- What has to be on a clothing label in the UK?
- Only the fibre composition, given as a percentage of total weight, under the Textile Products (Labelling and Fibre Composition) Regulations 2012. It has to be easily legible, visible and clear, in English for sales in Great Britain, and visible to the buyer before purchase, including online. Care instructions and country of origin are convention rather than law.
- Are care symbols legally required in the UK?
- No. Care labelling is convention rather than law in the UK, which surprises most first-time founders. Retailers and marketplaces expect it, customers judge you on it, and returns go up without it, but no regulation compels it. Fibre composition is the part you cannot skip.
- Can I use the standard ISO care symbols on my label?
- Not without a licence. The five symbols underlying BS EN ISO 3758 are trade marks co-owned by GINETEX and COFREET, registered internationally through WIPO (including collective mark 849319) and licensed in the UK by UKFT. They are registered in the classes that cover textiles and clothing, so putting them on a garment is the act that needs the licence, and redrawing them by hand rather than copying the file does not change that. Most label printers already hold one, which is why this tool sets the instructions in words by default and tells you the position before it draws a symbol.
- How do I write the fibre composition?
- List fibres by percentage of total weight in descending order, for example 95% Cotton 5% Elastane, using the fibre names set out in the regulation. Where they cannot easily be stated at the time of manufacture, one fibre up to 5%, or several totalling up to 15%, may be shown as 'other fibres' with that percentage given. Only a product made exclusively of one fibre may say 100%, 'pure' or 'all'.
- Do I have to say where the garment was made?
- Not in the UK, where country of origin marking on textiles is voluntary. It becomes necessary in practice for export, for customs declarations, and for most retail and marketplace listings, so almost every brand includes it.
- What file does my label printer need?
- Vector, so it stays sharp at the size a neck label is actually printed. This tool exports SVG, which every label printer can open, and sets the text in a standard sans-serif so nothing shifts when the file lands on their machine.