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How to start a clothing brand — the manufacturing side.
Most guides about starting a clothing brand are written by people who have never cut a garment. This one is written from the floor. It covers the part that actually decides whether your first drop ships: finding a manufacturer, reading a quote, and not getting burned on the first order.
We make clothing — so treat this as informed and interested, not neutral. Where our answer serves us, we say so.
What this covers
The ten things that decide your first order.
In the order they'll actually come up, with the honest answer rather than the encouraging one.
A sketch, a reference garment, or photos with measurements are enough for a factory to quote. Building the tech pack is part of the job. Anyone who demands one before talking to you is filtering for people who've done this before.
Most factories start at 100–300 pieces per design because setup time is the same at any quantity. Lower minimums exist but cost more per piece. Ours is 30. If a supplier advertises 'no minimum' on cut-and-sew, ask what the per-piece price does at 30 versus 300.
Expect to pay for samples and expect two rounds. A sample in about 7 days is normal for a factory with its own floor; three weeks usually means it's being made somewhere else.
GSM is the number customers feel without knowing the word. 320 GSM is a standard hoodie; 400+ reads heavyweight; 180 GSM is a normal tee. Pick the weight before you pick the colour.
POD is right while you're validating: no inventory, no minimum, higher unit cost, and a garment your competitors also sell. Manufacturing is right once a design sells repeatedly: lower unit cost, your own blank, your own labels — but you carry the stock.
Ask for a live video walk of the floor during working hours, count the unrelated categories in their catalogue, and ask what happens if a size runs wrong. A broker will offer photos and a product list. A factory will show you the room.
Staged payment against proof is standard: a deposit to start, a milestone payment, the balance before shipping — and a sample you approved before any of it. Full payment upfront to an unverified supplier is where most first-timers lose money.
Sampling about 7 days, bulk production 3–4 weeks, shipping 4–7 days. Add lab dips for custom colours. Work backwards from your launch date and add three weeks of slack — something always moves.
Sourcing marketplaces sort on price, so the number on a listing is the bottom rung of a tier ladder — the price at a quantity you are almost certainly not ordering. Ask for the price at your quantity, in your fabric weight, with your decoration, in writing, before anything else.
A storefront listing thousands of products across unrelated trades is a catalogue, not a factory with range. Real makers specialise, because leather, footwear, knitwear and ball stitching are four different crafts on four different machines.
You send the intent — a sketch, a phone photo, a reference garment — and we draft the numbers that make it buildable, proven by a real sample. See how a sketch becomes a spec
How it works with you
From idea to first shipped run.
Five moves. The third one is where most brands should slow down, not speed up.
One garment, one weight, one fit. Brands that launch six products in three fabrics run out of money before the second order. Pick the piece you'd wear yourself and get it right.
Send the same brief to each: garment, quantity, fabric weight, decoration, deadline. Compare what comes back — the ones asking better questions are usually the ones who'll build it better.
Hold it. Wash it. Wear it for a week. This is the cheapest possible moment to find out the fit is wrong, and the only moment when changing it costs nothing.
The approved sample becomes the standard for the run. Get that in writing. Any factory unwilling to be held to their own sample is telling you something.
Ask whether your pattern and fabric spec stay on file. Reorders that don't match the first run are the most common way a young brand loses its early customers.
Questions founders ask
The honest answers.
Trade-offs included. If something here isn't covered, ask the floor directly.
The manufacturing side of a first drop is usually sampling plus one production run. At a 30-piece minimum you're committing to far less inventory than the 100–300 pieces most factories require, which is the main reason low-MOQ manufacturing exists. Exact numbers depend on garment, fabric weight and decoration — no honest factory quotes a flat price without your spec.
Three routes: sourcing marketplaces like Alibaba, referrals from other founders, or approaching factories directly. Whichever you use, verify the same three things — that their catalogue stays inside one trade, that they'll show you the floor on video during working hours, and that they'll make a sample before taking a bulk deposit.
It's a real marketplace with real factories on it, and also a lot of trading companies presenting as factories. The risk isn't the platform, it's not knowing which one you're talking to. Ask for a live video tour of the floor during working hours — that single request separates the two faster than any amount of messaging. Trade Assurance is worth using while you cannot: it holds your payment until you confirm the order arrived as specified, and we have no equivalent to offer. But escrow protects your money, not your garment. It says nothing about whether your order was relayed to a workshop you were never named, or whether the reorder will match the first run.
Outright fraud is rarer than the thing buyers actually run into, which is a seller who is real but is a reseller rather than a manufacturer. The structure behind it: a main account carries several subaccounts, one person runs each, and that person is listing a couple of thousand products across trades they have never manufactured in. Nobody can hold cost knowledge across four crafts, so an enquiry gets a rough estimate first and a real maker found afterwards. The tell is the catalogue — open the storefront and count the categories. Leather bags, footwear, gloves and knitwear from one seller means a middleman, not because they are dishonest, but because nobody masters four trades.
Three different reasons, and only one is good news. Some prices are genuinely low because a high-volume, machine-intensive factory amortises setup across thousands of pieces — that is real manufacturing economics, not a trick. Some are the bottom rung of a tier ladder, published as the headline because marketplaces rank on price: the number applies at a quantity you are not ordering, and it moves the moment you enquire. And some are quoted by a newer supplier taking the order at almost no margin to win a first client, who then makes the gap up in fabric weight, trims and finishing. Ask for the price at your quantity and your spec, in writing. That one question separates the three.
Industry standard is 100–300 pieces per design; setup time is the same whether you cut 30 or 3,000, so low minimums cost more per piece. We start at 30 per design, with a single-piece sample first. Each colourway usually counts as its own design — worth confirming with any supplier.
No. A sketch, a reference garment or photos with measurements are enough to quote from. Building the tech pack is part of the manufacturing process, not a prerequisite you have to arrive with.
Print-on-demand while you're testing whether a design sells — no inventory risk, higher cost per piece, and a blank anyone can buy. Move to manufacturing once a design reorders: lower unit cost, your own fabric weight and fit, your own labels. Many brands run both, POD for tests and manufacturing for proven sellers.
Samples in about 7 days, bulk production 3–4 weeks after sample approval, shipping 4–7 days. Custom dyed colours add a lab dip round. Plan backwards from your launch and keep three weeks of slack.
Never pay in full upfront. Stage payments against proof, insist on a physical sample before any bulk deposit, and ask for a live video walk of the floor rather than photos. If a supplier won't show you the room where your order would be made, that is the answer.
Have a garment in mind? Get it priced.
Send a sketch, a reference garment or just a description — we'll come back within 24 hours with a real quote, and a single-piece sample is how most orders start.
See how payment is staged on the payment & trust page