A jean is waist by inseam by wash on one style, and it is not finished when it is sewn. The laundry turns a rigid body into a product with a wash code, a shrinkage outcome and a finishing cost, and every carton weighs two to three times what a carton of tees does. AIMS360 was built on apparel matrices, production and native EDI, and True Religion ran on it.
Parent industry: Fashion & Apparel ERP →Whether you sell one core fit in three washes or a full lifestyle line built around jeans, the matrix and the wash stage are the first things the system has to get right.
A core fit in a 24 to 34 waist run across 30, 32 and 34 inseams in four washes is 132 variants of one style. A Nordstrom purchase order allocates against each of them by waist, inseam and wash. A customer returns one of them and it has to go back into stock as exactly that variant. The style is one product, and the matrix underneath it is two size axes and a wash axis.
Most apparel systems hold a color axis and one size axis. Denim brands on those systems split the jean into a style per inseam, or a style per wash, and lose the product. Sell through by fit disappears into a dozen style numbers. Replenishment has to be planned across records that should be one. And every report about the fit is a reconstruction.
AIMS360 holds waist by inseam by wash on one style record with a UPC per variant. Core fits run on replenishment thresholds by waist and inseam in the permanent washes. Seasonal washes run as drops with a defined life. Both draw on the same rigid fabric, the same laundries and the same available to sell pool, so a wash drop cannot quietly consume the bodies a core replenishment was counting on.
Waist by inseam by wash on one style record with a UPC per variant. Fabric, weight, stretch and wash recipe on the style so the tech pack, the laundry work order and the retailer item setup read from one source. Core fits and seasonal washes as two demand shapes on one catalog.
Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Dillard's, Shopbop, Anthropologie, Kohl's, Target and Amazon, mapped in house to each retailer's own specification. A waist by inseam matrix allocates against purchase orders the same way. Retailer specific carton configurations for heavy goods. GS1-128 labels and the 856 from one scanned shipment. No per document fees.
Mill purchase orders and denim receipts by roll and lot. Cut tickets planned against shrinkage. The laundry transfer tracked as work in process with its own contractor, cost and turnaround. Actual freight rolled into landed cost by shipment. One available to sell pool across Shopify, wholesale and EDI.
The sequence a denim brand runs, and where each step lands in AIMS360.
Premium denim sells through department and specialty first, then mass and marketplace, with the brand's own site running throughout. Each account runs a different program on the same units, and the heavy goods problem follows the jean into every carton.
Department stores. Nordstrom runs bulk, Rack and dropship as separate programs. Macy's runs four programs across Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Backstage and Bloomingdale's Outlet. Dillard's and Kohl's each have their own pages. Every one asks for GS1-128 carton labels that match the ASN, and denim cartons are the ones that get audited at the dock.
Specialty. Anthropologie and the URBN family run wholesale, dropship and marketplace on three separate systems. Shopbop is a bulk wholesale account with a designer and contemporary assortment.
Mass and marketplace. Target and Amazon carry the volume end of the category on their own programs.
Beyond those, the same native EDI reaches the rest of the 350+ retailer network, and boutique wholesale runs as small B2B accounts on the same order book.
A sewn denim body is work in process. The laundry turns it into a product. Rigid goods come off the line as one item, go out to a wash house, and come back as something else: a wash code, a hand feel, a shrinkage outcome, a whiskering or distress pattern, and a finishing cost that can rival the sewing. The same sewn body can be washed into four finishes, and each one is a different SKU with a different cost and a different sell through. Most apparel systems treat the wash as a note on the purchase order. It is a production stage with its own contractor, its own turnaround and its own yield.
Shrinkage sits underneath. Rigid denim shrinks in the wash, the amount varies by fabric, recipe and laundry, and a body has to be cut to land at the finished spec after the water rather than before it. That makes the cut plan a function of the wash recipe, which is a relationship a spreadsheet cannot hold and a system either models or does not.
Then the matrix. A jean is waist by inseam by wash. A 24 to 34 waist run across three inseams in four washes is 132 variants of one style, and a Nordstrom purchase order allocates against each of them. Brands that split that into a style per inseam or a style per wash lose the ability to see the jean as one product, and they pay for it in every report. The size axis has to run two dimensions deep on one record.
And the weight. A carton of jeans weighs two to three times a carton of tees. Freight, dimensional weight, carton configurations by retailer and pallet builds follow, and a system that estimates freight as a flat percentage understates the landed cost of the heaviest category in apparel. Actual freight has to roll into the unit by shipment.
Denim brands usually arrive at an ERP search from one of three places. A general apparel ERP that handles a color and size matrix but has no second size axis for inseam and no production stage for the wash. A manufacturing ERP that models the wash as a routing step but treats a retailer purchase order as a generic sales order with no EDI behind it. Or QuickBooks, a spreadsheet of wash codes, and a production manager who knows where everything is.
The question to ask any system is whether the size matrix runs waist by inseam on one style, whether the wash is a tracked production stage with its own cost and contractor, whether shrinkage lives in the cut plan, whether fabric is held by roll, and whether EDI is built in and mapped to Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and the rest of premium denim retail rather than bought from a separate provider. AIMS360 was built on apparel matrices, production and native EDI over 40 years, and True Religion ran on it.
For a structured comparison against specific systems, see the comparison pages and the ERP buying guide.
Founder and operator. One number for what you can sell across your own site, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's and the specialty accounts, and margin by wash that includes the laundry cost and the freight that went into it.
Design and wash development. Wash recipes and finishing specs held against the style, so the sewn body, the laundry work order and the finished SKU all trace to one record.
Production. Mill purchase orders and fabric receipts by roll, cut tickets planned against shrinkage, and the laundry transfer tracked as work in process with its own contractor and turnaround.
Planning. Core fits in core washes on replenishment by waist and inseam, and seasonal washes planned against fabric that has landed.
Warehouse. Scan and pack across a waist by inseam matrix, retailer specific carton configurations for heavy goods, GS1-128 label and 856 from the same scanned units.
Finance. The 810 comes off the same shipment the ASN reported, chargebacks logged against the original order with evidence attached, and actual freight rolled into landed cost by shipment rather than estimated.
AIMS360 fits denim brands from the first cut and sew run through the point where the business runs multiple laundries, a wholesale book across department and specialty, and a core fit program, up to roughly $400M in revenue.
One that treats a jean as a three axis product, waist by inseam by wash, on one style record, and treats laundry and finishing as a production stage rather than a note on the purchase order. It needs fabric held by roll from the mill, a size matrix that runs waist 23 to 44 and inseam 28 to 36 without splitting the style, shrinkage built into the cut plan, one available to sell pool across DTC and wholesale, and native EDI into the department and specialty accounts premium denim sells through. AIMS360 is built on that model, and True Religion ran on it.
Yes. True Religion ran on AIMS360 and is one of the consumer brands built on AIMS360 listed on our case studies hub, alongside Beyond Yoga, Retrofete, Los Angeles Apparel and Generation Love.
As a matrix with waist and inseam as size axes and wash as the color axis, on one style record with a UPC per variant. A 24 to 34 waist run across 30, 32 and 34 inseams in four washes is 132 variants of one style, and a retailer purchase order allocates against each one. Splitting that into separate styles per inseam or per wash is how brands lose the ability to see the style as one product, and it is the workaround AIMS360 removes.
Yes. Raw or rigid goods come off the sewing line as one item, go to the laundry as work in process, and come back as a different item with a wash code, a shrinkage outcome and a finishing cost attached. AIMS360 tracks that transfer as a production step with its own contractor, cost and turnaround, so the same sewn body can be washed into several finishes and each one is costed and counted on its own.
Shrinkage is a planning input, not a surprise. Rigid denim shrinks in the wash, and the amount varies by fabric, wash recipe and laundry, so cut lengths and finished measurements have to be planned against it. AIMS360 holds the cut plan against the fabric and the wash recipe, so the sewn body is cut to land at the finished spec after the laundry rather than before it.
Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Dillard's, Shopbop, Anthropologie and the URBN family, Kohl's, Target and Amazon, natively over EDI as part of the 350+ retailer network. Nordstrom, Macy's, Dillard's, Kohl's and Anthropologie have their own pages covering their programs in detail, and mapping is done in house to each retailer's own specification with no per document, per transaction or kilocharacter fees.
Because a carton of jeans weighs two to three times what a carton of tees weighs, and freight, dimensional weight and carton counts follow. Carton configurations by retailer, pallet builds and freight cost allocation are part of the landed cost of the unit, and a system that estimates freight as a flat percentage understates the cost of the heaviest category in apparel. AIMS360 rolls actual freight into landed cost by shipment.
Yes. Denim is bought from mills by the roll on lead times that run months ahead, and roll to roll shade variation means the roll a body was cut from matters at the wash. AIMS360 holds fabric by lot and roll as raw material inventory, consumes it against cut tickets, and rolls the cost through to the finished, washed unit. See ERP for apparel manufacturers for the production side.
The full apparel platform: style, color and size, production, retailer EDI, wholesale and DTC. Denim runs on it with a second size axis and a wash stage.
Performance fabric by the roll, extended size runs and the same department store accounts.
Cut tickets, contractors, work in process and fabric by lot and roll, the production side of denim.
Domestic manufacturing, retail and warehouse on one ledger, from the same city most premium denim is cut and washed in.
Bring one fit in three inseams and four washes to a demo and see the matrix, the laundry transfer, the shrinkage plan and a Nordstrom purchase order allocating against every variant. Thirty minutes, on your own styles.
