Seamless Garment Technology: How it Works, Advantages and Disadvantages

Last Updated on 11/12/2022

Seamless Garment Technology: How it Works, Advantages and Disadvantages

Nikhil Bhosale
Fashion And Clothing Technology Branch
D.K.T.E Society’s Textile And Engineering Institute,
Ichalkaranji, India
Email: nikhilbhosale.tex@gmail.com

Seamless Garment Technology:
Seamless garments are like a second skin and are comfortable and make very elegant outer and underwear. Seamless garment technology is advancement in apparel industry which eliminates the fabric laying, cutting and sewing process. This new concept is becoming very popular in western countries, as there are advantages to wearing a seamless garment. Seamless knitting technology has entered the mainstream in the knitwear market at the end of last century. Seamless entire garment knitting was first introduced in 1995, at the International Textile Machinery Association. This innovative technology was promising to eliminate post labor work. Moreover, it offered knitwear consumers more comfort and better fit by eliminating seams. Therefore, seamless technology promised great benefits to manufacturers as well as their consumers.

How it Works?
The seamless technique is relatively simple. The process evolved from cut-and-sew production to fully fashioned garments to seamless garments. The cut-and-sew production is created by the use of one entire panel of fabric, the garment production requiring several post-knitting processes including cutting and sewing. With this process up to 40% of the original fabric can be wasted. Fully fashioned garments are produced by widening or narrowing a piece of fabric by loop transference in order to increase or decrease the number of wales (done mainly on a V-bed flat knitting machine). The cutting process is eliminated in this process, but it requires a postsewing or linking process. Seamless garment knitting creates a complete garment by several different feeders with minimal or no cutting and sewing processes. The garment is knitted into shape, rather than knitting the cloth and then cutting and reassembling the pattern pieces into a garment. All the machine needs to do is keep openings for head, arms, and legs.

• The process for making seamless garments requires the use of cutting-edge circular knitting machines, mostly made in Italy, which complete whole garments based on preprogrammed computer commands that allow for different stitching patterns.
• The product is a finished or semi-finished garment with no side seams.
• Seamless technology has transformed the overall worldwide production process, helping apparel firms react quicker to trends because the garments do not have to be cut and sewn. This technology can directly produce finished products, and lessens traditional process of the production. This leads to saving of production costs up to 40% compared to the customary knit-ting.
• Biggest challenge is to educate the consumer about the range of benefits that seamless garments have to offer.

Advantages / Benefits of Seamless Garment Technology:

1. Design Possibilities:

• With our focus on innovation and quality, producers are constantly developing new seamless styles to meet customer’s demand.
• Development of new fibers and knitting adaptation are continually evolving. New advancements coming from fiber producers and yarn spinners will continue to provide innovation from the supplier side.
• Based on the structure of the knit, the patterns and construction of the garment cannot be matched with any other non-seamless garment and the ability to combine textures and levels of compression opens up endless possibilities for colored patterns, jacquards, ribbing and detailing.
• There are endless design possibilities with seamless technology, with the variety of different stitches that can be achieved within a single garment, for example a jersey knit can be placed side-by side with a mesh knit, a rib knit, a jacquard knit. This is impossible to do with any other type of knitting process.
• The features of seamless technology benefit the retail store and ultimately the end consumer, who will notice a difference once they try on a seamless garment. Once the consumer wears it, it offers a high-repeat purchase ratio. Consumers are only beginning to understand the benefits of seamless technology.
• Because of the versatile nature of seamless technology, there are infinite opportunities in the market,” both locally and internationally. The seamless concept can be applied to underwear, swimwear, control-wear, leisurewear, sleepwear, ready to wear and active wear.

2. Pricing:

• Unlike a regular knitting machine, which produces yards of the same pattern that need to be cut and sewn, the seamless machines produce individual garments from yarn that is fed into the machine-Retails for about 10-15 percent more, because of the specialized equipment involved and the high demand for such limited availability of machinery.
• This benefit is worthy of a price increase, meaning certain part of knitting/apparel category such as intimate, active wear market can be justified due to above listed benefits since some of its features cannot be accomplished in conventional circular knitting or cut and sew method.

3. Fit:

• The garments are precisely fitted to the body, producing a smother, clean look.
• Seamless garments conform smoothly to your individual shape and produce fewer lines under clothes to allow for a more streamline silhouette.
• The softness of seamless knitwear combined with the use of antimicrobial and hydrophilic yarns create the best features for an activewear garment.

4. Comfort:

• Wearers love seamless garments because they are forgiving, non-restrictive and are not binding. The lack of seams provides for improved comfort as the body moves.
• With an increasing demand by consumers for more comfortable and better-looking clothing. Seams tend to pucker up, and tags chafe against the skin. Seamless garments feature knitted in shaping to eliminate bulky elastics and provide enhanced comfort.
• The main seamless products are underwear, outerwear, activewear, shapewear and swimwear, all of which are highly elastic, fine to very fine fabric, made of micro-fibers, required to be very extensible and soft; therefore, adding to comfort.

5. Quality and Durability:

• Besides offering higher comfort and better fit to consumers by eliminating seams, the innovative technique creates entire garments with minimal intervention of cutting and sewing processes leading to substantial savings in cost and time, higher productivity, quick response, and just in-time production.
• Seamless garments have no waistband failures, no waistband or side seam failures and are more durable due to the high proportion of manufactured fibers such as nylon.
• The broad technical application of selective engagement and disengagement can be adopted sensibly to produce a ready to use customized garment thereby reducing wastage of cloth.
• With traditional production methods, fabric is the starting point for most garments. The fabric is dyed, patterns are cut, and then the pieces are sewn together. If printing or embroidery is part of the design, these are additional steps that take place later in the production process. But with seamless production, there is no fabric. One Italian machine can make the entire product in just minutes; and the machine automatically knits components like waistbands and hems.
• Seamless garments take 30 percent to 40% less time to make than a cut-and-sew version minimizes the traditional labor intensive step of cutting and sewing.

Disadvantages of Seamless Garment Technology:
Despite the advantages described above, seamless garments have the following disadvantages:

1. There are technical limitations in the seamless technique to knit every garment type/shape currently produced by cutting and sewing. The main problem has been the fabric takedown in keeping equal tension of each loop (i.e., stitch).
2. Another problem is caused during alternate needle selection, which makes fabrics more open and less elastic than conventional fully fashioned garments. This problem occurs mainly in the welt or the cuff areas.
3. The machines used for manufacturing seamless garments are costlier, and more skilled operators are required.
4. A fault during knitting (particularly a hole or a barré) damages the whole garment.
5. While lightweight, next-to-skin garments score advantage points for comfort, this is slightly less important for outerwear garments, where the seam can become a style/fashion feature.
6. Seamless garments are costlier as compared to seamed garments.

Conclusions:
The seamless technique is pioneering in clothing markets because of its smooth fit, comfort, invisibility, and easy care properties. This process, however, creates fabrics more open and less elastic than conventional fully fashioned garments. The trends worldwide suggest that seamless garments are becoming popular among the masses, especially with the youth. There is a potential for seamless garments to hold 50% of the industry’s sales within next 10 years by providing educational and training facilities and adding versatile design features.

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1. Seamless Knitting Technology: Benefits and Limitations
2. What is Pressure Garments? | Material Use for Pressure Garments
3. Basic Elements and Techniques of Garment Fitting

Mazharul Islam Kiron

Founder & Editor of Textile Learner. He is a Textile Consultant, Blogger & Entrepreneur. He is working as a textile consultant in several local and international companies. He is also a contributor of Wikipedia.

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