Denim Jackets for Clothing Brands: samples
By The Velocity Wear Team
A denim jacket sample is £150 and that fee is credited against your bulk order when you proceed. What you get back is one made jacket in your denim, with your decoration and your labels, which is the only version of the product that exists before fifty of them are cut. For a brand, that single piece is also your fit reference and your first photograph.
What does the sample cost and what do you get back?
The fee is fixed at £150 regardless of how complicated the jacket is, and it is credited rather than refunded, so it reduces the bulk invoice once the order goes ahead. Samples are never free here, which is deliberate: a sample is a full production exercise on a single garment, and pretending otherwise is how a supplier quietly loads the cost back into the unit price.
Specify the sample as the real thing, not as an indication. Same denim, same wash, same decoration positions, same neck label. A sample made in a substitute fabric answers none of the questions you paid to have answered. Our wholesale denim jackets page lists what can be specified.
What should you check on the sample jacket?
- 1Fit through the shoulder and chest, on an actual person rather than a hanger.
- 2The decoration at arm's length and at reading distance, because brand marks are judged at both.
- 3The neck label, the tear-out if you specified one, and how the tag sits.
- 4The wash colour against your artwork, particularly if the graphic is dark on dark.
- 5How the jacket behaves after one wear, which tells you more than the unworn piece does.
Take your product photographs while you have it. The sample arrives well before the bulk run, and a brand that shoots at that point has its listing ready when stock lands rather than starting a shoot on delivery day.
How many rounds of sampling does a drop need?
One round is normal when the specification is clear. A second round is worth it when the first sample changed your mind about something structural, such as moving from rigid to washed denim or shifting the decoration from print to stitch. A third round usually means the design was not finished when sampling started.
Each round has to sit inside your calendar, which is why sampling belongs at the front of the schedule rather than alongside it. Production itself is 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, and the detail of that timeline is in denim jackets for clothing brands: lead time.
When can you skip straight to bulk?
When you have run the same jacket before and nothing has changed, a repeat can go straight into production against the previous specification. That is the one situation where skipping the sample is a reasonable risk, and it is a strong argument for keeping detailed records of every run you place with us. The clothing brands page explains how repeat work is handled.
For a new fabric, a new decoration method or a new silhouette, sample it. Fifty jackets is a serious commitment and £150 against it is a small price for certainty.
Write down what the sample told you while it is still in front of you. Measurements taken flat, the thread colour used, the position of the chest mark measured from the shoulder seam, and anything you asked to change. That note becomes the reference for the bulk delivery and for any repeat, and it is what turns a vague sense that the second run looks different into a specific, answerable question. Brands that keep a one-page record per style find that reordering a year later takes an email rather than a fortnight of reconstructing decisions nobody documented.
