Cutting is the point where a flat length of finished cloth stops being fabric and starts being a specific pair of trousers. It's also the point where a mistake is hardest to undo — cloth that's been cut cannot be un-cut. Everything before this stage exists to make sure the person cutting is working with the best possible material, because the margin for error narrows sharply from here on.
We cut against a pattern developed specifically for how SLOOM trousers are meant to fit — not a generic block resized up and down. Grain direction matters more than it might seem: cloth cut slightly off the straight grain will hang differently on the body, twisting subtly at the leg over time even if it looked fine on the table. Every pattern piece is laid to respect the grain of the fabric, which uses slightly more cloth than cutting carelessly, but keeps the finished trouser hanging the way it's supposed to.
Sizing at this stage is built around actual body measurements — waist and inseam — rather than an arbitrary size label. This is also why we ask people to measure themselves rather than guess a size: the pattern is only as accurate as the measurement it's cut against.
Fabric is laid in multiple plies before cutting, so a batch of trousers in the same size and colourway is cut together from the same section of cloth. This keeps colour and texture consistent across a full production run, rather than having pieces sourced from different rolls that don't quite match.
Once a piece is cut, it's bundled with every other component of that same trouser — front, back, waistband, pocket pieces — and moved to stitching. From here, it stops being fabric and starts, finally, being a trouser.