Navy Check Cotton Midi Skirt - Elasticated Waist with Pockets for OEM

A midi skirt from The Tiny Big Sister in a navy, white and yellow check, in a lightweight cotton with an elasticated waist, side seam pockets and a relaxed fit, listed at 136 GBP with all five sizes in stock. It publishes a waist column that is identical, figure for figure, to the waist column on the velvet trousers from the same house published alongside it: 32, 34, 36, 38 and 40. Those are two completely different garments. The trousers close with a zip and a hook and bar, so their waist is a fixed measurement and a hard limit. This skirt has elastic in the waist, so its waist is a starting point that stretches. The same five numbers cannot properly describe both, and the fact that they appear on both is the clearest evidence this run has found that a size table is sometimes a template rather than a set of measurements. It is worth being clear that this house does several things better than most in this run: it publishes a size conversion on both of its garments, it has every size in stock on both, and it describes its clothes plainly. What it does not do is tell you what the elastic does. The reference is the Check Elasticated Skirt in Navy. Dongguan Bafinasa Garments Co., Ltd. develops comparable skirts on OEM and ODM terms, from cloth selection and elastic specification to retail or FBA ready packing. We publish this as a development reference and build your own version of it, and we do not supply the branded original or reproduce anyone else's label.

Key Features

• A waist column identical to the one on the velvet trousers from the same house, on a garment whose waist stretches. See the note below
• Elasticated waist as stated, with no relaxed and no extended measurement given, which is the pair an elasticated waist needs. See the note below
• Two columns published for all five sizes, with no hip and no hem width on a relaxed skirt. See the note below
• A size conversion published, 34 is XS through 42 is XL, so the figures can be read against a body chart. See the note below
• Total length grading a clean two centimetres per size, from 86 to 94 cm
• Side seam pockets as stated, with no pocket bag depth and no opening measurement
• Lightweight as described, with no weight given, on a cotton that has to hold a gathered waist

Customisable Options

• Cloth: lightweight checked cotton to the reference, with the weight in grams per square metre and the check repeat in centimetres specified
• Waist: elasticated to the reference, with the relaxed and the extended measurement published, or a fixed waistband, or a flat front with an elasticated back, or a drawstring
• Length: midi to the reference at 86 to 94 cm, with knee and maxi options
• Pockets: side seam pockets to the reference, with the opening and the bag depth specified, or patch pockets, or a clean front
• Check: navy, white and yellow to the reference, with the repeat specified and the behaviour of the check at the gathers decided
• Fit: relaxed to the reference, with the hip and the hem width published so the silhouette is defined
• Cloth weight and check repeat, elastic width and relaxed and extended waist, hip and hem measurements, pocket specification, body length, size set, colour development, private label and care labelling

Specifications

Size Chart as Published by the Reference

The waist figures are identical to the waist column on the velvet trousers from the same house, and as there they must be flat halves, doubling to 64, 68, 72, 76 and 80 cm around, or 25.2 through 31.5 in. Against a body waist of 24, 26, 28, 30 and 32 in across XS to XL, the relaxed ease runs from about one and a fifth inches down to about minus one half. On a skirt with elastic in the waist that figure is a starting point rather than a limit, and the measurement that would decide what it fits is the extended waist, which is not published. The length grades a clean two centimetres per size from 86 to 94 cm. No hip and no hem width are given.

Our Proposed Body Chart

Occasions and Styling

Suits autumn and spring, everyday, weekends and work. A checked cotton midi with an elasticated waist is an easy skirt rather than a dressy one, and the reference is right that it wants a denim shirt and boots, since the check does the work that a print would do in a smarter cloth.

Production and Quality Control

The reference publishes two columns for all five sizes, states its fibre, describes the waist, the fit, the length and the pockets, gives a care instruction, names the country of make, publishes a size conversion and has every size in stock. It publishes no hip, no hem width, no extended waist and no cloth weight. Three things follow: what it means for two different garments to share one waist column, what an elasticated waist needs that a fixed one does not, and what is missing from a skirt with a gathered waist.

The same five numbers on two garments that are nothing alike, and that is the first thing. The velvet trousers from this house, published alongside this skirt, give a waist column of 32, 34, 36, 38 and 40. This skirt gives 32, 34, 36, 38 and 40. The two garments could not be less alike at the waist. The trousers are made of a woven polyester velvet with a zip fly and a bar and hook, so the waist is a fixed band that closes at one circumference and cannot be a millimetre smaller than the body that goes into it; the ease this run calculated for it runs from about one and a fifth inches at the 34 to about minus one half at the 42, and on a cloth with no stretch that last figure is a waist that will not fasten. This skirt is made of cotton with elastic in the waistband, so the same numbers describe the relaxed state of a band that stretches, and the same minus one half at the 42 means nothing at all, because the elastic will give. So one column, two meanings, and the identical figures are the evidence that the column is a template rather than a measurement: it was set once for a size set and applied to every garment in the house regardless of how the waist is constructed. It is worth being precise about why that matters, because there is a defensible version of it. A house may well want a consistent size set, so that a customer who is a 38 in one thing is a 38 in another, and publishing the same base waist across garments is one way to get that. But the base has to be the right base for each construction. On a fixed waistband the number needs ease in it, because the garment has to close and to sit. On an elasticated waist the number does not need ease, because the elastic supplies the difference, and what it needs instead is a second number, which is how far it stretches. Publishing one number for both cases means the fixed waistband garment is tight at the top of the range and the elasticated one is undescribed at every point in it. There is a third thing the shared column hides, and it is worth naming because it is the practical one: with no extended figure, nobody can tell how much gathering there is at the waistband. The relaxed waist is 64 cm at the 34 and the skirt panels above it are cut to whatever width they are cut to, and the difference between the two is the gather, and the gather is the design. It is not published, and neither is the hip, which is what the gather has to pass over.

What an elasticated waist needs, and that is the second thing. An elasticated waist is not one measurement but three, and pages almost never give more than one. The first is the relaxed measurement, which is what this page gives: the waistband lying flat with no pull on it, which is the number the garment was cut to and which tells you almost nothing about who it fits. The second is the extended measurement, which is how far the elastic stretches before it stops, and that is the number that decides the largest body the skirt will go over. The third is the stretched measurement under load, which is what the elastic does after an hour of wear and after fifty washes, and it is the number that decides whether the skirt stays up. This run has met elasticated waists before, on the wool trouser and on the fleece, and it has not yet seen a page publish any of the three beyond the first. The consequence for the customer is straightforward: a skirt whose relaxed waist is 64 cm might stretch to 76 or it might stretch to 100, and those are skirts for different people, and there is no way to tell from this page which it is. The consequence for the factory is more concrete, and it is worth setting out, because an elasticated waistband is where cheap garments fail first. The elastic itself needs a width and a modulus, which is how much force it takes to stretch it, and both are specifiable and both are cheap to specify. It needs a recovery test, because elastic that has been held stretched in a warehouse for six months does not always come back, and the standard test is a stretch and recovery cycle repeated a set number of times. It needs to be stitched in a way that lets it move, since an elastic stitched down flat all the way round becomes a shirred panel rather than a waistband and loses most of its stretch. And it needs an allowance for the fact that a gathered waistband consumes cloth: the panels above the elastic are wider than the band and the difference is the gather, and the gather ratio is a number in the marker. None of that is on this page, and all of it is a line in a tech pack. There is one more thing that belongs here and it is specific to this garment, which is the check. A check has a repeat, and a repeat cannot run through a gather: the waistband gathers the cloth, and wherever cloth is gathered the check stops being a grid and becomes a series of broken lines. That is not a fault, it is unavoidable, and it is the same decision this run has raised on the ruffled blouse and on the lattice bodice of the poplin dress: accept a broken check at the gathers, or set the waistband in a plain or a contrast cloth, or cut it on the bias and raise the consumption. Whichever is chosen, it is a decision, and this page describes the check in three colours and says nothing about how it behaves where the cloth is gathered.

Two columns, and what a skirt does not say, and that is the third thing. The page publishes the waist and the total length and nothing else. A skirt needs three girths and one length, and this run has now said that on every skirt it has examined, including the corduroy one early on and the checked one two batches ago, and it is worth saying once more what the missing two do. The hip is the measurement that decides whether a skirt hangs or pulls, because a skirt has to pass over the hip to reach the waist, and on a gathered skirt the hip is where the gathers either fall cleanly or catch. The hem width, or the sweep, is the measurement that defines the silhouette: a relaxed A line, a full gathered skirt and a straight skirt can all have the same waist and the same length and be three different garments, and the difference between them is entirely in the hem. This page says relaxed fit and gives no number that would let anybody tell what relaxed means, and the length is the only column on it that is unambiguous. That length, to be fair, is good: 86 to 94 cm, grading a clean two centimetres per size, which is a sensible grade and a tidy one, and it is the second tidy length column this run has seen from this house after the trousers. But 86 cm is a long midi, at the ankle or near it on most women below about five foot seven, and there is no model height published to place it, so as with every length in this run the number cannot be turned into a picture. Then the cloth, which is described as lightweight and which is the seventeenth or eighteenth unnumbered cloth description in this run, and there is a specific reason it matters here: a lightweight cotton has to hold a gathered waist, and a cloth that is too light will not hold the gather, it will collapse under it and the skirt will read as limp rather than full. The weight is what decides that, and no weight is given. Then the pockets, which are side seam pockets with no opening measurement and no bag depth, and on a lightweight cotton a pocket bag that is too shallow lets the pocket gape and one that is too heavy drags the hip line down. And then what this house does well, which is worth setting out because it is rare in this run and because it changes what the omissions mean. It publishes a size conversion on both of its garments, so its sizes can be placed against a body chart without guessing, which only one other garment in fifteen batches has managed. It has every size in stock on both. It states its fibre plainly. It describes its clothes in plain language without invented technology. And it charges the same 136 pounds for a velvet trouser with a fly, four pockets and a hook and bar as for a cotton skirt with an elastic waist, which tells you everything you need to know about where the money in a retail price is. The omissions on this page are not carelessness so much as an unexamined habit: a waist column that is copied from garment to garment, and a specification that stops at the two columns someone decided were enough. Every bulk shipment gets a measurement report against your approved chart.

Optional upgrades include publishing the relaxed and the extended waist, which are the two numbers an elasticated waist needs, specifying the elastic by width and modulus and testing its recovery, publishing the gather ratio at the waistband, publishing the hip and the hem width, which between them define what a relaxed skirt looks like, deciding how the check behaves at the gathers and stating the repeat in centimetres, stating the cloth weight so it can be judged against the weight of the gathers it has to carry, specifying the pocket opening and the bag depth, adding a model height so 86 cm can be placed on a body, a fixed waistband, a flat front with an elasticated back and a drawstring option, knee and maxi lengths, patch pocket and clean front options, size set, colour development, private label, hangtag and care labelling.

Pre-production sample approval, in-line inspection during cutting and sewing, and a final AQL inspection before packing, with measurement reports and photos shared before shipment.

Send us your tech pack, a photo or a reference garment and we will quote within 24 hours. Contact bafinasa@bafinasa.com or WhatsApp +86 13827222469.