Cut and Sew

Carefully Crafted

Cut-and-sew prototyping is a fabric-based product created with a pattern and assembled from a variety of textiles including fabrics, foams and knits. The range of soft goods products includes fashion garments, backpacks, upholstery, personal protective equipment, wearable medical devices, and sports equipment. Cut-and-sew, radio frequency (RF) welding, and compression molding are common methods of production used by our team of soft goods specialists, often together into one product. Soft goods products can also incorporate hard goods molded over the soft materials. The mix of soft and hard goods prototyping is used for products that include plastic shells or foam padding, for example helmets and harnesses.

Cut and Sew Highlights:

10+ production industrial sewing machines on site
300+ stocked textiles for prototyping
6000+ hardware pieces on site
Master seamstress on site full time

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Bringing It All Together

The cut-and-sew process of design and construction is used to create a product prototype by hand, first by developing 2D patterns based on that prototype, and then using the patterns to cut raw materials. After the patterns are cut from the appropriate materials, they are hand-assembled using a sewing machine. We have a sewing lab and soft goods specialists on staff with the ability to sew fabrics, foams and plastics.

We can create soft goods samples that are production quality as well as quick study mock-ups to test ideas. Through our experience, we’ve found it critical, when developing innovative soft goods, to create mock-ups using actual materials. These mock-ups allow us to test ideas quickly and are also useful tools in bridging communication gaps with manufacturing vendors outside the U.S. We have an extensive fabric and materials library where clients and designers can research new product development ideas.