Colour and Finishing

You learn how a fabric gets its colour and its hand. And you see why the two most expensive arguments in apparel are decided long before anyone looks at a garment: a shade that will not match, and a finish that will not last.

After this track you can

You can read a dye and finish route and predict what it will do to shade, fastness, shrinkage, and cost. You can judge a lab dip and a bulk shade against the agreed illuminant. And you can take a costed decision on a lot that has come out off-shade or off-hand.

6 courses · 11 h 39 min

3.1Fabric PreparationFoundation3 lessons · 1 h 42 minYou go through everything that happens to greige fabric before colour. You see why a rushed scour, a slack mercerising, or a heat setting ten degrees low is the hidden cause of dye faults nobody traces back.
3.2Dyeing Systems and Dye ClassesPractitioner3 lessons · 2 h 5 minYou learn which dye goes on which fibre, in which machine, and what each choice costs. You cover dye classes and blends, the liquor ratio worked through water, salt, and energy, and the dye-lot and depth-of-shade decisions that reach a merchandiser as money.
3.3Colour Management and ApprovalPractitioner3 lessons · 2 hYou see how a colour gets agreed and how the agreement is enforced: the standard, the lab dip chain, what a spectrophotometer number does and does not settle, the light the shade is judged under, the shade band that survives cutting, and what a fastness failure costs once the bulk is dyed.
3.4Printing: What Each Route Costs and ConstrainsPractitioner3 lessons · 2 hYou see how a print gets onto cloth: by rotary screen, by flat screen, and by digital. You work out what each route costs per metre at your run length, what the print does to the marker, and which approval actually commits the printer to anything.
3.5Finishing: What the Cloth BecomesPractitioner3 lessons · 1 h 42 minYou cover everything that happens to fabric after colour and before cutting: the machine settings that decide width, weight and shrinkage in one pass, the chemical finishes that give one property by taking another, and the tests that tell you which of the two you actually bought.
3.6Denim Washing: the Recipe, the Cost and the Strength FloorAdvanced3 lessons · 2 h 10 minYou see that the laundry is where a denim garment is actually made. You cost three recipes per pair against one FOB, look at the dry processes a laser replaced and the one it cannot, and see how a wash is approved on a garment and tested against the strength the buyer will not go below.

Track exam

12 questions drawn from a larger bank, across the courses in this track, passed at 70%. 3 attempts, then it locks for 7 days. It is worth finishing the courses first.

Sit the track exam