Newsflash | Europe | “Small parts” testing on children’s garments

“Small parts” testing on children’s garments

The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) is developing a set of 4 new documents to evaluate the safety of children´s garments regarding the mechanical properties.

At this moment, 3 of them are referred to as Technical Specifications (TS) (this may change and can be finally voted as standards), while one will be published as standard directly.

Their publication can set a difference since, up to now, there is no reference European Standard to evaluate mechanical properties of small elements in children’s garments in EU (except in Spain and some other countries).

The authorities present in the standardization committees confirm that these 4 documents would be used by them as reference to check compliance of children’s garments against the requirements set by the GPSD (General Product Safety Directive). However, it still remains unknown whether they will be harmonized under GPSD after their publication.

The final draft documents published beginning of July are:

CEN/TS 17394-1 “Textiles and textile products - Part 1: Safety of children's clothing - Security of attachment of attached components to Infants' clothing- Specification”. Its current status is final draft. The draft is open for final comments of CEN members until the end of September.
EN 17394-2 “Textiles and textile products - Part 2: Safety of children's clothing - Security of attachment of buttons - Test method”. This standard describes the test method to be applied to evaluate security of attachment of buttons. Its current status is final draft. The draft is open for final comments of CEN members until the end of September.
CEN/TS 17394-3 “Textiles and textile products - Part 3: Safety of children's clothing - Security of attachment of metal mechanically applied press fasteners - Test method”.
CEN/TS 17394-4 “Textiles and textile products - Part 4: Safety of children's clothing - Security of attachment of components except buttons and metal mechanically applied press fasteners - Test method”. This document describes the method to be used to evaluate the security of attachment of components except buttons and mechanically applied press fasteners (i.e. sequins, ribbons or other adornments in garments). Its current status is final draft. The draft is open for final comments of CEN members until the end of September.

These standards/TS are developed from the existing CEN/Technical Recommendation 16792:2014 (“Safety of children's clothing - Recommendations for the design and manufacture of children's clothing - Mechanical safety “) that is also under review.