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Fashion & Textiles vocabulary · Colours, Prints & Decoration

Repeat

Meaning in fashion & textiles, with examples

/rɪˈpiːt/nounAdvanced term

In fashion & textiles, repeat means: The smallest unit of a print or woven design that is repeated across the fabric, and the distance after which the design starts again.

In Turkish: raport, desen raporu

How it is used

Print designers prepare artwork in repeat so that it joins without visible lines. Repeat size matters for production: rotary screens have fixed repeat lengths, and big repeats waste more fabric when patterns must be matched. Common layouts are block, half-drop and mirror repeats.

Example sentences

  1. Please put the artwork into a 64 cm repeat for rotary printing.

  2. The repeat is visible on the back panel; the flowers line up in stripes.

Common collocations

  • in repeat
  • repeat size
  • half-drop repeat
  • pattern repeat
  • match the repeat
  • printA design applied to the surface of fabric with ink or dye, such as flowers, logos or stripes, rather than woven or knitted into it.
  • all-over printA print that covers the whole surface of the fabric with a repeating design, as opposed to a single placement print on one area.
  • strike-offA short test print of a design on the actual production fabric, sent to the buyer to approve colours, scale and quality before bulk printing.
  • markerA plan showing how all the pattern pieces are arranged on the fabric for cutting, designed to use as little fabric as possible.

More terms: Colours, Prints & Decoration

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