Last updated: 17 October 2026 · Written and photographed on our own production floor

Custom T-Shirt Manufacturer in China: How Your Order Is Made

SLSPOLO is a custom T-shirt manufacturer in Dongguan, China. We cut and sew OEM, ODM and private label T-shirts — blank basics, printed and embroidered tees, oversized and boxy streetwear blocks, performance sports shirts — for brand owners, streetwear labels, promotional and uniform buyers, from 50 pieces per style per colour. This page shows the whole thing: everything that happens between your first sketch and the container leaving our floor.

SLSPOLO at a glance

Custom T-Shirts We Manufacture

Every style below can be produced semi-custom — our stock blank in a stock colour, carrying your branding — or fully custom, from your own fabric, colour, fit, trims and packaging.

MOQ is counted per style, per colour. Sizes can be mixed inside one style, so a 50-piece order can cover XS to 3XL. Styles cannot be combined to reach the minimum — each one needs its own marker, its own thread set-up and its own line changeover.

T-Shirt Fabrics: GSM, Yarn and Construction

With T-shirts, weight and yarn decide everything — how the tee drapes, how it prints, whether it twists in the wash. We hold and source from 140 to 260 GSM across six fabric families, and we will say so plainly when a weight is wrong for the garment you are describing.

Construction details we treat as standard

• Side-seamed body — cut flat and joined with two side seams, which is what gives a tee a controlled silhouette. Tubular (seamless tube) bodies are available on request where the lower cost matters more than fit.
• Coverstitched 1×1 neck rib — set under a controlled stretch ratio so the neckline neither ripples nor stretches out after washing.
• Shoulder-to-shoulder tape — keeps the shoulders and neckline square through the wash cycle.
• Twin-needle hem — sleeves and bottom hem double-stitched at 10–12 stitches per inch.

01Design Confirmation: What You Need to Send Us

You do not need a finished tech pack to start. Send any one of the four below and our pattern team turns it into a confirmed sketch, a size chart and a measurement spec both sides sign before anything is cut.

• A sample garment — the fastest path: we copy fit, weight and construction, and quote against a counter-sample.
• A sketch or tech pack — we work from it and flag anything ambiguous before sampling, not after.
• A reference photo — we propose the closest construction and confirm every detail in writing.
• Just an idea — give us the end use, market and price point; we design the garment around them.

02Fabric Selection: Yarn, Weight and Colour

We prepare 2–4 fabric options and courier actual swatches to you — for T-shirts we always include two weights so you can feel the difference GSM makes before deciding. Nothing moves forward until three things are signed:

• Composition and yarn — combed ring-spun, carded, CVC, tri-blend or performance poly, documented by supplier and lot.
• Weight — 140 to 260 GSM; every roll re-weighed on arrival and rejected outside ±5%.
• Colour — lab-dipped to your Pantone reference, then roll-by-roll shade checked under D65 before cutting.

03Sample Confirmation: Two Rounds, Two Physical Samples

Sampling is where the details get locked — normally in two rounds of consultation, with every trim matched before the first sample is sewn.

• Round one — silhouette, fabric weight and construction.
• Round two — neck rib width and recovery, hem depth, label placement, how the print or embroidery sits on the panel.
• Trims matched first — main and care labels, thread, neck rib, print method; recorded in the order file so bulk uses exactly the same ones.
• Timeline — 3–7 working days from confirmed design to a sample in your hands; the exact number is in your quote.

Sample panel check

Approved trims and labels

04Bulk Cutting: Relaxing, Pre-Shrinking, Then Cutting

Before a single bulk panel is cut, every order goes through the same routine: spread open and relaxed for 24 hours, then pre-shrunk with high-temperature steam, then laid in plies and cut on our computerized cutting machine.

• Relax 24 hours — knitting and rolling leave tension in the cloth; cutting it straight off the roll releases that tension later as unpredictable shrinkage and torque.
• Steam pre-shrink — pulls the fabric back to a stable state, so the shrinkage you planned for in the pattern is the only shrinkage that happens.
• Laid in plies — dozens of layers, aligned and tension-free on the cutting table.
• Computerized cutting — follows the nested marker exactly: every panel in a 5,000-piece order cut to the same line, and fabric utilization held at 85–92%.

Fabric relaxing & spreading

Computerized cutting

05Print and Embroidery: Done on the Cut Pieces

Screen print on cut panels

Decoration happens at the cut-piece stage, while the panels are still flat — placement follows a template made off the confirmed pattern instead of an eyeball estimate. On a T-shirt programme this step carries more of the value than on any other garment we make, so it is controlled hardest:

• Pantone matched — strike-off approved before the run.
• Cured to a tested profile — under-cured washes out, over-cured cracks; the profile is set per fabric, not per machine.
• Embroidery — digitised to a stitch count with the correct backing so a light jersey does not pucker.
• Tested on the decorated panel — wash, rub and stretch tests, not on blank fabric.

Why flat panels and not finished garments →

A print that drifts 1 cm across 3,000 pieces is a full rejection. Decorating flat panels removes that variable at the cheapest possible moment — before assembly, when a misprint costs one panel instead of one garment.

06Sewing: Where a Cheap Tee Gives Itself Away

A T-shirt is the simplest garment on our floor, and that is exactly why the four details below separate a tee that survives a season from one that twists and gapes after five washes. All four are standard on our lines:

• Coverstitched neck rib — 1×1 rib cut to the correct rib-to-body ratio and set under a controlled stretch, so the neckline keeps its shape instead of rippling or standing away from the body.
• Side seams, not a tube — side-seamed construction keeps the body from torquing in the wash and gives the fit you signed off; tubular bodies only on request.
• Shoulder-to-shoulder tape — a knit shoulder carries the whole weight of the garment; without tape the neckline sits wide after a few washes.
• Twin-needle hems at 10–12 SPI — sleeves and bottom hem double-stitched; more stitches is not automatically better on knits, because a very tight stitch perforates the fabric and weakens the seam.

Sewing line

Overlock stitching, up close

07Inspection: Threads, Stains, Pressing, Measurements

Finished garments go to the finishing department, where four checks run on every piece, followed by AQL 2.5 sampling against the sealed sample.

• Loose threads trimmed — a needle-detection and presentation issue export QC teams flag, not a cosmetic nit.
• Body checked for stains — panel by panel under light; light jerseys show everything.
• Pressed flat — steam pressing before packing.
• Measured — against the size spec and its tolerances, on a pull of each size rather than a visual scan.

Thread trimming

Stain check

Steam pressing

08Packing and Shipping: Packed to Your Requirement

Garments are packed piece by piece to your requirement — folding method, polybag, size ratio and carton marks all follow the packing instruction in the order file — then bundled into woven bags or export cartons and photographed before dispatch, so you see the container going out with your order in it.

Folding & polybagging

Carton packing

Container loading

09Our Documentation: The Production Manual Behind Every Order

Every order, every style, gets its own production manual — and nothing in it is optional. It travels from sampling through cutting, printing, sewing and finishing to final packing.

• Fabric and every auxiliary material, with consumption and quantities.
• Construction method for each part of the garment — neck rib, hem, side seam, label positions.
• Every special process requirement and the precautions experience says matter.
• Signed at approval stage — identical at every workstation.

Production order at the workstation

Trims spec sheet

10Branding and Decoration Options

Decoration happens at the cut-piece stage (step 05), so every method below is applied to a flat panel against a template taken from your confirmed pattern — not positioned by eye on a finished garment.

Private label trim package. Woven neck labels, printed care labels, size labels, hang tags, custom polybags and printed cartons — all matched and signed off at step 03, so bulk carries exactly the trims you approved. Inside-neck printing instead of a woven label is also available.

11MOQ, Pricing, Sampling and Lead Time

What your quotation itemises

• Fabric — composition, GSM and consumption, plus every trim, listed separately rather than bundled.
• Making up — cutting, sewing, decoration, washing and finishing, broken out line by line.
• Packing — folding method, polybag, size ratio and carton marks.
• Incoterm — EXW, FOB Shenzhen or Yantian, or DDP door-to-door on request.
• Terms — sample charge, bulk unit price at your quantity, payment terms and validity.

The five things that move the unit price

• Yarn and GSM — combed ring-spun costs more than carded, heavier cloth costs more per kilo. On tees this is the largest single driver.
• Decoration — number of print positions, colours per position (each colour adds a screen), and whether embroidery or washes are involved.
• Quantity — screen making and line set-up are fixed costs, so unit price falls as the run grows.
• Colourways and size range — more colours spread the same fixed costs over shorter runs per colour.
• Packing — individual polybags, printed cartons and retail-ready folding all add labour.

Shipping. We are in Humen, Dongguan — about 40 minutes from Shenzhen. Sea freight leaves Yantian or Shekou, air and express for samples and repeat orders, and we can quote DDP through our forwarders so you can compare it against your own.

12Quality Control, AQL 2.5 and Certifications

Quality is checked at five points, not one. The sealed sample from step 03 sits on the inspection table throughout — bulk is judged against a physical garment, not against a description.

Certifications

Our quality system is documented to ISO 9001. Audit requirements differ by retailer and by market, so we would rather be straight with you than print logos: tell us at quotation stage which certification your programme needs — BSCI, SMETA/SEDEX, WRAP, GRS, or OEKO-TEX Standard 100 on the fabric — and we will confirm in writing what we hold, what we can supply from certified mills, and what would have to be arranged before you commit.

13Factory or Trading Company? How to Check

It is the first question experienced buyers ask, and it should be. A trading company can quote quickly, but it cannot change a sewing line: when something goes wrong mid-run, the person you are talking to has to phone somebody else. Here is how to check us — and how to check anyone else.

• We are a factory. 18,000+ m² across Dongguan and Hunan, four production lines, 180+ workers, knitting and cut-and-sew under our own management since 2009.
• Business licence and address — 5th Floor, No.31 Jianshe Road, Daning Community, Humen Town, Dongguan, Guangdong 523900. Ask and we will send it.
• Live video tour — we will walk you through cutting, printing, sewing and finishing on WhatsApp, on a day your fabric is actually on the line.
• Come and see it — 40 minutes from Shenzhen. Book a factory visit and we will have your fabric options laid out.
• Your own order’s paperwork — you can ask for photographs of your production manual in use on the floor at any point (step 09).

The same test works on any supplier: ask for a live video walk-through at a time you choose, ask which operations run in-house and which are subcontracted, and ask what happens if bulk misses the sample. Vague answers to those three questions cost more than any difference in unit price.

14Frequently Asked Questions

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SLSPOLO · custom T-shirt manufacturer, Humen, Dongguan, Guangdong, China · Request a quote · Last updated 17 October 2026