Making your first collection is not complicated. It is just unfamiliar, and the expensive mistakes happen because nobody explains the order of operations before you spend money.
This page is the explanation. We are Imily Clothing, a clothing manufacturer in Guangzhou, and most of the 300-plus brands we have worked with since 2012 were exactly where you are now: one design, a small budget, and no idea what a factory actually needs from them.
Five mistakes we see over and over. All of them cost real money.
1. Quoting before the design is finished. A quote for a vague design is a guess. The same silhouette in a heavier fabric, with an extra panel and a different print, can cost twice as much. Lock the design first, then ask for numbers.
2. Ordering 500 pieces to get a better unit price. The unit price is better. The risk is worse. Five hundred pieces of a design nobody has bought yet is a lot of dead stock, and dead stock is the most common reason a first brand stops after one season. Prove the design at 100 pieces, then scale.
3. Forgetting the labels. Woven labels, hang tags and packaging all have their own production time. Founders usually remember this two weeks before the shipment is due.
4. Skipping the sample. Samples feel expensive because you pay for one piece at the price of a custom order. They are still the cheapest insurance you will ever buy. A fit problem found on a sample costs one garment. Found on 300 pieces, it costs the whole run.
5. Choosing a factory on price alone. The cheapest quote is often a trading company that has never seen your order. When something goes wrong there is nobody to fix it, and the money is already gone.
You do not need a professional tech pack. You do need enough for a pattern maker to understand the garment. Send us as much of this as you have:
If you only have the first two, that is enough to start a conversation. We will fill in the rest with you.
Week 1 — Conversation and quote. You send your design. We come back with a price per piece, a lead time, and fabric options. No cost, no obligation.
Week 1–2 — Fabric selection. We send photos or physical swatches. This is where we usually find a way to keep the cost down: a stock colour instead of a custom dye, or a similar material with a better minimum.
Week 2–3 — Pattern and sample. Our pattern room develops your design and makes a sample. You receive it and check the fit, the fabric and the construction.
Week 3–4 — Revision and approval. You tell us what to change. We revise and, once you approve, the pattern is locked.
Week 4 — Labels and packaging. Woven labels, hang tags and printing go into production while the bulk fabric is being prepared.
Week 5–8 — Bulk production. Fabric inspection, cutting, sewing, decoration and two rounds of quality checks. Typical bulk lead time is 20–45 days depending on quantity.
Week 8–10 — Packing and shipping. Every piece packed individually, carton barcoded for your warehouse, then shipped by air, sea or express. DDP is available for the US, Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
Nobody can quote your collection from a webpage, and anyone who tries is guessing. What we can tell you is what the money actually goes into:
The honest version: at 100 pieces, your cost per garment will be higher than what a large brand pays, because you are absorbing the setup costs over a smaller run. That is the price of testing without risking your whole budget. Once a style sells, the reorder is meaningfully cheaper.
Large factories chase large orders. An order of 100 pieces is not worth the administrative effort for them, so they either refuse or quote a number that is meant to make you go away. We built our business around the opposite: small runs, first-time founders, and brands that grow into bigger orders over time.
What that means in practice:
Imily was founded in Guangzhou in 2012. We are close to the wholesale clothing markets and to Zhongda fabric market, and about 40% of what we ship goes to brands in the US, Argentina and Australia.
No. Most of our clients had never worked with a factory before their first order. We will walk you through the process one step at a time and tell you exactly what we need from you at each stage.
It depends entirely on the garment. A simple cotton tee at 100 pieces costs far less than a lined jacket with custom fabric. Send us your design and we will give you a real number — and if the number does not work for you, we will suggest what to change to bring it down.
Start with the number you can afford to lose. If 100 pieces sell out quickly, your reorder is faster and cheaper than the first run. If they sell slowly, you have not buried your budget.
We are not a design studio, but our pattern makers and sample team work from sketches and references all day. They will tell you what is producible and what needs adjusting before it goes into pattern making.
Tell us what is wrong and we revise it. Getting the fit and fabric right is the whole point of the sampling stage.
We ship worldwide by air, sea and express, and we can arrange DDP so the goods arrive with duties paid and the paperwork handled. We currently ship DDP to the United States, all of Europe, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
We are a Guangzhou clothing development and production company. Development, fabric and trim sourcing, pattern making and sampling are all handled by our own team; the sewing is done by factories we have worked with for years, and we manage that production directly. You deal with one team from first brief to shipment, and if you are in Guangzhou we will take you to the factory producing your order.
Because most factories will not develop a garment for you. They expect a finished pattern, a tech pack and a fabric order, and they set their minimum around their own line capacity. We do the development, buy the materials and build the sample first — which is why a 100-piece order is workable, and why you only have to explain your idea once.
Sourcing is part of how we build your order, not a separate agency fee. Tell us what you need and we will quote the whole job — development, materials, sampling and production — as one number, so you are not assembling a price from three different suppliers.
You do not need a complete tech pack or a finished business plan. Send a drawing, a photo, or a description of what you want to make, and we will come back with a price and a timeline — within 24 hours, with no obligation.
Start your project · See our MOQ and pricing structure · Read the manufacturing FAQ