Custom Clothing Manufacturing for UK Brands

A UK brand ordering from Dongguan is rarely chasing the lowest unit price. What it is protecting is a fit that already sells, a neck label that has to read a particular way, and a stock position that cannot be rebuilt once a season has gone. Those three concerns decide most of the questions that reach us from London, Manchester, Bristol and Glasgow.

Below is how a UK programme runs here: the working day you will be writing into, what a small first order leads to, the ports your freight is likely to use, the grading and label work that holds a UK size run together, and the file set that gets a quote answered in one pass. Every number below appears again in the quotation we send back.

A Working Day That Lines Up With Yours

Weekdays run 08:30–20:00 GMT+8 on our floor, and weekends 10:00–18:00. Set against a UK day, a question raised in London before lunch reaches us in our afternoon, and an answer is usually back before that office closes. It is close enough to a shared day that a programme can be run over email without anybody setting an alarm.

Proofs, lab dips and sample comments move at a pace a buyer can hold in their head; a file that lands in our morning is opened the same day. Where a decision needs a person rather than a message, the reply says so and proposes a slot inside both working days.

One Small Order, Then a Repeat That Skips the Set-Up

Most UK independents order one style in one colour first: 100 pieces per style per colour is the smallest run the floor will take, and the size split inside it is theirs to set. The repeat is quicker than the first run — block, grade rule, shade and approved sample all exist by then, so only the fabric booking and a line slot are new. The counting rule behind the 100 is short enough to check before a brief is written.

A first run kept tight beats volume pushed into a style nobody has worn yet. Proving the fit on a hundred pieces is worth more than a discount on stock that sits in a stockroom all season.

Felixstowe, Southampton and the Case for Groupage

Containers booked out of Yantian for the UK normally discharge at Felixstowe or Southampton, with London Gateway and Liverpool on some routings. Which of them your freight uses is a matter for your forwarder and the sailing; we book to whatever is nominated. Documents are drawn up here and released electronically before the vessel arrives.

On a first run of a few hundred pieces, groupage is often the sensible choice; on a repeat that fills a container, a direct sailing with a single discharge port removes the deconsolidation step. We do not sell freight; the routing advice we pass on is what a buyer would get from their own forwarder.

UK and EU Grading, With Label Copy Printed as Supplied

A UK range is normally graded on UK or EU sizing, and both sit inside what we build. Send the chart, or the garment it was taken from, and the block follows it. Where a style sells on both sides of the Channel, one approved sample can carry two grade rules, provided both charts arrive before sampling.

Label wording in English is printed exactly as sent, composition, origin line and care symbols included. That text is often the only thing a customer reads before deciding whether to post a garment back, so it is set verbatim rather than tidied. Artwork comes in as AI, EPS or high-resolution PDF; the tech pack as PDF or Excel. Lines we run include polo shirts, yoga wear, hoodies, golf and seamless styles; leather, footwear and accessories are outside the floor’s work.

What a UK Buyer Sends, and What Comes Back

A workable enquiry carries five things: a tech pack or a reference piece, a size chart, a colour standard, a fabric weight in GSM, and the quantity split by colour. Weights sit in fixed bands — jersey at 180–220 GSM, piqué at 220–260, interlock at 220–280, hoodie fleece at 240–550. A weight outside a band is a conversation, not an automatic no, but it does change the quote.

Back comes an itemised quotation, with fabric, trims and making as separate lines and a sampling date attached. The sample runs 3–7 days and covers a wash test; bulk runs 15–25 days from approval of the pre-production sample, and it ends in 100% inspection, accepted at AQL 2.5, before packing. Quotations are written on an EXW, FOB Shenzhen Yantian or DDP basis, and payment is a T/T deposit invoiced at confirmation with the balance settled before the vessel sails; where a whole container is booked, a sight L/C can stand in for that balance. Sampling is charged at a rate quoted for the style in writing, and credited against the first order at 300 pieces per style. Capacity behind that is real: 18,000 m² in Dongguan, ISO 9001, 180+ staff, and 150,000–200,000 pieces a month since 2009.

Questions UK Brands Ask Before a First Order

Do you grade to UK sizes or European sizes?

Both. A UK chart and an EU chart are graded from the same approved block on separate rules, and each sample is measured against its own spec. Say which chart governs which sales channel at enquiry stage; a second rule introduced after sampling reopens the pattern work and moves the bulk date with it.

Which UK port will my order discharge at?

Felixstowe or Southampton on most sailings, with London Gateway and Liverpool used on some. The choice belongs to your forwarder and the sailing rather than to us, so we book the routing that is nominated and release the documents before the vessel arrives.

Can label copy be printed in English exactly as I write it?

Yes. Wording, fibre percentages, origin line and care symbols go onto the neck and care labels as supplied, with no rewriting on our side. Send artwork as AI, EPS or a high-resolution PDF. Where a retailer supplies its own label format, that file is used unchanged, including spacing and typeface.

What is the minimum order for a bonded polo?

Bonded and seam-sealed styles start at 200 pieces per style and colour, against 100 for cut-and-sew. The adhesive film and the face fabric are validated as a matched pair before a run begins, and that validation work is what sets the higher floor. Sizes inside the 200 can be mixed freely.

Where to Start

Send the size chart, the colour split and a reference piece or tech pack, and the reply will carry an itemised price, a sampling date and a confirmation of the minimum your construction attracts. The contact page is the quickest way in; the 100-piece order walkthrough covers the run step by step, and the bonded and seam-sealed answer explains the 200-piece build. Brands selling into Europe often read the French and Dutch pages next.