Custom Clothing Manufacturer

A custom clothing manufacturer makes the garment you designed, not one it already stocks: it turns your brief into a pattern, samples it and produces it to your specification. On our floor in Narayanganj, Bangladesh, that means cutting pattern pieces from rolls of knit fabric and sewing them to your fit, your fabric and weight, your rib and pockets, your label and your packaging. The work runs in a set order: brief, pattern and tech pack, a fit sample, a pre-production sample in your real fabric and trims, then bulk inspected against that sealed sample and delivered DDP. Two other kinds of business use the same phrase. Blank-printing services decorate garments someone else made, so only the print is yours, and wholesalers sell a catalogue of fixed styles. Both have their uses, but neither lets you change the fit or the cloth. Our cut and sew page explains why that difference also sets the minimum order.

Yes, a sketch is enough to start a custom garment, and it works best with a garment you already own and like the fit of, plus a short paragraph about the customer who will wear it. We build the pattern and the tech pack with you, so the drawing becomes measurements, fabric specifications and construction notes the floor can work from. The reference garment does the most work, because measurements taken from a physical piece leave less to interpretation than words do. If you send one, mark on the sketch what should differ from it, such as a longer body, a dropped shoulder or a heavier rib, and say which details are fixed and which are open to our advice. A tech pack speeds things up if you have one, so send it with the sketch. Our free tech pack template shows every section a complete one contains, and it is a useful checklist of the decisions you will be asked about.

Yes, always, and usually two samples, because the sample is where a custom design gets settled before any bulk fabric is cut. A fit sample comes first, in an available fabric, to settle the block, so judge its shape and measurements rather than its hand-feel. The pre-production sample is the corrected garment in your actual fabric, colour and trims, wash-tested so the measurements you sign off are the measurements after washing. You approve it, we seal it, and bulk is inspected against it by the QC team led by Walter Meyer, who has 38 years in the trade; on a 150-piece run the team checks every garment. If the pre-production sample still needs a change, say so then, because approving a garment you are unsure of is the costly mistake. We keep the sealed garment, so a repeat run is measured against the same piece. Our sampling guide explains how to wash, measure and wear a sample before you approve it.

It depends on the brief, which is why we quote from your design rather than from a rate card. Fabric is most of the cost and is bought by the kilo, so weight, fibre and garment length move the price first. Each colour is its own dye lot and its own 150-piece minimum per style. Construction adds sewing operations: pockets, zips, hoods and contrast panels each take time. Trims and packaging carry supplier minimums, and decoration is priced by method, from screen print per colour to embroidery by stitch count. Pattern, grading and samples are one-off costs shared across the order, so 600 pieces across two styles usually prices better per piece than 150 of each across four. Our quotes are DDP, with freight, duty and import tax inside the landed price, so compare them with an FOB quote only after converting it. Our guide to reading a garment quote shows the conversion, and the landed-cost calculator adds your market's duty and tax.

Compare them on four things: whether they cut and sew or decorate blanks, whether you see a sample in your own fabric before bulk, whether the quote is DDP or FOB, and whether you can see the floor on a live call. Put each factory's replies side by side. Only a cut-and-sew factory can change the fit and the cloth; a blank decorator changes only the print. A photograph or a fit sample is not the same as a pre-production sample in your fabric and trims. An FOB price stops at the ship, so freight, duty and import tax arrive later as separate bills. Our answers: we cut and sew knitwear on our own floor, we seal a pre-production sample in your fabric and trims, our quotes are DDP, and a call is easy to arrange from Plot-A-132, Road No. 02, BSCIC Industrial Area, Panchabati, Narayanganj 1420. For the wider checklist, see our questions to ask a clothing manufacturer.

One hundred and fifty pieces per style, per colour. Custom does not remove the minimum, because knit fabric is knitted and dyed in lots, and a hundred and fifty pieces is roughly where a lot becomes production. Services quoting 25 or 30 pieces are usually decorating blanks made in someone else's lot. On a custom range, your colour and style choices decide the total, not the 150 on its own. Sizes split freely inside the hundred and fifty, so a run of XS to XXL is still one lot. Colours do not: a hoodie designed in three colourways is three lots of 150, with three sets of every trim. A design in two colours of one style is 300 pieces before a second style is added. If the total looks high, consolidating colours is the largest saving a small brand controls. The MOQ calculator shows the total for any mix of styles and colours.

No, not on our floor, which cuts and sews knitwear only. For denim, jackets and shirting, the route is CMB Sourcing Ltd, our sister buying house in the same industrial area. CMB is its own company, so woven pieces are a separate order with their own contract. For a custom range that mixes knit and woven, design the collection once: we sample and make the knit pieces here, CMB places the woven ones with factories that make them, and the same label artwork can go to both suppliers. Send us the whole range with your sketches or tech packs, and we tell you plainly which pieces we make and which go to CMB; we would rather do that than sew a woven garment badly. Our services page explains how the partner route works.

Count it in stages, because each one waits on a decision from you. Specifying the garment with you and quoting it takes roughly 3–7 days. Each sampling round takes about 10 days, and a custom garment usually needs two: a fit sample to settle the shape, then a pre-production sample in your real fabric, colour and trims. A brief with a clear tech pack and a reference garment often needs fewer rounds; a brief written in adjectives tends to need another. Production takes 40–50 days, counted from the day you approve the pre-production sample, and covers cutting, sewing, finishing, checking and packing. Freight comes on top: by air about 5–7 days to the US and UK, 5–8 to Europe and 6–8 to Canada, and longer by sea. For other destinations we quote transit for your port with the order. Put your own dates into our launch-date calculator to see the whole calendar laid out. From order to your door, plan on about 70 days by air.

Yes, but the calendar starts again, so it helps to know what a change sets in motion. Production is counted from your approval of the pre-production sample, because that sealed garment is what bulk fabric is bought, cut and checked against. A change to the fit, the fabric or a construction detail after sign-off means a new pre-production sample, another sampling round of about 10 days, and a fresh approval before the 40–50 days of production begin. A new colour needs its own lab dip and, as its own dye lot, its own 150 pieces. Once your fabric has been knitted and dyed to the approved specification, some changes are no longer possible on that lot at all. Tell us about any change as early as you can, and we will say plainly whether it needs a new sample before anything moves. Our guide to pre-production samples explains what sign-off commits you to.