The short answer is that there are two minimums, and which one applies to you depends entirely on whether we already hold your colour.
In a colour we stock, knit garments start at 10 pieces per size, per colour. If the colour has to be produced, the minimum becomes 100 kg of yarn in a single fibre and colour — or 50 m of fabric, if the piece is woven rather than knitted.
Those two numbers describe very different orders, and the gap between them is the single most common source of confusion in a first conversation with a mill. This guide explains where each figure comes from, which parts are negotiable, and which are physical limits we cannot move.
Tier one: a colour we already hold
When your colour is already spun and on our shelves, there is no dye lot to run and no spinning batch to fill, so the minimum is quoted per style:
- Knit garments — sweaters, cardigans, tops, vests, dresses and trousers: 10 pieces per size, per colour
- Accessories: 20 pieces
- Home textiles: 25 pieces
- Scarves: 135 pieces
- Woven pieces — coats and tailored dress-pant trousers: from 10 pieces, if we hold the cloth
Read the knitwear figure carefully, because it is per size and per colour. A five-size run in one colour is 50 pieces, not 10.
Note also that trousers appear in two places. Knitted trousers sit with the knitwear; tailored dress-pant trousers are woven and follow the fabric model below. If you are unsure which yours are, the construction rather than the silhouette decides it.
Tier two: a colour we have to produce
If your colour is not on our shelves, the constraint moves upstream from the knitting floor to the spinning floor, and the unit changes from pieces to kilograms.
For knitted product the minimum is 100 kg of yarn in a single fibre and colour. Yarn bought on its own is the same: 100 kg per colour.
If 100 kg sounds abstract, here is the useful way to hold it: it is almost exactly the weight of the finished garments it becomes. You are not buying 100 kg of input to yield a fraction of it — the number is close to your finished tonnage.
Two further things about that figure are worth understanding, because they change how you should plan an order.
First, it is a yarn minimum, not a style minimum. The 100 kg does not have to become one product. It can be split across several designs, several sizes, and a whole capsule, provided everything drawn from it shares the same fibre and the same colour. A brand launching six styles in one signature colour is a far more efficient use of a 100 kg lot than a brand launching one style in six colours — the second is six separate lots.
Second, and more importantly: 100 kg is not a commercial policy. It is the smallest batch our spinning lines run. We are not holding a number back to push you toward a larger order; below that quantity the machinery cannot produce a consistent yarn. This distinction matters because it tells you which parts of a quotation are worth negotiating and which are not.
Woven product runs on fabric, not yarn
Everything above describes knitted product, where the constraint is a spinning batch. Woven pieces — coats and tailored dress-pant trousers — follow the same two-tier logic against fabric instead:
- If we hold the cloth: from 10 pieces
- If the cloth must be produced: 50 m of fabric
Scarves are the case that catches people out, because they exist in both constructions and the minimum follows the construction rather than the product category:
- Woven scarves follow the 50 m fabric run
- Knitted scarves follow the 100 kg yarn batch
So the 135-piece figure in the stocked-colour table and the 50 m or 100 kg figures here are answers to different questions — the first assumes we already hold what you need, the second assumes we are making it.
What flexes, and what does not
The per-piece minimums in tier one can flex. We regularly consider smaller first-order quantities for a pilot programme or a limited drop, particularly for brands we expect to grow with. If a 10-piece-per-size minimum is the only thing standing between you and a first order, tell us — it is a conversation worth having.
The 100 kg figure cannot flex, for the reason above. No supplier relationship, order value or timeline changes what a spinning line will run.
There is also no minimum order value. We work to quantities, not to spend. What those quantities come to in money depends entirely on specification — composition, gauge, construction, colour count — which is why we quote per order rather than publishing a price list.
The one exception: dyed fibre below 100 kg
There is a narrower service that sits below the spinning minimum, and it comes with a hard limitation.
We can dye a lot as small as 25 kg — but only for raw fibre, and only if fibre is what you want delivered. That 25 kg stays fibre permanently. Because our spinning lines run in 100 kg batches, a 25 kg lot cannot be spun into yarn afterwards, which means nothing downstream of yarn can be made from it: no fabric, no knitwear, no garments.
This suits a specific kind of buyer — felt-makers, hand-spinners, and mills running their own spinning who want dyed Mongolian fibre as an input rather than a finished yarn. If you are planning garments, this route is a dead end, and we would rather say so before you order than after.
Blends and custom colour
Blended yarn is never stocked. It is always made to order, which puts every blend automatically into tier two: 100 kg per blend, per colour. Our current standard blend is 70% wool / 30% cashmere, and we develop others to specification. Dyeing a blend adds a further one to two weeks on top of the normal production window.
Custom Pantone matching follows the same rule. Send us a TCX or TPX reference, we produce a lab dip for your approval before bulk dyeing, and the minimum is 100 kg per colour — because a custom Pantone is, by definition, a colour we do not hold.
How to plan around this
If you are early in development and quantities are uncertain, the most useful thing you can do is decide your colours before your styles. Colour is what sets your minimum; the number of designs drawn from that colour is comparatively free.
A practical sequence:
- Ask us which colours we currently hold in your fibre. If one of them works, you are in tier one and your minimum drops by an order of magnitude.
- If you need a specific colour, plan to use the full 100 kg across your range rather than against a single style.
- Bring the whole season's colour card to the first conversation, not one style at a time. Consolidating two near-identical shades into one is often the difference between one lot and two.
Every figure above is a baseline. Exact minimums are confirmed at quotation against your actual specification, and our OEM page carries the full breakdown by product type.
Send us your company details, product interest, estimated quantities and timeline through the quote request and we will come back within two working days with feasibility, indicative pricing and next steps. If you do not have a tech pack, our design team can build one with you from a sketch, a reference photo, or an existing garment you want matched.
Related guides
See also the full FAQ, our sampling service, and OEM and private label production.