Private Label Linen Manufacturing for US Brands: Process, MOQ and Timelines

Private label means the product is yours: your fabric, your fit, your labels, your packaging, made by someone else. For a US brand moving off wholesale or white-label, the mechanics are more learnable than they look, and most of the difficulty is in three decisions made early.

This post covers the process, the minimums, the shipping, and the Incoterm question that determines who carries the risk.

FOB or DDP: the decision that shapes everything else

Most sourcing conversations get this wrong by treating it as a pricing question. It is a responsibility question, and the price follows from it.

FOB is the standard for a serious programme, and it is what we quote by default. You see the real cost of the goods, you control the freight, and you build a relationship with a customs broker who will save you money repeatedly. The trade-off is that you have to actually do those things.

DDP is reasonable exactly once - on a genuine first order, while you get a broker in place. Its hidden cost is that duty volatility is priced into the number by someone bearing the risk, and you cannot see what assumption they used. In a period when US duty treatment has been moving, that is a wider spread than it would be in a calm year.

One thing to check whichever you choose: who is the importer of record? That party carries the legal responsibility for the accuracy of the declaration and for product compliance. Under DDP arrangements it is sometimes an agent you have never met, which is worth knowing before rather than after.

Minimums

There is no single MOQ, because the minimum is set by fabric rather than by sewing. A stitching line can run 150 pieces; a loom cannot be warped for 150 metres.

Minimums are per style and per colour. Four colourways is four minimums. The commonest first-order mistake is a range plan with too many colours and not enough depth in any of them - three colourways at 300 will cost less per unit and sell through no worse than six at 150.

Transit to the US

Coast matters more than most brands expect, and the routing situation has not returned to pre-2023 norms.

Read the East Coast rows carefully. The difference between Suez and Cape routing is roughly two weeks, and assuming the faster one when planning a launch is a common and expensive error. Ask your forwarder which routing your specific service uses rather than working from a published average.

West Coast is generally the shorter and more predictable lane from India despite the longer distance, because the routing has been less disrupted. If your distribution allows either, that is worth a conversation with your 3PL.

Payment terms

For a first order with a new supplier, expect a deposit against the purchase order with the balance before despatch or against shipping documents. That is normal in both directions and is not a sign of distrust - we are also taking a risk on a new customer, and we are buying fabric before you have paid for anything.

Terms loosen with history. After two or three clean orders, a conversation about better terms is reasonable. A supplier offering open account terms to a brand-new overseas customer is either very large or not managing their own risk, and neither is reassuring.

Letters of credit are available and occasionally sensible for large first orders, but they carry bank fees and documentary strictness that most small brands find more painful than the problem they solve.

The process, end to end

1. Brief and costing - 3-5 working days. Send a tech pack or a reference garment and your target landed cost.
2. Swatch cards - free, posted internationally. Do not skip this. Linen is not a screen decision.
3. Proto sample - 2-3 weeks. Judge the design, not the colour.
4. Fit round - 2 weeks per round. Budget one; two is common.
5. Lab dips - runs alongside fit. Approve colour on physical dips under consistent light.
6. PP sample - 2 weeks. Correct fabric, colour, trims and labels. This is the contractual reference. Keep it.
7. PO and deposit - fabric is committed at this point.
8. Bulk production - 4-6 weeks on an existing fabric; add 2-4 weeks for custom weaving and 1-2 for custom dyeing.
9. Inspection and despatch.
10. Ocean freight and clearance - see the table above.

Realistically five to six months from first email to receiving stock for a first programme to the East Coast, less if you use an existing fabric and hold to one fit round. Work backwards from your on-sale date. The full detail on what a usable brief contains is in our tech pack walkthrough.

What you must get right before bulk

Two things, both cheap to do in advance and expensive to fix afterwards.

Labelling. US law requires fiber content, country of origin, and the manufacturer's or importer's identity on textile products, plus permanent care instructions. All of it should be applied at manufacture. Relabelling a container of goods in a US warehouse costs more than the labels ever would, and it is entirely avoidable. The requirements, and who is responsible for which part, are here.

HTS classification. Get it confirmed by a broker before you commit to a fabric, because fiber content drives the code and the code drives the duty. This has been a moving area through 2026 - verify the current position rather than a figure from a blog post, including this one.

What we are, and are not

We make linen, cotton and silk to order. We hold no stock - which has real advantages and one real cost. We are a Sedex member and have completed a SMETA audit, manufacture to OEKO-TEX standards, and supply testing and compliance documentation to buyer requirements.

We are not the right answer for performance synthetics, technical outerwear, or very large single-style runs at the lowest possible price. Our comparison of India, China and Vietnam sets out where we would send you instead.

If linen at moderate volume is the brief, start with swatches. Our linen page covers the range and we ship swatch cards to the US.