Apparel and Accessories Key Terms

Become familiar with apparel and accessories terminology

By Denise Brown

If apparel and accessories key terms seem confusing as you shop for business attire, you should take a few moments to learn some of the buzzwords. Whether you are looking for men’s or women’s apparel, the terms in this guide are often quite common to manufactured clothing in general. Many of these terms, such as bar tack, binding and placket, are also interchangeable between garments and accessories. Many woven accessories have serge-stitched seams and may even have a decorative serge finish.

Bar tack, or bar tacking

A bar tack provides a reinforced seam. Pockets, zipper ends and other openings often have this narrow row of zigzag stitching to prevent the seam from ripping open at stress points.
Try: Read how to do make a bar tack stitch on wise Geek. You can also read about more applications for bar tacking on apparel and accessories.

Binding, or binding tape

Binding finishes the edge of a garment. It has many uses in apparel and fashion accessories. Binding tape may have a bias cut that allows it to fit around curved edges.
Try: You can see what twill binding tape looks like at Horn Textile.

Full cut

Full-cut clothing refers to a garment's roominess. The term full cut is generally applied to pants or jeans. Full-cut pants have more room in the seat and thigh area for a more comfortable fit.
Try: Sierra Trading Post has an example of full-cut jeans. You can compare the picture with regular-cut jeans on the same page to see the fuller cut through the thighs.

Garment washed

Garment-washed apparel goes through a wash cycle after the garment is complete. This softens the fabric and makes the garment feel comfortable from the first wearing.
Try: Style Source has more information on the garment-washing process.

Placket

A placket is an opening in a garment. A zipper fly is an example of a placket. Buttons and buttonholes on the front of a shirt also are examples of a placket opening. A shirt placket may be the same fabric as the shirt or it may be a contrasting material.
Try: The dark, contrast trim area on this sweater from Omiru shows the sweater’s placket opening.

Serged or serge-stitched

A serged seam is one that has an overlock stitch that prevents the fabric from raveling. Many mass-produced garments have serged seams. To make serged stitches you need a three- or four-needle overlock machine or serger.
Try: See the example of serged stitching at What The Craft.