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Fashion & Textiles vocabulary · Fashion Industry & Retail

Ready-to-wear

Meaning in fashion & textiles, with examples

/ˌredi tə ˈweə/adjectiveCore term

In fashion & textiles, ready-to-wear means: Describing clothes made in standard sizes and sold finished, rather than made to measure for one customer.

In Turkish: hazır giyim, konfeksiyon

How it is used

Used both as an adjective and a noun: ready-to-wear collections, a ready-to-wear brand, designer ready-to-wear. It is often shortened to RTW. In luxury fashion, ready-to-wear is contrasted with haute couture; the French term prêt-à-porter means the same.

Example sentences

  1. The brand started with bridal wear and launched its first ready-to-wear line in 2020.

  2. Turkey is one of the largest ready-to-wear exporters to the European Union.

Common collocations

  • ready-to-wear collection
  • women's ready-to-wear
  • ready-to-wear brand
  • RTW
  • garmentA single item of clothing, such as a shirt, dress, coat or pair of trousers, especially when talking about how it is designed, made or sold.
  • collectionA group of garments and accessories designed together for one season or event, sharing a theme, colour palette and fabrics.
  • fashion weekA series of fashion shows and events held over several days in a city, where designers present their new collections to buyers, press and the public.
  • size rangeThe set of sizes in which a style is produced and sold, from the smallest to the largest, such as XS to XL or 34 to 46.

More terms: Fashion Industry & Retail

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