Most brands come to us with a half-zip reference photo and a fabric they like.

Almost nobody arrives with a placket spec. This guide closes that gap.

This is the narrow, build-only guide. It assumes you’ve already made three decisions elsewhere:

That a half-zip is the right style for your line, how it differs from a full-zip, and how the front placket is stabilized and sewn. Each of those has its own page, linked at the point it matters.

What’s left and what no other page covers is the thing that actually defines a half-zip:

A closed-end zip that stops in the middle of a pullover front and the termination that has to hold it there.

That termination point is where cheap half-zips die.

You can see it on a rack from two meters away: a small pucker or a ripple below the zip stop, fabric waving where it should sit flat.

Everything below is about preventing that one failure.

Start here if you haven’t chosen the style:

A half-zip is a pullover with a partial front opening; the body never splits, you pull it over your head, and the zip vents the neck rather than opening the garment.

The full comparison against a full-zip hardware, cost, drape, and who each style sells to lives on its own page.

This guide assumes the half-zip is already chosen.

Read: Half-zip vs. full-zip →

One term to settle before we go further, because the whole guide depends on it.

Every vertical measurement here is taken from the High Point of Shoulder (HPS), the standard reference for “how far down” anything sits on a garment.

When we say a zip is 25 cm, we mean 25 cm measured down from HPS.

It’s the only way to specify a zip length a pattern maker can act on.

On “half-zip” versus “quarter-zip”: same construction, shorter opening.

A quarter-zip stops higher on the chest; a half-zip around mid-chest.

There’s no governing standard; brands name these by feel, so the practical answer is always to specify the length in centimeters and ignore the label.

They behave identically in production, and everything in this guide applies to both.

Chapter 01

Set the zip length before you draw anything else:

Here’s the mistake almost every first-time half-zip brief makes: it treats the zip length as a detail to settle later, once the fabric, color, and print are locked.

It isn’t a detail. It’s the first number, and it drives the rest.

On a full-zip, the length is a fixed collar-to-hem, done.

On a half-zip, you’re choosing where the opening stops, and that choice is unique to the style.

It has no equivalent on any other hoodie.

Where the zip stops determines where the termination sits on the chest.

Where the termination sits determines how much reinforcement that spot needs, what decoration can go near it, and how the collar is drafted so the two halves meet without a step.

Change the zip length after the pattern is cut and you are re-cutting the pattern.

How to pick the number?

  1. Start from the silhouette you want. A longer opening (mid-chest, ~28-30 cm) reads utility and technical. A shorter one (high chest, ~18-22 cm, effectively a quarter-zip) reads athletic and clean. Decide the read first, then the number.
  2. Measure on a body, not a table. Put a tape on a fit model at your base size, measure down from HPS, and pin where you want the zip to stop. Look at it in a mirror. Five minutes here saves a sample round.
  3. Check it can still go over a head. This is the one hard constraint a full-zip never has, and it’s the constraint people forget. The opening plus the collar’s stretch has to clear the widest head in your size range. On a rigid collar or a low-stretch fabric, too short a zip becomes a garment nobody can put on. This is the failure mode unique to the half-zip: a pullover you can’t pull over.
  4. Grade it, or fix it, but decide. A 25 cm zip on an XS is a different garment than a 25 cm zip on a 3XL. Either the opening scales with the size or it stays constant. Both are valid; a constant opening across a wide range will look wrong at one end, so choose deliberately rather than letting the factory default it.
  5. Round to a stock zip length. Closed-end zips come in standard lengths. Specifying 27.5 cm when your supplier stocks 25 and 30 means a custom order, a longer lead time, or a factory quietly rounding for you. Ask what’s stocked before you commit, and note that this is a genuine advantage of the closed-end zip, covered next.

From the floor:

Floor anecdote: a first-person account of a size-graded vs. fixed zip length decision on a real half-zip order. What the brand chose and what the fit sample showed at the extremes of the range, including the over-the-head check.

Chapter 02

The closed-end termination: where a half-zip actually fails

This is the chapter that has no equivalent anywhere else, because it’s the one thing a half-zip does that no other garment does: a zip that stops in the middle of a continuous knit panel.

Why is the zip closed-end, and why does that help you?

A half-zip uses a closed-end zip: the two halves stay permanently joined at the bottom.

That’s the opposite of the separating (open-end) zip a full-zip needs, and the difference is more than a spec line.

A separating zip has a machine-fixed pin-and-box at the base and must be bought finished, at an exact length, every time.

A closed-end zip can be cut from a continuous chain and closed at the bottom.

For a short run, that flexibility is real: your zip length isn’t hostage to what a supplier happens to stock in a separating format, and sourcing is faster and cheaper.

It’s one of the quiet reasons a half-zip is a gentler first run than a full-zip.

The placket builds itself:

Attaching the zip cleanly, stabilizing the knit edge before the tape goes near it, matching tension on both sides, facing the tape, and guarding the chin is a four-stage sequence we call the Placket Integrity Stack.

It’s identical whether the zip is closed-end or separating, so rather than repeat it here, build the placket from that reference.

This chapter covers only what’s different about a half-zip: the bottom of the zip lands in the middle of the panel, not at the hem.

Where the placket ends is a raw cut in a knit?

On a full-zip, the zip runs off the bottom edge, and the load exits into the hem. On a half-zip, it doesn’t.

You slit the continuous front panel vertically to your chosen depth, and the zip stops there, mid-panel.

That slit has a bottom, and that bottom is a raw cut in a stretchy knit that takes the entire load every time someone yanks the zip up.

Two materials with different stretches, joined along a seam, with a concentrated stress point at the end of the slit.

That’s the engineering problem of a half-zip in one sentence, and it’s a problem the full-zip guide never has to solve, because a full-zip has no mid-panel stop.

A B CONTINUOUS FRONT PANEL
A Top

Chin guard:

The slider ends at throat height. A small fabric flap behind the top stop keeps the hardware off skin. Cheap to add, and one of the highest-impact comfort details on the garment.

B Base

Termination box:

The mid-panel stop takes all the load. A boxed bar, a stitched rectangle with an X through it that spreads that force across an area instead of a point. This is the single detail that separates a good half-zip from a cheap one, and it exists only because the zip stops mid-panel.

Left as a plain seam end, the bottom of the slit will pull out of shape long before it tears.

The fix is the boxed bartack: a densely stitched rectangle across the base of the placket, usually with a cross inside it, converting a point load into an area load.

The box is also a design decision, and this is where you get to make a choice a full-zip never offers.

It’s visible from the outside. Hide it under a placket facing for a minimal look, or leave it exposed in a contrast thread so it reads as an intentional workwear detail.

Either is defensible but decide, because the factory will otherwise decide for you.

From the floor:

First-person note on the termination batch: how it’s set on our machines, what a failed one looks like after wash-and-wear, and the pull test used to check it before it ships.

Chapter 03

Pucker and chin bite on a short placket:

Two defects. Both are preventable, both are specified on the tech pack, and both get skipped in cheap production.

The full stabilization method is in the Placket Integrity Stack linked above; here’s what’s specific to a half-zip’s short, mid-terminating placket.

Pucker concentrates near the stop:

Pucker is the wave of fabric along the zip.

It happens because the knit stretches under the presser foot and the woven zip tape doesn’t, so the seam ends up longer than the tape and the excess ripples.

On a full zip, that excess distributes along the whole body.

On a half-zip’s short placket, there’s less length to absorb it, so pucker concentrates in a small zone right around the termination, exactly where the eye already goes.

The fix is the same as the stack tape calls for, applied down both placket edges before the zip.

The half-zip note is that the tape has to run past the termination point and anchor into the boxed bartack zone, not stop at the slit bottom.

If the stabilizer ends where the zip ends, the unstabilized knit just below it becomes the new weak point and puckers there instead.

Carry it through the box.

Chin guard and zip garage:

At the top, the slider sits level with the throat. Two related details close that out:

  • Chin guard. A fabric flap behind the top of the zip so tape and teeth never touch skin. On a half-zip, this matters more than on a full-zip, because a half-zip is worn zipped-to-the-top far more often; the whole point of the style is the closed funnel neck. If the top bites, the customer never closes it, and you’ve lost the silhouette you designed.
  • Zip garage. A small fabric pocket at the collar top that the slider tucks into when fully closed. Hides the hardware and stops the pull from tapping the chin. Common on technical half-zips, and it pairs naturally with a funnel collar.

Neither adds meaningful cost at 50 pieces. Both are the kind of detail a customer can’t name but can feel.

Chapter 04

Collar and zipper choices specific to a half-zip:

Both the collar decision and the zipper decision are covered in depth on other pages.

This chapter keeps only the parts that change because the zip is short and closed-end.

Funnel collar vs. hood full treatment:

Whether to finish a half-zip with a funnel collar or a hood, and what each costs and complicates, is compared in full on the vs-full-zip page.

The short version: the funnel collar is the half-zip’s natural home.

It’s the lighter build; it frames the closed neck the style is designed around, and a tall funnel band pushes the piece toward a techwear read while a low one stays athleisure.

It’s why funnel-neck half-zips dominate athleisure and corporate merch.

The one construction point that’s genuinely half-zip-specific, and that the comparison page doesn’t drill into:

The two collar halves must meet flush when the zip closes.

Because the zip terminates in the collar (not below it, as it often does on a hood), any drafting error shows as a visible step at the very top of the garment, the first thing a buyer sees.

This is the most common half-zip fit-sample rejection, and it traces back to the two placket sides being attached at unequal tension.

Measure the neckline points on both sides, not just the hem.

From the floor:

First-person description of a collar-step rejection on a half-zip fit sample: what the misalignment looked like at the top of the zip, what caused it in the draft or the attachment tension, and how it was corrected.

Choosing the zipper for a short run:

Zipper types, brands, and counterfeit checks:

Coil vs. molded vs. metal, gauge (#3/#5/#8), YKK vs. alternatives, and how to verify a genuine zipper are covered in full in the zip-up manufacturing guide.

It applies to half-zips unchanged. The two things below are the half-zip-specific exceptions.

  • Closed-end, and you can cut from the chain. This is the sourcing advantage. Because a half-zip stays joined at the bottom, you’re not locked into buying a finished separating zip at a fixed length; you can cut continuous chain to your chosen HPS measurement and close the base. At 50 pieces, that flexibility is the difference between using the length you designed and using the length your supplier had in stock.
  • A lighter gauge is fine. The zip runs a short distance and does less work than a full-front zip, so a #3 or #5 coil is usually right. You rarely need to step up to an #8 for strength the way a full-zip sometimes does; reserve the heavier gauge for when the hardware is the design statement, not for load.

The branded pull caveat, at low volume: a custom-moulded or metal pull carries its own MOQ from the trim supplier, usually in the thousands, not fifties.

Our garment MOQ is 50 pieces per style; a custom pull may not be.

A corded pull through the stock slider costs almost nothing and still transforms the feel.

Ask about trim minimums at the quote stage; it’s the most common reason a low-volume half-zip loses its signature detail late.

Full hardware and trims breakdown: our guide to hoodie hardware and trims.

Chapter 05

Decorating a half-zip’s unbroken lower front:

Here’s the half-zip’s decoration advantage, and it’s the mirror image of the full-zip’s problem.

A full-zip splits the whole front, so a centered chest logo has nowhere to sit.

A half-zip stops mid-chest, which means the entire lower front is one solid, unbroken panel.

A centered logo sits clean below the zip, on flat fabric, framed by the placket above it.

That’s the placement no full-zip can offer, and it’s worth designing around deliberately rather than defaulting to a left-chest mark out of habit.

The clearance rule still applies to the zone the zip does occupy.

Anything applied near the upper chest needs to clear the teeth, the placket seam, and the termination box.

Screen printing needs a flat platen, embroidery needs the hoop to clamp flat, and hardware in either area is a machine problem, not a design preference.

So placements sort into two groups:

  • The gift-centred lower front. Below the termination box, on the continuous panel. The half-zip’s signature decoration is real estate. Room for a large centered logo or print that a full-zip simply can’t take.
  • Left chest. Offset from the placket, always safe, works for embroidery and print.
  • Sleeve and back. Fully clear of the placket; the back is the largest uninterrupted area on the garment.
  • The collar band. A small embroidered mark on a funnel collar is subtle and specific to this style; check the hoop clears the zip.
  • The zip pull. Covered in Chapter 04 on a half-zip, arguably your strongest branding surface.

One warning that carries over from every zip garment: don’t approve artwork on a flat mockup drawn on a plain pullover template.

It won’t show the placket or the termination box, and half the placement problems we catch at sampling come from exactly that.

Mock it up on a half-zip template.

Chapter 06

The half-zip spec checklist:

Everything above is compressed into what a factory needs to quote and cut a half-zip specifically.

The general placket, collar, and fabric checklists live on the linked parent guides; this is the half-zip delta, the lines that are different because it’s a half-zip.

The half-zip-specific lines:

  • Zip length from HPS, in cm, is the number that defines the style.
  • Whether that length grades with size or stays constant.
  • Over-the-head clearance confirmed at the smallest opening in the range.
  • Closed-end confirmed (not separating) and cut-from-chain agreed if you want a non-stock length.
  • Termination: boxed bartack exposed or concealed, and in what thread
  • Stay tape carried past the stop and anchored into the bartack zone
  • Chin guard specified (the style is worn closed; it’s not optional here)
  • Collar halves confirmed flush when zipped; neckline points measured both sides
  • Centered lower-front decoration considered before defaulting to left chest

Covered on the parent guides; confirm there:

  • Full placket build (stabilize → tape → face → guard) zip-up manufacturing guide.
  • Zipper type, gauge, brand, and counterfeit verification zip-up manufacturing guide.
  • Funnel collar vs. hood trade-offs: half-zip vs. full-zip page.
  • Fabric composition, GSM, and shrinkage/pre-shrink fabric guide.
  • MOQ: 50 pieces/style, and the separate (higher) custom-trim MOQ.

Half-zip construction FAQ

A half-zip uses a closed-end zip, which stays permanently joined at the bottom.

This is the opposite of the separating zip that a full zip needs.

The practical advantage is sourcing: a closed-end zip can be cut from continuous chain to your exact length and closed at the base, so in a short run, your zip length isn’t limited to what a supplier stocks in a finished separating format.

A #3 or #5 coil is usually the right gauge, since a short zip does less work than a full-front one.

The termination box is a boxed bartack, a densely stitched rectangle, usually with a cross inside it, sewn across the bottom of the placket where the zip stops.

Because a half-zip’s zip ends in the middle of a continuous front panel rather than running off the hem, all the load from pulling the zip concentrates at that single point.

The box spreads that force across an area instead of a point.

It is the single detail that most separates a good half-zip from a cheap one, and it has no equivalent on a full-zip.

Puckering happens because the knit fabric stretches and the zip tape does not, so the seam ends up longer than the tape and the excess ripples.

On a half-zip’s short placket, there is less length to absorb that excess, so it concentrates right around the termination point.

The fix is to stay tape down both placket edges before the zip is attached, and the half-zip-specific detail is that the tape must run past the stop and anchor into the bartack zone.

If the stabilizer ends where the zip ends, the unstabilized knit just below it becomes the new weak point.

Measure from the high point of the shoulder.

A longer opening around 28 to 30 cm reads as utility and technical; a shorter one around 18 to 22 cm reads as athletic and is effectively a quarter-zip.

Pick the length from the silhouette you want, then check one hard constraint that a full-zip never has: the opening plus the collar’s stretch must clear the widest head in your size range, or you have a pullover nobody can pull over.

Decide whether the length grades with size or stays constant, and round to a stock chain length unless you are cutting to a custom measurement.

Yes, and this is the half-zip’s decoration advantage over a full-zip.

Because the zip stops at mid-chest, the entire lower front is one solid, unbroken panel, so a centered logo sits clean below the zip on flat fabric.

A full-zip splits the front and cannot take a centered mark.

The one rule is clearance in the zone the zip occupies: keep any upper-chest decoration clear of the teeth, the placket seam, and the termination box, because screen printing needs a flat platen and embroidery needs the hoop to clamp flat.

Yes, and arguably more than a full zip does. A chin guard is a small fabric flap behind the top of the zip so the tape and teeth never touch the wearer’s throat.

A half-zip is designed to be worn zipped to the top; the closed funnel neck is the whole silhouette, so it is worn fully closed far more often than a full-zip.

If the top of the zip bites, the customer stops closing it, and you lose the look you designed. It costs almost nothing to add, even at low volume.

From the HOODIE manual

This is one chapter of The Complete Hoodie Manufacturing Guides

These chapters cover taking a hoodie brand from idea to shipped units, costing, sourcing, tech packs, QC, freight, and launch comparisons. All written from the Sialkot factory floor of Gibben Clothing.

Open The Full Hoodie Guides

On the floor · Sialkot

Written by

Faizan Ahmad

Chief Apparel Technologist & Head of Manufacturing, Gibben Clothing · Sialkot, Pakistan

Faizan leads production at Gibben Clothing, a cut-and-sew streetwear manufacturer in Sialkot, with 8+ years turning raw yarn into retail-ready hoodies, tees, bottoms, jackets, tracksuits, and headwear. He doesn’t just write about clothing; he works the floor, so every guide here is grounded in real fabric behavior, QC standards, and production data from live runs.