Hoodie Tech Pack: The Complete Spec (+ Free Template)

A hoodie is usually the first thing a streetwear founder ever makes. It looks simple. Two panels, a hood, a pocket, some rib. That simplicity is exactly why it gets rejected. A complete tech pack runs eight core sections, from flat sketches to construction notes (Techpacker), and a hoodie tests almost every one of them at once.

I run a network of clothing factories in Portugal. I've watched good hoodie samples come off the line wrong, not because the design was bad, but because the hood was undefined, the rib had no recovery spec, or the pouch sat two centimetres off. This guide walks the whole garment, hood to hem, and shows where hoodies specifically fail.

New to the format? Start with what a tech pack actually contains, then come back here for the hoodie specifics. If you just want the fields, grab the free tech pack template and fill it as you read.

What must a hoodie tech pack contain?

A hoodie tech pack contains the same eight sections as any production spec: flat sketches, bill of materials, measurement specs, cost sheet, size gradings, colorways, construction notes, and revision history (Techpacker). Nothing about a hoodie lets you skip one. The garment just loads more detail into a few of them.

Here's the difference from a tee. A hoodie has a hood, a pouch pocket, drawcords, eyelets, and rib at three points. Each of those is a sub-assembly with its own measurements, materials, and construction. So the flat sketch needs callouts a tee never has. The BOM lists cord, tipping, and eyelets. The POM table grows a hood section. The spec doesn't change shape. It gets deeper.

How do you spec a hoodie hood?

The hood is where hoodies fail first. Inspection measures a finished garment against your stated numbers at AQL 2.5 for consumer goods (QIMA), so an undefined hood is an unmeasurable hood. Spec three things: hood height, hood width at the opening, and the crown or centre-back seam shape.

Hood proportion is the single detail that reads "cheap" or "considered" from across a room. Too short, and it won't sit over the head. Too wide at the face, and it collapses flat on the shoulders. I've seen a hood pass every other measurement and still get rejected on approval, because it looked wrong on the body. Give the hood its own flat, drawn from the side and the front, with height and opening width dimensioned.

Most first hoodie specs treat the hood as one measurement. It isn't. A hood is a three-dimensional shape defined by height, opening width, and the seam that builds the crown. A two-panel hood and a three-panel hood at the same height sit completely differently on the head, and only the construction note tells them apart.

What hood construction options should the tech pack call out?

Hood construction is a decision the tech pack makes, not one it hands to the factory. The finished hood gets measured against a block sized from body-measurement tables like ASTM D5585-21 (ASTM), so panel count, lining, and the cord channel all change how that block sews up. Call out four things: panels, lining, channel, and the body attachment.

Two-panel vs three-panel hood

A two-panel hood joins on one centre-back seam. It's cheaper, sits flatter, and tends to fall onto the shoulders when it's down. A three-panel hood adds a centre gusset running crown to nape, which builds height and holds the hood upright off the back. The panel count does more for perceived quality than any single measurement, yet it lives in one line of the construction notes. Dimension the gusset width on a three-panel, or the factory guesses it.

Lined vs unlined hood

An unlined hood is a single fleece layer with its inside seams overlocked and on show. A self-lined or jersey-lined hood doubles the fabric, hides the seams, and adds warmth, plus cost and weight. If you line it, list the lining fabric in the BOM and note how the two layers meet at the opening: bagged out and turned, or bound. A contrast lining is a design feature and a second colourway line.

Drawcord channel and eyelets

The channel is the tunnel the cord runs through at the hood opening, either a folded-back self facing or an applied binding. Spec its finished width so it clears the cord and lets it slide. Then decide the cord exit: metal eyelets, self-fabric eyelets, a machine buttonhole, or no exit at all on a hidden-cord hood where the cord is caught in the seam. Dimension eyelet placement from centre front, and state nickel-free if the eyelets are metal.

Hood-to-body attachment

The hood joins the body at the neckline, and that seam is where twisting starts. Note whether the hood sews to a bound neckline, to a neck rib, or to a facing, and whether the seam is taped to stop it stretching. Match the hood and body notches in the pattern. Most twisted-hood samples I've sent back weren't a sewing fault. They were a notch that never made it onto the flat.

Why does the kangaroo pocket go wrong so often?

The pouch pocket fails on two things: placement and stress points. Construction notes are one of the eight core tech pack sections (Techpacker), and the pouch needs more of them than any other part. Dimension the pocket position from the hem and centre front, then bar-tack every opening corner.

Think about what a hand does to a kangaroo pocket. It pulls down and out, hundreds of times, often with keys or a phone inside. A plain straight stitch at the pocket opening tears. A bar-tack, a short dense stitch cluster, holds. Skip the bar-tack callout and the factory may run a simple backstitch, which looks fine on the sample and lifts on the customer. Placement matters too. A pouch dimensioned from the waist but drawn at the hip becomes two different garments.

Spec these for the pouch: opening height and width, distance from hem, distance from centre front, and a bar-tack at every stress corner. Note the topstitch distance so the visible line matches your intent.

I've had a batch flagged because the pouch pockets sat a couple of centimetres high across the run. The tech pack dimensioned the pocket from the centre front but never from the hem, so the factory placed it by eye. Every unit was internally consistent. None of them matched the sample the founder had approved. That gap cost a re-cut nobody wanted to pay for.

What rib composition and recovery should a hoodie spec?

Rib is the second big failure point, right behind the hood. The bill of materials must pin down every component, not just the shell (Sewport), and rib is a separate component with its own composition. Spec the rib by fibre split, including elastane percentage, plus the rib depth at cuff, hem, and neck.

Recovery is the word that matters. Recovery is how well the rib springs back after it stretches over a hand or a head. Cotton rib with no elastane stretches once and stays stretched, so cuffs bag out and the hem waves. A few percent elastane changes everything. Cuffs grip, the hem holds its line, and the garment still looks new after twenty washes. "Ribbed cuff" is not a spec. "2x2 rib, 95/5 cotton/elastane, 6 cm cuff depth" is.

What fleece and rib construction should the BOM lock down?

Fleece and rib are the two knits that decide whether a hoodie feels premium or cheap, and both grade with the size run on body-based increments, the same principle behind ASTM body-measurement tables (ASTM). Lock the fleece by construction and weight, and the rib by gauge and elastane, before the mill buys a single cone of yarn.

Loopback vs brushed-back fleece

Loopback fleece, also called French terry, leaves the knit loops uncut on the inside. It's lighter, more breathable, and reads clean for year-round streetwear. Brushed-back fleece sands those loops into a soft nap, so it's warmer, bulkier, and sheds more in the early washes. The two look almost identical from the face. Name which one in the BOM, because a factory will default to whatever's on the shelf.

GSM tiers and what they signal

Fleece weight is quoted in grams per square metre, and the tier sets the whole character of the hoodie. Roughly, 250 to 280 gsm is lightweight for layering, 300 to 340 gsm is the streetwear standard, and 380 gsm and up is heavyweight and boxy. Heavier fleece needs a firmer rib to balance it, or the cuffs look weak against the body. State a target GSM with a tolerance, not just "fleece."

Shrinkage and why it bites hoodies

Knit fleece shrinks, usually more in length than width, and a hoodie shows it fast. The disputes I see most aren't about a bad sample. They're about a good sample that shrank. Spec a maximum shrinkage after a stated wash, require a pre-production wash test, and say whether your points of measure are pre- or post-wash. A 70 cm body that comes back at 66 cm drags the pouch up and shortens the sleeves at once.

Rib gauge, structure, and the three positions

Earlier we specced rib by composition. Construction matters too. A 2x2 rib is deeper and chunkier than 1x1 and gives more surface to recover, which suits heavier hoodies. Gauge, the needles per inch, sets how fine it knits. Cuff and hem usually share one spec, but the neck rib is narrower and works hardest, because it stretches over the head on every wear. Give each position its own depth, and hold the same elastane floor across all three.

How do you spec the drawcord and eyelets?

Drawcords and eyelets live in the bill of materials, which lists every trim and component beyond the shell fabric (Sewport). Spec the cord type, width, length, and tipping, plus the eyelet or grommet material, inner diameter, and finish. These small parts sink an otherwise clean hoodie sample surprisingly often.

Cord and eyelet failures are quiet but real. A cord cut too short won't tie once the hood cinches. Metal eyelets that aren't specified as nickel-free can fail compliance testing in some markets. A cord with no tipping, the reinforced end, frays and won't thread back through the eyelet after the first wash. And if the eyelet inner diameter is smaller than the cord, the cord jams. Name each part. Note whether eyelets are metal or self-fabric, and whether the cord is flat or round.

How does a zip hoodie tech pack differ from a pullover?

A zip hoodie keeps all eight sections but rebuilds the entire centre front. Where a pullover has an unbroken body and a kangaroo pouch, a full-zip splits the front, adds a separating zipper, a placket, and usually two hand pockets. That extra hardware is why a zip style sits toward the top of the 500 to 2,000 dollar tech pack range (Guru, 2022).

Spec the zip first, because everything else hangs off it. A full-zip hoodie needs a separating (open-ended) zip so both halves part completely. Name the type: coil nylon for light, flexible zips, moulded plastic for a chunkier streetwear look, or metal for weight. Give the chain gauge too, where #3 is fine, #5 is the mid-weight default, and #8 is heavy. Call out the brand tier and the colour of both tape and teeth.

Then dimension the zip length. It has to match the finished front length on the zip side, hem to the top of the collar or hood seam. A zip a centimetre off is one of the quieter reject reasons I've seen. The placket buckles or the hem gapes, and no measurement on the sheet catches it, because nobody dimensioned the zip. Grade the zip length per size like any other point of measure.

Also spec for a zip hoodie: the placket width and whether it's topstitched; a stay tape or interfacing behind the placket so the knit front doesn't wave; an optional storm flap behind the teeth and a garage at the top to stop chin catch; two hand pockets with opening, bag depth, and bar-tacks in place of the pouch; and a bar-tack at the base of the zip.

What points of measure does a hoodie need?

A hoodie needs a fuller points-of-measure table than most garments, because the hood and rib add rows a tee never has. Grading those points follows body-based increments, the same logic behind ASTM body-measurement standards maintained by Subcommittee D13.55 (ASTM). Every row below needs a base measurement and a tolerance.

The table shows an illustrative POM list for a pullover hoodie at base size M. Treat the numbers as a worked example, not a standard to copy. Your fit, block, and fabric set the real values. What matters is the structure: a measurement and a tolerance on every line, including the hood and rib rows that first-time specs skip. A good format keeps this table readable under time pressure on the line.

Here's how those rows grade, because grading isn't one percentage across the board. Chest and body length move most between sizes, often a couple of centimetres a step. Hood height and opening grade in far smaller increments, because heads vary much less than chests. Rib depths at cuff and hem usually hold constant across the whole run, graded by zero, while the rib's circumference grows with the opening it finishes. Neck rib width often stays fixed too. Grading each row at its own rate is what keeps a size XS and a size XXL both reading as the same hoodie.

How is a hoodie tech pack inspected on the line?

A finished hoodie is inspected by sampling, not by checking every unit. Inspectors pull a sample using standards like ISO 2859-1, mirrored by ANSI/ASQ Z1.4, and measure each garment against your spec. Consumer apparel is commonly checked at AQL 2.5, with 1.0 for higher-risk items and 4.0 for minor cosmetic faults (QIMA).

Here's why this shapes your tech pack. Every measurement you list is checked against the tolerance you set. A hood height 2 cm off tolerance counts as a defect. Enough defects, and the batch fails against the AQL. Critical defects sit at zero, no exceptions. So the tech pack isn't paperwork you send and forget. It's the exact document a stranger with a tape uses to accept or reject your production run. Leave the hood or rib undefined, and you've handed that decision away.

If you'd rather not build the document alone, our tech pack service turns your hoodie design into a factory-ready spec for $299, hood and rib detail included. For a full catalogue of failure modes, the common mistakes guide covers what gets garments rejected across every category.

What should you hand a knit or fleece factory?

Hand the factory the complete pack, not a mood board and a photo. A tech pack takes roughly 5 to 20 hours to build for a reason (Guru, 2022): it front-loads every call a knit factory would otherwise make for you. With a hoodie, that means the eight sections plus a few physical things a screen can't carry.

Send fabric evidence, not adjectives. A knit or fleece factory needs the actual quality confirmed: a hanger or header of the exact loopback or brushed fleece and the rib, ideally with GSM and the knit structure, so what they order matches what you approved. Attach the cord and eyelet trims or their precise specs. Include an approved measurement set or a reference garment they can copy, plus a fit-comment sheet so your tolerances read as intent, not suggestion.

The briefs that sample right on the first round, in my network, are the ones that arrive with a physical fabric reference clipped to a full POM. The ones that bounce describe the fabric in words and hope the mill pictures the same thing.

How do you make a hoodie tech pack, step by step?

Building a hoodie tech pack costs less than one rejected run. Independent estimates put a professional tech pack at 500 to 2,000 dollars per style, taking roughly 5 to 20 hours (Guru, 2022). Work through the eight sections in order, loading the hood, pouch, and rib with the detail this guide covers.

Follow these steps to build a complete pullover hoodie tech pack:

1. Draw the flats. Front, back, and a separate hood detail from the side and front. Add callouts for the pouch, cord, and eyelets.
2. Build the bill of materials. Shell fabric with GSM and composition, rib with elastane percentage, cord, tipping, eyelets, thread, and labels.
3. Fill the points of measure. Every row a base size and a tolerance, including hood height, opening width, and rib depth at cuff, hem, and neck.
4. Write the construction notes. Seam types, stitches per inch, topstitch distances, and a bar-tack at every pouch stress corner.
5. Set the colourways. A named or Pantone reference for shell, rib, cord, tipping, and thread, kept separate.
6. Add grading and revision control. Grade point by point, then put a revision number and date on every page. One live version.

Start from the free tech pack template so the fields are already there. When you're ready to produce, you can find a manufacturer through Portugal Clothing Factory, which works from exactly this kind of complete spec.

Frequently asked questions

The bottom line

A hoodie looks like a beginner's garment and behaves like an advanced one. The hood is a three-dimensional shape, the rib is an engineered component, and the pouch takes real stress on every wear. Spec each one with numbers a tape can check, and most hoodie rejections disappear before the first panel is cut.

Work the eight sections in order. Give the hood its own flat and dimensions. Spec rib by composition and recovery, not by adjective. Bar-tack the pouch and dimension its placement from the hem. Name every cord and eyelet. Then put a tolerance on every measurement, because that's what inspection checks. Start from the pillar guide for the full system, or grab the free tech pack template and build your hoodie spec today.

Peter Midea runs a network of 80 clothing factories in Portugal and has watched more garments get rejected on a production line than he'd like to admit.

Sources

Every statistic and definition in this article traces to one of the following. Each is listed once here, and cited inline where it is used.

• Techpacker
• images.pexels.com
• QIMA
• ASTM International
• Sewport
• ASTM International
• Guru
• otextilpt.sirv.com
• Portugal Clothing Factory

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