Private Label clothing manufacturers are a slightly different type of garment manufacturing company than conventional apparel manufacturers. In this post, we’ll explore how they differ and what’s best for your brand.
Private Label Clothing Manufacturers: What’s the Difference?
Before we progress, it’s important to keep in mind that, the clothing manufacturing industry as a whole has even more varying types of companies and operational models. We’re just going to focus on three types.
When you search online, you’ll note that the definition of Private Label clothing manufacturing varies a bit. Descriptions online seem to blur the lines between Private Label and White Label; both also different from Custom manufacturing.
So what’s the difference?
1. White Label Clothing Manufacturing
In the most basic sense, this is the type of manufacturing where the apparel factory already makes and stocks clothing, then permits brands to put their labels as well as surface designs on them. In essence, you’re branding whatever clothing they have with your own brand.
This may be a cheap and quick option but often it also means there’s a high risk of low quality workmanship, lack of proper fitting cuts/measurements, or even unethical working conditions.
You can read about ethics in the clothing manufacturing industry at Clean Clothes Campaign here.
2. Custom Clothing Manufacturing
This is exactly what it looks (sounds?) like. We start from a blank canvas, our client provides their ideas and some examples, then our Technical Fashion Design team create the tech packs, digitised CAD patterns, and our production team sources everything, tests everything, and makes the clothing samples.
This is a more involved process and in the end, your brand gets the exact styled and fit clothing you want.
To see how the Technical Clothing Design process works, slide on over to this page.
3. Private Label Clothing Manufacturing
To clarify, this type of clothing manufacturing is not always provided the same way by every garment factory. More often than not, you’ll find White Label producers say their service is Private Label, when in fact it’s not.
Private Label, when done correctly, should be an (almost) Custom manufacturing option, with a twist.
Private Label clothing manufacturing is when the garment factory has already designed a range of clothing and created a catalogue of styles you can choose from. And they’ll have their own Size Chart, meaning, their own fit.
But this isn’t like White Label where the clothing is stocked ready to be used. In Private Label, the clothing will not actually be made yet.
In all cases, you won’t be able to alter the main structural features or the seam measurements. That’s because the CAD patterns will have already been drafted, graded, and cut. This makes it faster when going into sampling since these are already finalised.
But you should be able to first choose a variety of other elements for each garment before the clothing samples are made for you. This is the customisation part; the part where the brand gets to be involved in the creation of the garments.
Does your Private Label clothing manufacturer provide this solution?
Because CM Garmindo provides an “(almost) Custom manufacturing” Private Label service, here’s everything you can choose when you work with our company:
- Choose from our over 1,000 different fabrics for any of the styles, even if it’s not a common choice.
- Choose any Pantone Colour so we can dye your fabrics to your brand’s colour palette.
- Add your own surface designs which are your own custom embroidery and custom print designs.
- Choose from thousands of components such as buttons, drawstrings, YKK® zippers, and more.
- Add or remove features such as cuffs, flounces, pockets, trims, and more.
- Add your own custom labels and tags that we custom make for you.
If not, let’s talk. Give us a call or WhatsApp at CM Garmindo to let us know about your collection.
