PHOTOGRAPHED FROM OUR STOCK
The cloth behind these terms
Unretouched photographs from our own floor. Colour varies between dye lots; the swatch card is the only reliable reference.
BUYING SILK · 100% MULBERRY SILK · FROM A CHINESE MILL
One metre is enough to decide. Forty metres is enough to make it yours.
Most silk mills quote in hundreds of metres because that is how their dye house is set up: a dye vat has a minimum volume, and anything smaller costs more per metre than the cloth is worth. That is a real constraint, not a sales tactic. It also means that if you are a small label, a costume department or a designer sampling a collection, the usual answer you get is no.
We run the same mill, but we hold greige and dyed stock against it, which changes what the minimum can be. Stock colours are cut from 1 metre. Custom colours start at 40 metres per colour and custom prints at 40 metres per design. That is the whole policy — there is no separate 'small order' price band and no penalty clause for ordering less.
One metre of a stock colour tells you the hand, the drape and how the cloth takes a press. It is not enough to make a garment, and it is exactly enough to stop you ordering forty metres of the wrong weight.
Forty metres of a custom colour is roughly twenty to thirty garments depending on the marker. That covers a capsule drop, a bridal party or a made-to-measure programme without warehousing a year of inventory.
A lab dip is a few centimetres of cloth. A one-metre cut in the bulk colour is the confirmation that the dip and the production run agree. Buy both.
| Order type | Minimum | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Stock colour, cut length | 1 metre | Any stock colour, any weight on the shelf, cut and dispatched |
| Custom dyed colour | 40 metres per colour | Lab dip for approval first, then the dyed run |
| Digital print | 40 metres per design | Strike-off for approval first, then the printed run |
| Woven to order | By quotation | Structure, width and weight confirmed before the loom is set |
The economics are worth understanding before you optimise them. A dye vat has a fixed setup cost — the recipe, the water, the heating, the wash-off — and that cost is the same whether forty metres or four hundred go through it. So a small lot is not overpriced, it is simply carrying more setup per metre. The lever is not negotiating the minimum down, it is consolidating: one dye lot in one colour across two or three styles costs less per metre than three lots in three colours.
Where small quantities genuinely do not make sense is a woven-to-order structure, because the loom setup dwarfs the cloth cost at that volume. If the fabric you want is not on the shelf, ask what the nearest stock base is — the gap between a custom weave and an existing base in a different finish is usually smaller than it looks on a spec sheet.
These search phrases all land here because they mean the same thing:
If you were looking for a different commercial question, the wholesale page covers programmes and the ready-stock page covers what is on the shelf right now.
One metre for stock colours, 40 metres per colour for custom dyeing and 40 metres per design for digital printing. There is no additional surcharge for small quantities, though the per-metre price of a dyed-to-order run is higher than cutting from stock, because dyeing short lengths costs more per metre.
Yes. One metre is the standard sampling quantity and it is how most new clients start. It is enough to test drape, dye uptake, washing behaviour and how the cloth behaves under a needle. Ask for two weights if weight is the open question — it usually is.
It depends on the garment and the marker. Forty metres at 140 cm is roughly twenty to thirty simple garments, or fewer if the pieces are large or cut on the bias. Send us the marker and we will tell you what the consumption actually is before you commit.
Cutting from stock costs the same per metre whether you buy one metre or a hundred. Custom dyeing is priced per dye lot, so a 40-metre lot carries more setup cost per metre than a 500-metre lot. We quote both and let you choose.
No separate first-order minimum. One metre of a stock colour is a legitimate first order, and it is the one we would recommend.
PHOTOGRAPHED FROM OUR STOCK
Unretouched photographs from our own floor. Colour varies between dye lots; the swatch card is the only reliable reference.
Tell us the quantity and the colour and we will quote it with a confirmed dispatch date.
