What are Fashion Flats, fashion illustration or flat sketches?

A fashion flats sketch is a two-dimensional technical drawing showing a piece of clothing with solid baselines. It’s like a “blueprint” of your fashion design, like an architect’s blueprint for your house before it can start building.
The word “flat” refers to the way they are designed: imagine that the apparel is stretched out on a table to look at all the details from the front and back.
Apart from two-sided scenes, some branding includes details of designs or side-scenes to show how the panels should move around the body or how parts of the garment should be constructed.

Why Fashion flat sketches are important?

As part of the clothing specification sheet or technical pack, they offer the pattern creator and the manufacturer’s sewing teams with all of the technical component information they require. How else will people grasp your vision?

Difference between fashion flats and illustrations

Fashion expression captures the mood, proportions, and colors of your design, allowing you to communicate your concept more fully. While the technical sketch serves to transform the garment into something “universal” that can be understood and worked on by a large group of individuals.
A fashion diagram or drawing is converted into a technical sketch or tech pack, resulting in a “blueprint” for the garment’s design and manufacture.

Fashion Flat Sketches: The essential

1. Sometimes simply using the front / back views is sufficient for a factory to understand the design requirements. Ideally, you should include side views, inside views, and other details to show how the apparel should be constructed.

2. Develop detailed models so you can use them later in other technical packs. 

3. Add the details as explained above, but don’t complicate things either. Avoid shading and use simple black and white sketches to make your design clear.

Fashion Flat: The technical designer

There is someone who only specializes in fashion flat drawings. Their role should be to link the design and manufacturing team together. They are essentially the fashion engineers.

Read more at studio.graptick.com