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The core model

Style, Product, SKU​

  • A Style is the design, independent of colour and size (for example, a particular organic cotton sweatshirt). It carries the brand, the category, the attributes that describe the design, and the rules that will govern every SKU generated from it.
  • A Product is a Style plus one Colour. In the Colours subform on the Style Card, one row equals one Product.
  • A SKU is a Product plus one Size: the actual sellable unit, materialised as a Business Central Item (or Item Variant, depending on the Item Mode described below).

Every generated SKU keeps a link back to the Style, Colour, and Size it came from. That link is what lets the Apparel information box on the item side show that a given Item is, say, the Medium, in a particular colour, of a particular Style, and jump straight back to the Style Card.

Two ways a SKU becomes a Business Central Item​

Apparel PIM Setup has one company-wide Default Style Item Mode, set once for the whole company:

  • Unique Item Per SKU: every Colour and Size combination becomes its own standalone Item, with Colour and Size stored as fields on the Item itself.
  • Variants Mode: one Item per Style (or per Product, depending on which axis is chosen as the Variant Dimension), with the remaining axis represented as Business Central Item Variants underneath it.

This setting is locked once any SKU generated under it has an actual Item Ledger Entry (a real inventory transaction), so choose it deliberately before going live rather than partway through a season. Treat the Apparel PIM Setup field as the one that is authoritative, and confirm current behaviour on your own environment before relying on any brand-level override.