A short is the shortest garment we make, and the least able to hide anything. There is no length for an error to disappear into. On a jogger, a centimetre of drift in the leg opening is swallowed by the drape. On a five-inch short it moves the hem across the thigh and changes who the garment is for.
Which is why this page is mostly about construction rather than cloth. Inseam, rise, waistband build, pocket bags, liner and hem finish decide whether your short reads as a gym piece, a summer streetwear piece or a mid-length classic, and every one of them is a pattern and sewing decision rather than a fabric decision. If your short is a performance piece and stretch is the harder question, our activewear manufacturing page covers fabric, recovery, elastane and opacity, and we send founders there instead of repeating it.
We make sweat shorts, mesh shorts, woven and cargo shorts, cycle shorts, and matching sets where the short is cut from the same roll as the tee. Nothing is pulled off a shelf and decorated. Patterns are developed for your fit, graded across your size range, then cut, stitched and finished by hand.
One scheduling note that only applies to this garment: shorts sell inside a narrow window. Count backwards from the drop. A sample takes 2-3 weeks, bulk takes 3-8 weeks after you approve it, and shipping sits on top. Brands that start in spring are usually landing stock as the season turns over.
No tech pack is needed to begin. A sketch, a moodboard, a reference photo or a pair you already own is enough, and we handle pattern and fit development from there.
Shorts production at a glance
Everything below is standing policy, not an estimate. Where a figure is a range, the range is real and depends on your spec.
Send a sketch, a moodboard or a pair of shorts you already own. All three work.
A short is the only bottom where more weight makes the leg stand further away from the body rather than hang closer to it. Understand that one inversion and most fabric choices on this page answer themselves.
On a full-length trouser, the column of cloth below the knee acts as a counterweight. It pulls the thigh panel down and quietly straightens the whole leg out. A short has no such column. Below the crotch seam there may be only five to nine inches of fabric, and it is anchored at the top by a waistband and nowhere else.
So a heavy loopback that hangs beautifully as a jogger will, at a short inseam, sit out from the thigh and flare at the hem like a bell. A light jersey with the same pattern will collapse onto the leg and cling in humidity, which is the exact weather a short gets worn in. The pattern is not wrong in either case. The cloth and the length were chosen separately when they should have been chosen together.
The practical rule we work to: the shorter the inseam, the lighter the cloth needs to be before the hem stops standing away from the thigh. Push the inseam past nine inches and you can carry real weight again, because there is finally enough leg for it to hang from.
Shorts span more fabric families than any other garment we make. A sweat short, a mesh short, a cargo short and a cycle short have almost nothing in common at the roll, which is why a single weight chart is close to useless here. Match the family to the garment first, then settle the weight inside it.
| Fabric family | What it is | What it does to the short |
|---|---|---|
| Light single jersey | A thin, single-face knit, usually cotton or a cotton blend. | Fluid and cool. It follows the thigh rather than standing off it, so a short inseam still reads as a short rather than a flare. It shows every ridge underneath, so pocket bags and liner seams have to be built cleanly. |
| French terry, mid weight | Loopback knit with the loops left unbrushed on the inside face. | The default sweat short. Enough body to keep the hem from curling, light enough that a seven-inch leg still falls rather than projects. Dries faster than a brushed fleece, which matters on a garment worn in heat. |
| Heavy loopback | The same knit at a much higher weight. | Structured and expensive-feeling in the hand, and the fabric most likely to fight a short inseam. It wants nine inches or more of leg to hang from. Below that it stands away from the thigh and the hem reads stiff. |
| Poly mesh (tricot) | An open, knitted net, almost always polyester, run over a solid tricot lining. | The basketball and training short. Air passes straight through it, it weighs almost nothing, and it needs the lining underneath to be opaque because the shell is not. Two fabrics, two patterns, one garment. |
| Woven microfibre or taffeta | A smooth, tightly woven synthetic with no stretch of its own. | Crisp, quiet and water-shedding, and it holds a pressed hem. With no give in the cloth, movement has to come from the pattern instead: a deeper rise, a fuller thigh, or a vent at the outseam. |
| Cotton twill or ripstop | Woven cotton or a cotton blend, sometimes with a ripstop grid. | The cargo and workwear route. Stiff at first and it breaks in with wear. Strong enough to carry loaded pockets without the panel distorting, which lighter knits will not do. |
| Nylon or poly with elastane | A high-stretch performance knit. | The cycle short. Everything here is a stretch and recovery question rather than a drape question, and it is covered properly on our activewear manufacturing page. |
If the short is a performance piece, read the activewear manufacturing page before this one: stretch, recovery, elastane content and opacity are settled there and we do not repeat them here. If the short is a streetwear or lounge piece, the rest of this page is where your decisions live. And if you already own a pair whose cloth you like, send them. Matching a fabric in the hand is faster and more accurate than describing one.
Shorts cross more fabric families than anything else we make, and the decoration method is decided by the cloth you chose rather than by taste. Pick the row that matches your fabric.
| Your fabric | What works on it | What to avoid |
|---|---|---|
| French terry or jersey | Screen print for flat brand colour, embroidery for a small hit, DTF for detailed or multi-colour artwork. Acid wash as a finish on a cotton-rich short. | Sublimation. It needs polyester and it cannot print white, so it will not hold on a cotton-rich sweat short. |
| Poly mesh (tricot) | Sublimation on the solid lining or on solid panels. A heat-applied or stitched patch on a solid yoke or waistband. | Screen print straight onto open mesh. The ink pushes through the holes, bridges them and eventually cracks along the knit. |
| Woven microfibre or taffeta | Sublimation on light grounds, screen print, or an embroidered mark with the right backing. | Heavy stitch counts on a thin woven. The needle perforates a tight weave and the panel puckers around the design. |
| Cotton twill or ripstop | Embroidery, which this cloth carries better than any knit. Screen print, woven labels, and patches on the cargo flap. | Sublimation again, and any print that crosses a pocket flap seam, because the step in thickness breaks the image. |
| Nylon or poly with elastane | Sublimation, because the dye becomes the fabric and stretches with it. A small mark on a stable panel. | Screen print and DTF on a high-stretch panel. Both sit on top of the cloth as a film and the film cannot stretch as far as the leg does. |
| Garment-dyed cotton | Print and embroider before the dye and wash for a faded, worn-in graphic that ages with the garment. | Assuming two pieces will match. Every garment comes out of the wash slightly different, which is the point of the finish. |
The usable panel on a short leg is bounded above by the pocket bag and below by the hem. On a seven-inch short that panel is only a few inches deep, and grading makes it smaller still at the bottom of your size range. Artwork sized against a sample cut in large will crowd the hem at extra small and float in the middle at extra large. So we size the graphic against the smallest graded panel and you see it on your sample, in position, before bulk.
On a short, most of it lives at the waist. Jacquard elastic with your name woven in, a centre-back waistband label, custom cord in your colour with your tips, and a woven flag at the side seam or above the hem. Those are trims decisions, specified with the waistband rather than with the print, and they need lead time because the elastic and tags are made to your artwork. Custom labels, woven tags, custom trims and Pantone colour matching are all available on any of the fabrics above.
Custom streetwear made for Che Lingo
We manufacture for Che Lingo, Blanco, King Promise and Grace Ajilore, and our work has appeared in NME, Teen Vogue, the Crunchyroll Anime Awards and Retail Jeweller.
A shorts run starts the same way as any other: your inseam, your rise, your leg opening, your waistband, your liner or none, your labels. Send what you have and we will quote it.
Send whatever exists: a sketch, a moodboard, a reference photo, or a pair you already own that sits where you want yours to sit. Tell us the inseam if you know it, and tell us when the shorts need to be on sale, because that date is what sets everything else. We will ask about fabric family, liner, waistband and pockets, then send a tailored quote. If the design is not finished, our team provides full design support and handles the technical development.
Once the quote is agreed we develop the pattern: rise, inseam, finished outseam length, thigh width, leg opening, any side split, waistband depth and, where there is one, a separate pattern for the liner. It is then graded across your full size range, so the hem lands in the same place on the leg at every size rather than creeping up the thigh at the small end.
We hold no stock, so fabric is sourced or produced for your order. Where the short is lined, shell and lining are chosen together and matched to the same colour reference, and the same applies when the short has to sit beside a tee in a set. Elastic width, cord, eyelets, tips, waistband labels and woven tags are specified now, and artwork is scaled against your smallest graded panel before anything is cut.
You get a pair in your hands before anything goes to bulk. Put them on, sit down in them, load the pockets, then check where the hem actually falls on someone tall and someone short. Wash them and look at the waistband again. A free sample of each design is included with every committed bulk order; a standalone sample without a bulk commitment is charged. One sample revision round is free, further revisions are chargeable, and changes to your quote are always free.
Your approved sample becomes the reference for every piece in the run. Shorts are cut, stitched and finished by hand at our own dedicated overseas facility, with your labels, tags and trims applied to spec, and the inseam measured against the approved sample rather than against the original pattern.
Every order passes fabric inspection, in-process checks, post-production inspection and a final pre-shipment review before it is packed. Your shorts then ship worldwide. The UK is our priority market, and we also deliver to the USA, Canada, Australia and Europe.
As seen in
As seen on
Che Lingo
King Promise
Blanco
Grace AjiloreSend a sketch, a moodboard or a pair you already own, plus the inseam you want and the date they need to be on sale. We will come back with a tailored quote, make your sample first, and start bulk production only once you approve it.
Get Your Shorts Quote on WhatsApp
