short thickened section in a yarn, showing in the woven fabric as a small raised irregularity. Occasional slubs are normal; frequent ones point to a yarn problem. Read the guide
SMETA: An ethical trade audit methodology delivered through the Sedex platform. It is not a certification: a site holds a dated audit report with findings and a corrective-action plan, so a tender clause asking for a supplier to be SMETA certified is asking for something that does not exist. Read the guide
Soil release finish: A finish that lowers a fabric's affinity for oily soil so that laundering lifts it instead of setting it, specified for kitchen, workshop and food-service wear. Like other applied finishes it is consumed by washing over time rather than lasting the life of the garment. Read the guide
Spectrophotometer: An instrument that measures colour numerically, used in shade approval to quantify how far a submission sits from the standard. It supports visual assessment rather than replacing it. Read the guide
Spirality: A twisting distortion where seams rotate around the body after washing, most familiar in knitted garments but also visible where a woven fabric was finished under uneven tension. It is a construction and finishing fault rather than a stitching one.
Spray rating: A graded result from spraying water onto a mounted fabric specimen and comparing the wetted face against a picture scale. It is how a water-repellent finish is reported, and the grade is expected to fall after washing, so the useful figure is the one measured after a stated number of wash cycles. Read the guide
Staggered delivery: A supply arrangement where a single awarded quantity is delivered in scheduled tranches instead of one consignment. It reduces the buyer's storage and cash exposure and it commits the supplier to holding shade consistency across lots produced weeks or months apart. Read the guide
Staple fibre: Fibre in short cut lengths that is spun into yarn, as opposed to continuous filament. Cotton and viscose are naturally staple; polyester is cut into staple lengths when it is meant to blend with them. Staple blends give a drier, more cotton-like handle than filament yarns of the same composition. Read the guide
Starting mark: A line running across the width of the cloth where a loom stopped and restarted, caused by the warp relaxing during the stoppage so the first picks after the restart sit at a different density. It reads as a thin or thick line depending on the tension at restart. Read the guide
Stenter: The finishing machine that grips fabric along both edges and carries it through a heated chamber to dry, set and apply finishes at a controlled width. Faults introduced here, such as bow or a set crease, are difficult or impossible to reverse afterwards. Read the guide
Sublimation printing: A printing method where disperse dye is transferred into polyester as a gas under heat, so the colour sits inside the fibre instead of on top of it. It gives a print that cannot crack or peel, and it works on polyester-rich cloth only, which is why it is not an option for cotton-rich uniforms. Read the guide
Suiting: Woven cloth made for trousers, jackets and skirts, typically heavier and more opaque than shirting and usually in a twill or plain weave. On a uniform programme it is the bottom half of the specification and the part that has to survive daily wear rather than daily washing. Read the guide
Sulzer: A projectile-type shuttleless loom, where the weft is carried across the shed by a gripper projectile. It is a common machine class in Indian suiting weaving, and it is the type our own weaving unit runs. Read the guide
Surface resistivity: A measure of how readily charge moves across a fabric's surface, used to report an antistatic finish. A lower resistivity means charge dissipates rather than accumulating, which is the property an electronics or fuel-handling environment specifies. Read the guide
Swatch: A physical piece of a specific fabric in a specific shade, used to judge colour, weight and handle. The strongest possible reference when asking for a shade match. Read the guide

T

Tariff line: A single code in a country's customs tariff, at the level duty rates are actually set, usually eight digits. Trade agreements grant concessions tariff line by tariff line, which is why a benefit on apparel does not automatically extend to fabric.
Tear strength: The force needed to continue a tear once a fabric has been cut or snagged, reported against a named method. It matters more than tensile strength for workwear, because most garment failures start at a snag rather than from even pulling across the cloth. Read the guide
Telex release: An instruction from the shipper to the carrier to release cargo at destination without the original bill of lading being presented there. It removes the courier and bank leg from the release, which is why the release method is worth settling at order stage rather than after arrival. Read the guide
Temple mark: Distortion or small pin marks near both selvedges, left by the temples that hold the cloth out to full width at the loom. Because it sits at the edges it often falls outside the cuttable width. Read the guide
Tensile strength: The force a fabric strip withstands before breaking when pulled along the warp or weft, reported against a named test method. Blend, yarn count and setting all move it, and some crease-resistant resin finishes lower it in exchange for recovery. Read the guide
Terylene: An early trade name for polyester fiber that stuck in Indian trade usage, where it is still used to mean polyester generally. It survives in the shorthand TR and TC. Read the guide
Test report: A per-lot document recording measured results against named methods, typically GSM, width, shrinkage, colour fastness and strength. It is a different thing from a certification: a report says what one lot measured, while a certificate says a system or a product class was assessed, and a tender that asks for one will not accept the other. Read the guide
Texturised yarn: Polyester filament yarn that has been crimped, looped or twisted and heat-set so the straight filaments gain bulk, a matte, spun-like surface and a small amount of mechanical stretch. In suiting it is the usual way to get stretch and a softer hand without adding elastane.
Than: A single roll or piece of fabric as despatched. There is no standard length behind the word, so a than is only as defined as your purchase order makes it. Always confirm the length in metres. Read the guide
Thread count: The number of warp and weft yarns per square inch, common in bedding and hospital linen specifications. It says nothing about yarn thickness, so a high count of fine yarns can weigh less than a low count of coarse ones. Uniform fabric in India is specified by GSM and ends and picks instead. Read the guide
Tolerance: The permitted variation either side of a specified value, for example on GSM or width. Where a specification states a tolerance it is part of the specification, not a courtesy. Read the guide
Top-up order: A small repeat order placed against a programme that is already running, usually for new joiners, replacements or a size-mix correction. Because it is dyed after the main lot, it is the order most likely to show shade drift, which is why it should be placed against the filed reference and the original spec sheet rather than against a used garment. Read the guide
TR and TC: Trade shorthand in the Indian market: TR for a terylene and rayon blend, meaning polyester and viscose, and TC for terylene and cotton, meaning polyester and cotton. Neither abbreviation states the ratio, so ask for the percentages. Read the guide
Trial length: A short run of fabric woven and finished to the agreed specification so the buyer can cut and sew from it before committing to bulk. It is longer than a swatch and shorter than a production lot. Read the guide
Twill: A weave where each weft yarn passes over two or more warp yarns in a stepped sequence, producing a diagonal line on the face. Stronger and better draping than plain weave at the same weight. Read the guide
Two-way stretch: Trade shorthand for cloth that gives along one axis. In a woven uniform suiting that means weft stretch, so the fabric gives across its width and not along its length, which is the direction a trouser or skirt needs. This is what almost every uniform stretch programme actually buys. Read the guide

V

Viscose: Regenerated cellulosic fibre made by dissolving wood pulp and extruding it back into fibre form. It takes dye readily, drapes softly and absorbs moisture well, and it is weaker wet than dry, which is why it is normally blended with polyester rather than used alone in uniform cloth. Read the guide
Viscose staple fibre: Short-length regenerated cellulosic fibre, cut to a staple so it can be spun on the same systems as cotton and blended with polyester. It is the viscose half of a poly-viscose, and its price moves with wood pulp and caustic soda rather than with cotton. Read the guide

W

Warp: The yarns running along the length of a fabric, held under tension on the loom. They are set up before weaving begins, which is why a warp change is a batch-level decision. Read the guide
Warp beam: The large roller at the back of a loom holding thousands of warp ends wound to a set length, prepared at warping before weaving starts. A beam is set up for one construction and one run, which is a large part of why mills carry a minimum order quantity. Read the guide
Warping: Winding thousands of warp yarns onto a beam in the right order, count and tension before weaving starts. Faults introduced here, a crossed end or an uneven tension, repeat down the whole length of every piece woven from that beam, which is why warp faults show as continuous lines rather than isolated marks. Read the guide
Wash fastness: How well a dyed fabric holds its colour through washing, tested against a numbered method and reported as a grade for shade change and for staining of adjacent white cloth. It is the fastness type a uniform tender names most often, because institutional laundering is what the cloth will actually face. Read the guide
Wastage: Fabric lost rather than used: cutting loss from the marker layout, faults cut out, and end-of-roll remnants too short to lay. It is the reason an ordered quantity is higher than a calculated requirement, and it is stated as a percentage. Read the guide
Water repellent finish: A surface treatment applied at the finishing stage that makes water bead and run off rather than soak in. It is not waterproofing, since the fabric still breathes and will wet through under sustained pressure, and it wears down with laundering. Read the guide
Wear trial: Garments given to a small group of real wearers for a set period before bulk stitching, to see how the fabric behaves in use and after repeated laundering rather than on a table. Read the guide
Weft: The yarns running across the fabric width, inserted by the loom through the warp. Also called filling or pick. Read the guide
Weft bar: A band running across the fabric width, slightly different in shade or texture from the fabric around it, caused by a change in weft yarn or loom tension. Read the guide
Wet processing: The stages between woven greige cloth and finished fabric that use water and chemistry, including desizing, scouring, bleaching, dyeing and finishing. At Benny Cotts these run at partnered Bhilwara processing houses rather than in-house. Read the guide
Wicking: The movement of moisture along and across a fabric so it spreads out and evaporates instead of sitting where it landed. It is a construction and finish effect rather than a fibre one, which is why a polyester cloth can be engineered to move sweat that cotton would simply hold. Read the guide
Worsted: Suiting spun from long, combed and parallel-laid wool fibres, giving a smooth, clear-finished cloth with a crisp handle, as against the softer, hairier woollen system. In uniform buying the word is often used loosely for any smooth, worsted-look suiting, including poly-viscose ones. Read the guide
Wrinkle recovery: How completely a fabric returns to flat after being creased, reported as a recovery angle rather than a pass or fail. It is a property of fibre, construction and finish together, which is why two cloths of the same blend can behave differently over a working day. Read the guide
Wyzenbeek: An abrasion test method, ASTM D4157, in which the specimen is drawn back and forth across an abradant on an oscillating cylinder and the result is reported in double rubs. It is common in North American and furnishing specifications, where Martindale dominates elsewhere. Read the guide

Y

Yarn count: A number describing how fine or coarse a yarn is. In the cotton system a higher number means a finer yarn, so 2/40s is finer than 2/20s. Read the guide
Yarn-dyed: Fabric woven from yarn that was dyed before weaving, which is the only way to produce a woven check or stripe. It carries a longer lead time than piece-dyeing a solid shade. Read the guide
Yellowing and greying: The two ways white fabric loses its whiteness in service. Yellowing comes from heat, chlorine on polyester, body oils and optical brightener breakdown; greying is soil redeposited from overloaded or under-rinsed washes. They have different causes and different laundry fixes. Read the guide

Z

Zone of inhibition: A qualitative anti-bacterial result, read as the clear ring around a specimen on an inoculated plate. It shows that something is leaching out and cannot be written into a specification as a percentage, so it is not a substitute for a quantitative reduction figure. Read the guide

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