How to start a clothing brand and get your first run made

The three ways to make your first collection

How your clothes get made decides your minimums, your cash needs and how different your product can be. The choice comes down to three routes.

The route can change by style: decorated tees can sit beside a cut and sew jacket in the same collection. If you are weighing a factory's own designs against yours, the difference between OEM and ODM is the same question in factory terms.

Starting a clothing brand with little money

Start with decorated blanks or a small private label run, not cut and sew. Both let you test designs and prices on a small order, and the cost section below shows how far apart the three routes are. Sell online first, through your own store or an online marketplace, so you learn what sells before you hold much stock. Reorder the styles that sell through, and move a proven best seller to cut and sew manufacturers once its volume can carry the higher minimums and the sampling.

The steps

1. Choose a niche and a customer. Name who buys, what they wear it for and what they pay now. A narrow brief, such as a single use or a single fit problem, makes every later decision easier, from fabric to price.
2. Design a small first collection. A handful of styles in a few colors is enough to learn what sells. When minimums apply per style and per color, every extra color or style adds a full minimum to your first order.
3. Write a tech pack for each style. Flat sketches, measurements with grading across sizes, fabric and trims, construction details, labels and packaging all go in one tech pack file, so a factory can quote without guessing.
4. Get quotes from factories overseas and at home. Include private label clothing factories if you are adapting their styles rather than cutting your own. Use the same tech pack for every quote, and ask for the unit price at two quantities, the sample cost, the MOQ and whether it applies per style, per color or per size run, the lead time and the shipping terms. The minimum rule matters as much as the unit price, because it sets how many styles you can afford. How to find a clothing manufacturer covers where to look and how to screen the factories first.
5. Sample until the fit is right. Expect a first sample, a fit correction and a pre-production sample in your real fabric. Approve the pre-production sample in writing and keep one as the standard the bulk order is checked against. If you sample close to home, the Garment District NYC guide and the LA Fashion District guide cover each state's rules for hiring a sewing contractor.
6. Order the first run and inspect it. Pay the deposit only after the pre-production sample is approved, and book a quality inspection before the balance is paid and the goods ship.
7. Label every garment correctly. Federal labeling rules enforced by the FTC apply, and the details are below. Send the label files with the tech pack, because labels sewn in wrong are expensive to fix after production.
8. Check the safety rules, then launch. Adult clothing has a flammability standard, and children's clothing has more. Both are covered below.

What goes on the label

Most textile products need a label listing the fiber content, country of origin and identity of the manufacturer or another business responsible for marketing or handling the item^[1]. The fiber content gives the generic fiber names and the percentages by weight of each constituent fiber^[1], in descending order, and there is a 3% tolerance^[1] for fiber content claims.

• Country of origin. A garment made entirely abroad must be labeled with the name of the country where it was processed or manufactured^[1]. A regional name will not do: it is not sufficient to disclose that a product was made in the European Union^[1], for example. On a garment with a neck, the country of origin goes on the front of a label attached to the inside center of the neck^[1].
• Your identity. The label names a business, either by name or by an RN, an identification number the FTC issues in place of a name. RNs are not issued to businesses outside of the U.S.^[1]. A name must be the full name under which the company does business^[1]; a brand name counts only if the company trades under it.
• Made in USA. A label may say it only if the product is made completely in the U.S. of materials that were made in the U.S.^[1]. A garment sewn abroad cannot carry it. One sewn in the US from imported fabric must say so in a single statement, such as “Made in U.S.A. of imported fabric”^[1].
• Care instructions. Care labels must be attached permanently and securely^[2], and you need a reasonable basis for all care instructions and warnings^[2]. Wash tests on the production fabric, run before the bulk order, give you that basis.

Flammability and the certificate for adult clothing

Clothing textiles sold in the US fall under a flammability standard, with exemptions from testing for fabrics that reliably pass. The standard lists two: plain surface fabrics, regardless of fiber content, weighing 2.6 ounces per square yard or more^[3], and fabrics of any weight made entirely from acrylic, modacrylic, nylon, olefin, polyester, wool^[3] or a mix of those fibers.

For adult clothing made only from exempt fabrics, the CPSC has said it will not pursue compliance or enforcement actions^[4] over a missing General Certificate of Conformity. The exemption is narrow: a garment made from a plain surface silk fabric that weighs less than 2.6 ounces per square yard^[5] would not qualify, and it would still need a certificate. Check each fabric's weight and fiber content against the list before you rely on it.

Starting a kids clothing line

Children's clothing carries extra rules. Drawstrings are the clearest case: children's upper outerwear in sizes 2T to 16^[6] with drawstrings that do not meet the ASTM drawstring standard are listed as a substantial product hazard and refused entry into the United States^[6]. Specify no drawstrings at the hood and neck in the tech pack. When you ask kids clothing manufacturers to quote, ask for their trim test reports as well.

Where a children's product safety rule applies, samples must be tested by a third party conformity assessment body accredited^[7] under the Consumer Product Safety Act before the product is imported or sold. That duty falls on the manufacturer, which the law defines as any person who manufactures or imports a consumer product^[8], and on the private labeler, if the product bears a private label^[7], meaning an owner of a brand or trademark on the label of a consumer product which bears a private label^[8]. A brand that imports its own kids line with its name on the label carries it either way. Children's products also need permanent, distinguishing marks on the product and its packaging^[7], to the extent practicable, so that the maker and the buyer can tell where and when it was made and which batch it came from. Put the tracking label content in the tech pack so the factory builds it in.

What it costs to start a clothing brand

Your first production run is the cost to plan first, and three things set its size: the route, the minimum (per style, color or size run), and the freight and duty on top of the unit price. The example below prices a first order on each route.

On these illustrative figures, a first order costs about $1,000 on decorated blanks, about $4,900 on private label and about $17,800 for cut and sew, before brand, website and marketing.

A first order on each route

Route and order	Goods	Samples	Freight, duty and fees	Total
Decorated blanks: 100 printed tees in 2 designs from a local decorator, at $9.00 each	$900	$60	$80 shipping to you	$1,040
Private label: 300 units in 2 styles from a factory's range, at $11.00 FOB	$3,300	$200	$1,378: freight $400, duty at 16% (assumed) $528, broker and entry $300, trucking $150	$4,878
Cut and sew: the 900-unit run below	$13,050	$720	$4,038	$17,808

Illustrative figures, not a quote. Real prices depend on the spec, quantity and factory.

Get real quotes for your own styles before you budget, because unit prices and minimums vary widely by product, fabric and country. The cut and sew run, line by line:

A first cut and sew run of 900 units in 3 styles

Line	Amount
Samples: 3 styles, 2 rounds each at $120	$720
Production: 3 styles in 2 colors, 150 units per color, at $14.50 FOB the origin port	$13,050
Ocean freight and insurance	$1,100
Duty at 16% (assumed) of the production price	$2,088
Customs broker and entry fees	$400
Trucking from the port to your warehouse	$450
Landed cost of the production run	$17,088
Landed cost per unit	$18.99
Total with samples	$17,808

Illustrative figures, not a quote. Real prices depend on the spec, quantity and factory.

Brand, website, photography and launch marketing come on top. The duty line is the one to check first when you compare countries: ask your customs broker to classify each style and give you its rate before you choose where to make it.

Getting quotes

We introduce you to clothing manufacturers that fit your request, overseas first, and name each one. It is free for brands, and the manufacturers quote you directly; ask each quote to state its shipping terms, so it drops straight into the table above. Put a link to your tech pack in your clothing quote request so the manufacturers price your spec, not a guess.