How do swimwear manufacturers produce swimsuits?

Abely, which is a professional swimwear supplier with more than 20 years of experience, we're professional in manufacturing and exporting all kinds of swimsuits, bikinis, and rash guards for women, men, and kids. Our products mainly supply for EU, US, AU market.

Most of the customers buying swimwear from stores mainly focus on appearance and colorway. But not know how to make swimwear. Let us show you how to make it and you might be careful with workmanship and quality once you understand well. If you plan to build up your swimwear brand, it would help enrich your knowledge of all kinds of women, men, and kids' bathing suits.

Prepare the swimwear fabric and materials, and choose what you prefer

1.Swimsuit shell fabric composition is typically around 80%-90% nylon and 10%-20% spandex, include print or solid color.

2. Swimwear soft Lining fabric usually uses 100%polyester

3. Material such as elastics' ring& slider, decoration

Make a swimwear pattern, front and back

Before cutting, and sewing, we need to make the pattern for swimwear.

Use the patterns to cut the swimsuit panels. Lay the front and back panel patterns onto the swimsuit fabric, placing the straight edge of the pattern, then cut it out or follow the outline of the pattern with sharp scissors or a cutting machine. If needed, use pins to keep the pattern in place while you trace or cut.

While our factory has introduced a cutting machine to cut fabric for bulk production. Showing as below image:

Sew the tops of the straps, the sides, and the crotch with a zig-zag stitch. Use either ballpoint or stretch needles in your sewing machine and set it to apply a regular zig-zag, three-stretch zig-zag, or lightning stitch. Focus on sewing together 3 areas: the tops of the shoulder straps, the sides of the suit, between the arm and leg openings, and the crotch area between the leg openings.

• Zig-zag sewing patterns hold up much better to stretching.

• Use a polyester or wooly nylon thread. Cotton thread isn't stretchy enough and doesn't hold up as well to chlorinated water or saltwater.

Baste (temporarily stitch) the liner inside the swimsuit

Slip the liner into the suit material at the neck opening, and then align the seams you just stitched in each—start with the crotch seam, then the side seams, then the strap seams. Pin the paired seams in place as you get them aligned. Set your sewing machine to do a simple up-and-down running stitch, which is a standard basting stitch. Baste the liner and suit at the neck, arm, and leg openings.

It's necessary to remove the basting stitches until the swimsuit is all finished, and then use a seam ripper to slice through the basting thread and pull it out.

Sew swimsuit elastic into the neck /leg opening with a 25% stretch

Continue stretching, zig-zag stitching, and repeating until you've gone all the way around each arm opening. Remember to stretch only the elastic, not the suit fabric, while stitching the elastic into place.

Topstitch the elastic bands into the suit with the twin needle. Hold the folded fabric smooth and taut with your fingers as you run it through the machine, securing it with a zig-zag stitch or another type of strong yet flexible finishing stitch. Continue the process on all the areas of the suit with elastic. This is the finishing stitch for the suit.

Don't stretch out the elastic as you secure the topstitch in place. Just pull it slightly taut to smooth out any wrinkles or bunching.