What Is a Tech Pack (and What a Portuguese Factory Actually Needs in It)
Matias Santos, Founder
A brief tells a factory what you want to make. A tech pack tells them exactly how to make it. Confusing the two is the single most common reason a first sample comes back wrong, not because the factory got it wrong, but because the document they were working from never actually specified the thing you're now unhappy about.
A brief and a tech pack are not the same document
A production brief tells a factory what you're trying to make: garment category, fabric type, quantities, target price, timeline. It's enough for a factory to say yes, we can do this, and give you an initial quote.
A tech pack is a different, more precise document entirely. It's the engineering specification a pattern maker and sewing line actually work from to construct the exact garment you have in mind, not a general description of it. A factory can quote from a brief. A factory cannot accurately sample from one. The gap between those two documents is where most first-sample disappointments actually come from, not from the factory doing sloppy work, but from the factory building precisely to a spec that never captured the detail the founder assumed was implied.