Activewear Manufacturer

100 pieces per style, per colourway — cut and sewn from your pattern, not printed onto ready-made blanks. The per-colourway detail matters more in activewear than most categories, because technical fabric is dyed in batches and colour consistency between lots is difficult: two runs of the same black legging can read slightly differently unless the lab dip is retained and matched. Sizes are flexible within the 100, so you can weight the split toward wherever your demand actually sits. Below roughly 100 units of technical cut-and-sew the fixed costs — pattern making, grading a stretch garment across sizes, the mill's own minimum for performance fabric — cease to spread sensibly.

Knit density and fabric weight — not stretch, which is the usual misconception, and not elastane percentage either. When you stretch a fabric you open the gaps between yarns, so a lightweight knit goes sheer under tension however much elastane it contains. We generally spec 240–280 GSM for leggings that stay opaque when stretched, and we will test it on your sample so you can check it yourself rather than take our word for it. If you ask for a lighter weight than that, we will say so plainly what you are trading away. The other half of the answer is colour: light and heather shades go transparent more readily than dark solids at the same weight.

Because of where the seam sits against skin. An overlock seam folds the fabric edges together and leaves a small raised ridge on the inside, which is completely fine on a loose training tee. Under the repetitive movement, sweat and direct skin contact of leggings or a sports bra, that ridge becomes a chafe point — and chafing is one of the most common reasons a garment gets a bad review despite fitting well. Flatlock butts the two fabric edges together and stitches across them so the join lies flush. It costs more to run and takes longer, and it is one of the clearest quality tells in activewear. On leggings we also add a diamond gusset, which removes the four-way seam intersection at the crotch where leggings most often blow out.

Both wick well because both are hydrophobic — they move moisture along the fibre surface rather than absorbing it the way cotton does, which is exactly why cotton is the wrong choice for sweat. The difference is feel versus durability. Nylon is softer, drapes better and reads more premium, which is why most high-end activewear brands use it, but it costs more and holds colour slightly less well over sustained UV exposure. Polyester is more colourfast, more chlorine-resistant, dries faster and is more economical, but never feels quite as luxurious. Recycled versions of both are widely used in performance apparel and are generally specified interchangeably with virgin fibre, though independent test data on long-term durability is thinner than suppliers imply — worth asking for mill test reports rather than taking parity on trust. We will recommend based on your price point and the specific piece rather than defaulting to one across a range.

Typically 12–25%, and the right figure depends on how much compression you want rather than how much stretch. Toward the lower end you get comfortable four-way stretch with minimal squeeze — appropriate for yoga, loungewear-adjacent pieces and training tops. Toward the upper end you get genuine compression, which is what performance leggings and support bras need, and which also holds shape better through wear. Higher elastane costs more and slightly reduces breathability. On certification the position is more generous than most suppliers will tell you: GOTS limits synthetic content in a certified product but allows more of it in stretch categories like leggings and sportswear, precisely so performance garments can still wick. So a cotton-rich legging with elastane in it can carry a GOTS claim. A polyester-based compression legging with no organic fibre in it cannot, because there is nothing organic to certify. We check the actual fabric against the standard before you make any claim.

Yes, though it is worth understanding which are fabric properties and which are construction. Moisture-wicking and four-way stretch are inherent to the fabric you choose, not treatments added afterwards — so they are specified at fabric selection, and any supplier offering to "add wicking" to a cotton garment is overselling. What we build in through construction is the part that decides whether the garment survives real training: flatlock seams to prevent chafe, a diamond gusset for range of movement and seam durability, coverstitch or bonded hems that do not curl, and where relevant a waistband with an internal drawcord channel. Tell us the use case — studio, running, lifting, everyday — and we will spec accordingly.

It will if it is managed deliberately, and this matters enormously in activewear because customers buy pieces across seasons and compare them side by side. Dye lots naturally vary between production runs, so identical colour on repeat orders is not automatic — it comes from retaining your approved lab dip and matching each new batch against that physical reference rather than re-matching to a Pantone code from scratch. We keep your lab dip on file and do exactly that. Technical fabric is less forgiving here than cotton, so if you plan to build a continuing range rather than one drop, raise it at the start and we will plan colour continuity into the first order.

Yes, and sublimation is the right technique for it — which is a happy accident of chemistry, because sublimation bonds dye into synthetic fibre and activewear is already polyester-based. That means the print runs seam to seam with no boundary and will not crack or peel the way a surface print eventually does, because the colour is in the fibre rather than sitting on top. Two constraints to design around: sublimation cannot print white, so the base fabric must be light and any white in your artwork is simply the fabric showing through; and it needs polyester content, so it will not work on a cotton-rich piece. For logos on leggings and bras we would usually suggest heat transfer over embroidery, since dense stitching restricts four-way stretch and can pucker.

Yes — recycled polyester and recycled nylon performance blends are available, and they are generally specified interchangeably with virgin fibre in this category — though we would sooner you asked us for the mill's test reports than took parity on trust, since independent long-term durability data is thinner than the marketing suggests. On certification the position is better than commonly assumed and worth getting right. GOTS limits synthetic content in certified products but allows a higher proportion in stretch categories like leggings and sportswear, specifically to permit moisture-wicking performance. So a cotton-rich stretch piece can carry a GOTS claim. What cannot is a polyester- or nylon-based fabric with no organic fibre content, which covers most high-compression performance knits. we will tell you which fabrics in your range qualify before you build packaging around a claim, rather than after.

Roughly 40–50 days from approved sample to delivery, made up of about 10–15 days sampling, 20–25 days bulk production, then quality control and DDP shipping. Technical fabric can add time at the front end if a specific performance knit needs to be sourced or a colour developed, so raise unusual fabric requirements early. Expect at least one sample revision — activewear fit is harder to get right first time than a woven or a basic tee, because a stretch garment behaves differently on a body than on a table, and it is worth wearing and training in the sample rather than only trying it on. Brands that budget for two fit rounds on a first activewear style are rarely disappointed.