How to Start a Clothing Brand in the UK

Deciding what the brand is for

Positioning comes before product, because it decides fabric weight, fit, decoration and price. A brand built for people who wear a hoodie all winter needs a different garment to one built for a summer merch drop, even if the artwork is identical.

Answer three things in a sentence each before you design anything:

• Who buys it. Not a demographic. A specific person, what else they already wear, and where they see new brands.
• What the brand replaces. Every purchase displaces something. Name the garment yours sits next to in their wardrobe.
• Why this and not that. Fit, weight, finish, meaning or scarcity. One reason done properly beats four claimed weakly.

Treat the first production run as a test of that answer, not the launch of a full range. Founders who order four silhouettes across three colourways almost always end up with cash locked in the two nobody wanted. One or two silhouettes, made well, tells you more and costs less to be wrong about.

Write the answer down. It becomes the brief you hand a manufacturer, and it settles arguments later about whether to add a zip, a lining or a fifth colour.

Turning an idea into a brief

You do not need technical drawings to get a usable quote. You do need to be specific about the things that change the garment. A manufacturer can build from a sketch, a moodboard, reference photos or a garment you already own and want altered.

The details that actually move a quote are these:

• Garment and fit. Hoodie, tracksuit, tee, shorts, jacket. Boxy, regular, oversized, cropped. Say it in words and back it with a reference image.
• Fabric feel and weight. Light and drapey, midweight, heavyweight and structured. A GSM figure if you know one.
• Measurements. The most useful thing a beginner owns is a garment that already fits. Measure it flat: chest, body length, sleeve, shoulder, hem and cuff.
• Colour. A Pantone reference or a physical swatch. Never a colour picked off a phone screen.
• Decoration. Method, placement, and size in centimetres. A 30cm back print and an 8cm chest print are different jobs.
• Quantity and size split. How many pieces, and roughly how they divide across sizes.

If you are missing half of that, send what you have. The gaps get filled in conversation, and our guide to starting without a tech pack covers what a manufacturer works out for you.

Do you need a tech pack?

No. A tech pack is useful, but it is an output of development as often as an input to it. Waiting until you have one is a common way to lose months.

A tech pack is a specification sheet: flat drawings, a measurement chart across every size, fabric and trim details, stitch types, decoration placement with dimensions, and label and packaging instructions. Its real job is repeatability. It lets a second factory, or the same factory two years later, make the same garment without you standing over it.

The practical route for a first brand runs the other way round. You approve a physical sample, the measurements of that approved sample become the specification, and the graded size chart is built from it. You end up with the document, and it describes a garment you have actually held rather than one you guessed at.

Get a tech pack made properly once you are reordering, quoting a second supplier, or handing production to someone else. If you already have one, send it and a manufacturer can quote straight from it with no translation step.

Choosing garments and fabric

Fabric decides how a garment feels, how it prints and how it survives a wash. It is the biggest driver of perceived quality, well ahead of the logo.

Rough orientation on weight, measured in GSM, grams per square metre:

• Single jersey around 140 to 180 GSM. Light summer tees. Drapes, follows the body, marks easily.
• Jersey around 180 to 220 GSM. The everyday midweight tee.
• Heavyweight jersey from about 220 GSM. Boxy tees that hold their shape and stand away from the body.
• French terry, loopback, around 280 to 380 GSM. Hoodies and crews with a flat looped inside face. Holds print crisply.
• Brushed-back fleece. The same weight feels warmer and fuller because the inside face is raised. Coarse yarn at a loose gauge pills sooner.

GSM is weight, not quality. Two fabrics at the same GSM behave differently depending on yarn type and knit gauge. Woven pieces follow different rules again: twill for shorts and workwear shapes, ripstop and nylon shells for windbreakers and puffers.

All fabric here is low-shrinkage and pre-shrunk, with 1 to 3 percent residual shrinkage, which is what your size chart should be built around. Start with the fabric guide, then read the page for what you are making: custom hoodies, tracksuits or t-shirts.

Finding and vetting a manufacturer

Most first-time founders think they are talking to a factory when they are talking to an agent, a trading company, or a print shop that buys in blanks. All three are legitimate businesses. Only one of them can change your pattern.

One question separates them: who cuts and stitches this garment, and do you control that operation? A manufacturer answers immediately and can describe the stages. An agent describes a network. A print shop steers you towards a blanks catalogue.

Then check the things that predict a good run:

• They sample before bulk, and say so without being asked.
• They ask about your size split and fabric weight, not only your quantity.
• They quote against a spec, and revising the quote is normal rather than a favour.
• They give lead times as ranges. A supplier promising an exact delivery date on an unmade garment is guessing.
• Payment terms are set out in the quote before you commit, so you know what is due and when.

Walk away from anyone who will not make a sample, who cannot say what they make every day, or who answers a construction question with a price. Our page on how to find a clothing manufacturer in the UK goes through the vetting questions in full.

Sampling, fit and revisions

The sample is the only point where a mistake is cheap. Everything you approve gets multiplied by the size of your run.

Review it properly rather than trying it on once:

1. Measure it flat against the reference garment you supplied. Chest, body length, sleeve, shoulder, cuff and hem opening. Record differences in centimetres, not in adjectives.
2. Wear it for a day. A hood that sits badly, cuffs that ride up and a neckline that gapes only show up in movement.
3. Wash it the way your customer will. Check the print or embroidery after drying, and check for residual shrinkage.
4. Check the decoration up close. Print edges, stitch density, and whether the design sits square and at the height you specified.
5. Check the trims. Label position, drawcord tips, zip pull, packaging.

Give feedback as one consolidated list with measurements, not five messages across a week. Vague feedback such as "a bit oversized" produces another guess. "Chest 3cm wider, body 2cm shorter" produces the garment you wanted.

Sampling here takes about two to three weeks, and one revision round is included so fit can be corrected before bulk. Further revisions after that are chargeable, which is another reason to make the first round of feedback complete.

Minimum order and your cash

A minimum order exists because a run carries fixed setup regardless of quantity: pattern and marker, fabric sourced in a lot, screens burned or embroidery digitised, machines set. Below a certain number, the setup costs more than the garments.

The number matters less than what it does to your money. Every piece is paid for before any of it sells, so the real question is not "what is the minimum" but "how many can I sell in a season". A run cleared at full price is worth more than a bigger run discounted to move.

Three things quietly multiply your commitment:

• Colourways. Each colour is a separate fabric lot and a separate setup.
• Sizes. A wide size range spreads a small run thin. New brands routinely over-order the extremes and sell out of the middle.
• Decoration methods. Mixing screen print, embroidery and applique across one drop adds setups rather than pieces.

Our minimum order is 50 pieces, and if you want a few designs around that number it can usually be worked out, depending on how many designs there are and how complex each one is. The minimum order quantity page explains how it flexes in practice.

Registering the business and the name

Sole trader or limited company

A sole trader registers for Self Assessment with HMRC and is personally liable for the business. A limited company is registered at Companies House, is a separate legal person, pays corporation tax and files accounts. Sole trader is quicker to start. A company separates your personal finances from a stock commitment, which starts to matter once you are paying for production runs.

Registering a company does not protect the name

A Companies House registration stops an identical company name being registered. It does not stop another business selling clothing under a similar name. A registered trade mark is what gives you a clear right to stop it. Without one you are relying on passing off, which means proving your reputation and the harm caused, and that is slow and expensive to run. Search the UK register first, then apply through the Intellectual Property Office in class 25, which covers clothing, footwear and headgear, adding class 35 if you will also retail other brands. Do this before woven labels are made.

VAT

VAT registration is triggered when taxable turnover passes the threshold on a rolling 12 month basis, or when you expect to pass it within the next 30 days. It is not tied to your tax year. Check the current threshold on GOV.UK, since it changes. You can also register voluntarily to reclaim VAT on costs, which suits brands buying stock well before revenue arrives.

Labelling

Under UK textile labelling rules, fibre composition must be shown by name and percentage by weight, in English, on a durable and legible label. Care instructions are not legally mandatory in the UK, but customers and stockists expect them and they protect you when a garment is washed badly. Country of origin marking is not compulsory, but nothing you print may be misleading. For childrenswear, cords and drawstrings are governed by BS EN 14682. If you sell into the EU or Northern Ireland, check the General Product Safety Regulation, which requires a responsible person based in the EU.

Pricing your first range

Price from landed cost, not from the unit figure on a quote. Landed cost per piece includes the garment, decoration, trims, labels, packaging, freight, any duty or import handling, and payment processing. Add the sampling stage spread across the run.

Then work forwards, rather than backwards from a competitor's price tag:

• Direct to customer. Your margin has to absorb marketing, returns, replacements and the pieces that never sell. A healthy multiple on landed cost is not greed, it is the cost of running a range.
• Wholesale. A stockist buys at roughly half your retail price and sets their own. If your direct price cannot survive being halved, wholesale is not open to you yet.
• Sell-through. The number that decides whether the brand works. Selling most of a small run at full price beats discounting a large run to clear it.

Two things founders forget. Do not assume a reprint costs the same per piece as the first run. Pattern work and embroidery digitising are already paid for, but fabric and trims come from a new lot and a smaller repeat spreads the remaining setup over fewer garments, so get the reorder quoted rather than working from the first-run figure. And free UK delivery is a price cut, not a marketing tactic. Decide whether it lives in the price or in the margin before you launch.

Launching the first run

Start selling while production is running. You already hold the assets: the approved sample, fabric close-ups, and the making process itself, which is more interesting than most brands admit.

Build the launch around three things.

• A list you own. Email or a messaging list. Reach on a feed is borrowed. A list is not.
• Honest sizing. Publish a measurement chart taken from the approved sample, in centimetres, garment measured flat. Bad size guides cause most first-drop returns, and returns on a small run are expensive.
• A window, not a promise. Bulk takes about three to eight weeks after sample approval, plus shipping. Give customers a range and update it.

Shoot the sample on real people at the sizes you actually made, not only on one body type. Seed pieces to people your buyer already follows before spending on ads. Pre-orders are a legitimate way to fund a run, provided you are clear the garment is being made and you give a realistic window.

After the drop, read what sold by size and by colour before deciding anything. That data is worth more than any opinion about the next design, and it should shape the next order. The free manufacturing guides go deeper on fabric, freight and supplier checks.

Starting your first run with NO FUGAZI

NO FUGAZI is a custom clothing manufacturer, based and managed in London, producing at our own dedicated facility. Pattern development, fit development, the technical work and the decoration are done in house, so fit feedback reaches the people who can act on it rather than travelling down a chain.

How a first brand usually starts here:

1. Send the brief. A sketch, a moodboard, reference photos or a garment you already own is enough. No tech pack is needed. If you have one, we quote straight from it.
2. Get a quote. Quote revisions are free, so changing quantity, fabric or decoration to see what it does is a normal part of the conversation.
3. Sample. The preferred route is deposit-credited sampling. You commit to the bulk run with a deposit, the sample is made first, and that deposit is credited towards the bulk total rather than being an extra cost. One revision round is included. A standalone sample with no bulk commitment is available as a fallback at a separate fee, which is not credited to a later order.
4. Bulk. Begins after you approve the sample. Quality control runs in four stages, and we ship worldwide.

The minimum order is 50 pieces, and if you want several designs around that number it can usually be worked out, depending on how many designs there are and how complex they are. We make hoodies, zip hoodies, tracksuits, t-shirts, sweatpants and joggers, shorts, caps, varsity jackets, bomber jackets, puffer jackets, windbreaker sets and activewear. We do not hold blank stock, but blanks can be produced to order to custom measurements, and branding is not required.

Send your brief through the enquiry form, or message us on WhatsApp on +44 7537 134878. If you want to see the sequence end to end first, read how our process runs or browse the full garment range.