Right Side / Wrong Side

Floral fabric folded back on itself, labeled to show the right side (face) and wrong side (reverse).

"Right side" and "wrong side" are just shorthand for which face of the fabric ends up visible on the finished garment. On a printed cotton the right side is usually obvious - the color and pattern are brighter and clearer on one face than the other. On a lot of solid-color fabric it's genuinely not obvious at all, and that's exactly when the label matters most, because sewing a whole garment together with one piece flipped the wrong way is an easy, entirely avoidable mistake.

Instructions almost always specify "right sides together" (RST) for a seam, meaning the two right-side faces are placed facing each other so the seam allowance ends up on the outside of that sandwich - which then becomes the inside of the finished, turned-right-side-out garment. Get it backwards and you end up with all your seam allowances showing on the outside, which is obvious enough once it happens that it's rarely a costly mistake, just an annoying one to unpick.

On fabric where I genuinely can't tell right from wrong by eye, I mark the wrong side of every cut piece with a small strip of removable tape or a chalk mark the moment I cut it - cheaper than discovering the mix-up three seams into construction.