T-Shirts for Clothing Brands: samples
By The Velocity Wear Team
A sample is £150, credited against the bulk order when you proceed, and it is never free. For a clothing brand it is the only opportunity to check the fit, the cloth, the print and the label programme together, on a real body, before a whole drop is committed. That combination matters — a garment can be right in every individual respect and still be wrong once the neck label is in it.
What does a brand sample cost and cover?
£150, credited back. What it buys is one finished garment to your specification: chosen base from the 150 to 240 GSM range, chosen fit, chosen colourway, chosen decoration, and the private label finishing you intend to run. Ask for it fully finished rather than as a print test, because a printed blank with a stock neck label answers only half the question. The wholesale t-shirts page covers the garment side and the clothing brands page sets out the label and packaging options to specify.
What should you inspect on the sample?
Go through it in a deliberate order. Fit on a body at the stated size, measured flat as well — those flat measurements become your published size guide. Then the cloth: handle, opacity held up to a light, and how much it relaxes after one wash. Then decoration: placement height, ink coverage on the garment colour, and whether the print survives the wash. Then the labels, which is where most brands find their surprise.
- Wash and dry it the way your customers will, then re-measure for shrinkage.
- Check a tear-out label actually tears cleanly rather than laddering the fabric.
- Put it beside the garment you are positioning against and be honest.
- Shoot it — the sample doubles as your pre-launch photography.
Does the sample stage delay the drop?
It adds its own make and transit time before the 10 to 15 working day production window even opens, so budget two to three weeks for it. The delay that hurts is not the first sample, it is the third: a brand that changes fit, then cloth, then label across three rounds has spent six weeks. Decide in advance which questions this sample is answering, and change one variable per round if a second is needed. Our lead time guide shows where it sits in an eight-week drop calendar.
How many samples does a first range need?
One per base garment, not one per graphic. If the range is four designs printed on the same 240 GSM boxy tee, a single sample of that garment answers fit, cloth and label for all four. If you are running a 150 GSM regular tee alongside a 240 GSM boxy one, those are two different products and each deserves its own. Sample the darkest colourway if you are choosing, because light ink on dark cotton is where coverage problems show. There is a real difference between bases, which this comparison of blank t-shirts goes into.
What happens to the sample once the drop ships?
Keep it sealed as the reference piece for that product. Every future restock is judged against it, and a physical garment settles questions about ink density or label placement that a written specification never quite resolves. Write the date and the order reference on the bag so you know which run it represents.
Measure it first and file those numbers, because they become the published size guide and the answer to every fit question your inbox receives. If you sampled two base garments, keep both — the comparison is the clearest evidence you will have of what a change in weight or fit actually does to the product.
And do not let it become a wearable. A sample that has been through six washes on somebody's back is no longer a reference for anything.
