Cut and sew manufacturers: your own garment, from pattern to bulk

What a cut and sew manufacturer does

Cut and sew is how a garment becomes yours from the pattern up. The factory lays your pattern pieces out on the fabric as a marker, cuts the panels, sews them together, adds the trims and labels, then presses and packs. The fabric can be knit, as for tees, hoodies and leggings, or woven, as for shirts, trousers and dresses.

Some knitwear skips most of that. Sweaters in particular can be knit with their panels already shaped on the machine, which needs little or no cutting, and customs treats that kind of garment differently (below).

Within cut and sew, the factory either buys the fabric and trims (full package) or cuts and sews what you send (cut, make and trim). The guide to finding a clothing manufacturer compares the two routes. The choice decides whose fabric minimum you meet and who deals with the mill. The label is your brand's to get right on either route, as the private label clothing manufacturers page explains.

What moves a cut and sew quote

Much of what a new style costs is set before bulk sewing starts. Settle each of these in the request, so every factory prices the same work.

Ask each factory to list what its price includes. A low unit price can leave out the pattern, the grading or the size set, which then arrive as separate charges. Before you pay a development fee, agree in writing that the pattern and graded files are yours, and get the digital files. Then a move to another factory does not mean drafting them again. Ask too whether the MOQ is per style, per color or per size, and whether a mill's fabric minimum sits behind it. Where listed companies publish a minimum, it appears on their cards below and in the published minimums box above, with the date it was checked.

Put the answers in your tech pack. Before cutting, approve a size set that shows the grading, then a pre-production sample in the bulk fabric and trims that shows the seams the tech pack names. The clothing brand guide prices a small cut and sew run line by line, as an illustrative example.

Seams and stitches: write them into the spec

Two quotes for the same sketch can assume different seams, and part of the price gap can hide there. Seams have a shared vocabulary: ASTM D6193, the standard practice that identifies the stitch types and seam types used to make sewn items^[2]. Mark the seams you care about in the tech pack. If you do not own the standard, let each factory name the stitch and seam type numbers it priced for each seam. Ask for the stitches per inch too.

The standard lists what affects a seam's strength: fabric type and strength, seam type, stitch type, stitch density in stitches per inch, thread tension and thread strength^[2]. It also says the elasticity of a sewn seam should be slightly greater than that of the material it joins^[2]. That matters most on stretch knits. On the first knit sample, stretch the side and waist seams, and the shoulders unless they are taped, and look for broken stitches before you approve it.

Where a cut and sew garment comes from at the border

The factory you deal with may cut in one plant and sew in another, sometimes in another country. For customs, the sewing usually decides. CBP's older guide to these rules says cutting will almost never confer country of origin, and for garments the rules are based on assembly operations, not on cutting^[1]. The current regulation, below, works the same way.

A good counts as wholly assembled when all its components, at least two, existed in essentially their finished condition before being combined to form it in a single country^[3]. Small parts do not change that: minor subassemblies, such as collars, cuffs, plackets and pockets, do not affect whether a good counts as wholly assembled in a single country^[3]. In effect, origin is the country of whole assembly, for a good not knit to shape and wholly assembled in one country; scarves, household textiles and a few other goods are excepted^[3]. So a garment cut in one country and wholly sewn in another takes the origin of the country that sewed it.

Assembly can also be split between countries. Origin then goes to the single country of the most important assembly or manufacturing process, or else the last country of an important one^[3]. That outcome is harder to predict, so ask your broker, before you agree to it, whether to request a ruling.

Knitwear made to shape is the exception. Knit to shape means a good with 50 percent or more of its exterior surface formed by major parts knitted or crocheted directly to the shape used in it^[3]. Origin then goes to the single country where a knit to shape good was knit^[3], even if the panels are joined somewhere else.

The origin decides which rate column and which extra tariffs apply on the garment's tariff line, and the country named on your label. If the sewing happens in the US and the fabric does not, the label's origin line must say both; the clothing brand guide gives the wording. Ask each factory, in writing, which plants and countries do the cutting, the sewing and any assembly it sends out. Then have your customs broker confirm the origin before you order.

The sewing country does not settle two things. Duty-free entry under a trade agreement has its own yarn and fabric rules, which the clothing manufacturers page sets out for Mexico and Central America. The forced-labor check looks past the sewing too. CBP's guidance says goods with any input from Xinjiang, or from a company on the UFLPA Entity List, are barred from US commerce unless the importer meets the law's exception requirements^[4]. Get the mill and the yarn spinner named on either route; on a cut, make and trim order, the fabric purchase records are already yours.

How customs reads your pattern

Pattern decisions show up in the tariff line. Fabric construction picks the chapter, as the tech pack guide explains. Some garments have separate men's and women's headings. Examples are knit suits, suit-type jackets, blazers, trousers and shorts (headings 6103 and 6104) and knit shirts and blouses (6105 and 6106)^[5].

For those garments, the knit chapter's note decides which heading a style belongs to:

• a garment closing left over right at the front is men's or boys', and one closing right over left women's or girls', unless its cut clearly shows the intended sex^[5];
• a garment that cannot be identified as men's or boys' or as women's or girls' is classified under the headings for women's or girls' garments^[5].

The woven chapter applies the same closure rule and the same default to the women's or girls' headings (chapter 62, note 9)^[6]. For a style sold as unisex, ask your broker how its measurements and size range will be read. It is still classified by its closure and its cut, and one that cannot be identified either way goes under the women's or girls' heading. If your style has a men's and a women's heading, decide the closure direction when the pattern is drafted, not after the sample.

Within a heading, the fiber usually decides the line. A blend is treated as made wholly of the fiber that predominates by weight, or if none does, of the one whose heading comes last in numerical order^[7]. A blend close to an even split can move to a different line when the mill's fiber content shifts. Put the percentages and their tolerance in the tech pack, and give your broker the mill's fiber content before you order. The import duty guide shows how the line and the origin become a landed cost.

Labels when you supply the fabric

On a cut, make and trim order, the fiber content on your label starts with the fabric you bought. The FTC's textile rules allow an invoice in place of a label, with the fiber content and the issuer's name and address, for textiles not yet in consumer form^[8]. Rolls shipped to a cutter are not yet in consumer form. Ask the mill for an invoice that states the fiber content and keep it in the style's file. Treat it as a starting point: test the bulk fabric's fiber content before the labels are printed.

The rules for what the sewn-in label must say, including the name or RN line and the care label, are in the tech pack guide.

Children's styles: trims, sleepwear and drawstrings

On a children's garment, the lead content question sits mostly with what is added to the fabric. The CPSC lists materials that do not exceed the children's lead limits. The list includes textiles of natural or manufactured fibers, dyed or undyed, with no treatment or application other than dyes^[9]. Its ink entry covers only CMYK process printing inks, excluding spot colors and inks used in after-treatment applications such as screen prints, transfers and decals^[9]. For metal parts it names only stainless steel, other than the leaded grade 303Pb, and precious metals such as gold of at least 10 karat and sterling silver^[9].

So brass snaps, plated zipper pulls, plastic snaps and buttons, coated buttons and screen prints are not on that list. Ask the factory where each trim comes from. Two limits apply: total lead in an accessible part, capped at 100 ppm^[10], and lead in paint or a surface coating, capped at 0.009 percent^[11]. Before bulk, get test reports on the production trims and prints. The children's product certificate rests on test results from a third-party, CPSC-accepted laboratory^[12], so ask for reports from that kind of lab. On baby styles, ask for a pull test on snaps and buttons too. The clothing brand guide covers the testing duty and the tracking label.

Clothing textiles fall under the general flammability standard the clothing brand guide covers. Children's sleepwear, such as pajamas, nightgowns and robes, brings flammability tests of its own. The CPSC has one standard for children's sleepwear in sizes 0 through 6X (16 CFR part 1615) and another for sizes 7 through 14 (16 CFR part 1616)^[13]. Snug styles and infant garments can fall outside those tests, but only on the standards' terms:

• the older sizes' standard excludes tight-fitting garments in sizes 7 through 14: within set body and limb dimensions per size, with limits on trim, on how sleeves, legs and body taper, and on where the lowest fastening sits^[14];
• such a snug style also needs compliance with the clothing and vinyl plastic film flammability standards, a size label, a yellow hangtag (or package label) reading "For child's safety, garment should fit snugly. This garment is not flame resistant. Loose-fitting garment is more likely to catch fire.", and a "Wear Snug-fitting, Not Flame Resistant" label under the size^[14];
• the younger sizes' standard has the same tight-fitting exclusion and conditions for sizes up to 6X, with its own size table, plus one for infant garments: nine months or smaller, within set lengths, meeting the clothing and vinyl film flammability standards and labelled in months^[15].

Decide early whether a style will be drafted and labelled to those terms, or made in a fabric and construction that pass the sleepwear tests. Ask a lab before you buy the fabric. Put the measurements and tags in the tech pack.

For babies and toddlers there is one more check. A child care article is a product designed or intended to facilitate sleep or the feeding of children age 3 and younger, or to help them with sucking or teething^[16]. The CPSC's rule bars more than 0.1 percent of any of eight listed phthalates in any plasticized component part of a children's toy or child care article^[17]. By that definition, baby sleepwear and bibs can fall in that group, so ask your lab whether plastisol prints, vinyl snaps or other plasticized trims need phthalate tests.

Drawstrings anywhere on children's upper outerwear in sizes 2T to 16^[18], at the hood, neck, waist or hem, must meet the ASTM drawstring standard. Otherwise they count as a substantial product hazard. The hoodie manufacturers page sets out the simplest spec.

Before you pick a cut and sew factory

These questions show whether a factory develops and sews a style itself or hands the work on. Ask each factory:

• Who drafts and grades the patterns: someone on your staff, or an outside pattern maker?
• Which building does the cutting and which does the sewing? Does any sewing go to a subcontractor, and in which country?
• What fabric consumption per garment did you price, and from which marker?
• Can I see a size set from your sample room before bulk, not only one sample in the base size?

Listing here means the company's own website says it does cut and sew production and it has operated for at least a year. Each card shows when that website was checked, and the methodology has the rest of the standard. Who drafts the patterns and where the sewing happens are not part of it, so ask each company.

A trading company that cannot name the plant and the country doing the sewing cannot tell you the garment's origin either. Hold the balance until a quality inspection at an agreed AQL passes. Have the inspector measure every size against the graded spec and check seam types and stitch density against the tech pack, since those are what cut and sew adds.

Getting matched with cut and sew manufacturers

Start the request with your tech pack or a garment that shows the fit you want, and say who buys the fabric. List the size range, the fabric and its fiber content (and, for cotton, where it was grown) and the trims. Add the sampling rounds you expect, the units per style, color and size, and your target ship date. We read your request for the garment, the route, the quantities and where you want it made. Then we introduce you to cut and sew manufacturers that fit, each one named; if none fits, we tell you. It is free for brands, and each manufacturer quotes you directly. Once we offer it, manufacturers can pay for a Featured placement, labelled as paid. Paying for placement does not change who we shortlist, though a Featured manufacturer may receive your details sooner if you agree to share them, as how it works explains.