A manufacturing package is a single agreement under which one factory handles development, materials, patternmaking, cutting, sewing, finishing, quality control and packing for your styles. You approve a physical sample, the factory buys the fabric and trims, and you receive finished garments ready to sell instead of coordinating separate vendors yourself.
The same two words cover very different scopes depending on who quotes them. Some suppliers call it a package and still expect you to source and ship the fabric. At GAT Fashion Lab, in Cali, Colombia, we run the whole chain as full package clothing manufacturing, and we run its front half as fashion product development for brands that arrive with a reference image and little else.
What the factory does inside a manufacturing package
Our version of the package runs on eight internal stages of Full Package 360°, and every one of them ends with something you can see or hold. Written the way the work actually happens:
- We read your reference: a sketch, a photo, or a garment you already own and want matched.
- We look for fabric and trims, and send swatches for your sign off before anything is bought in volume.
- We draft the pattern and write the tech pack, which is why you do not need one to start.
- We sew a physical sample that you can hold, fit on a body and correct.
- You approve that sample. Nothing reaches the production floor before that approval.
- We purchase the full fabric and trim order at factory volume.
- We cut and sew in our own plant, staffed by 130+ collaborators, 75% of them women.
- We inspect garment by garment, then label, fold, bag and prepare the shipment.
Two dates matter and both of them are ranges. Development takes 2 to 8 weeks depending on how complex the style is and how hard the fabric is to find. Production takes 30 to 45 business days, counted from the day you approve the sample, not from the day you first wrote to us.
What stays on your side of the line
A package is not an outsourcing of your brand. The work we never touch is precisely the work that decides whether the garments sell:
- Product photography and the way the collection is styled and shot.
- Your store, your marketplace listings and the ad budget behind them.
- Retail pricing and the margin you choose to run.
- The commercial call on what to make and how deep to buy each size.
We give an opinion when someone asks, because after 20+ years cutting fabric we have seen which sizes come back. The decision stays with you.
Manufacturing package compared with the other ways to buy production
The confusion almost always comes down to two questions: who owns the materials, and who owns the pattern. Four purchases, four answers.
Cut and sew
You supply the fabric and the pattern, the factory supplies the labor and the machines. Cut and sew manufacturing fits a brand that already has a mill relationship worth protecting.
CMT
Cut, make and trim narrows the scope further: the plant works strictly from what you ship, down to the buttons and the zippers. CMT manufacturing gives you the tightest control over material cost and the heaviest logistics load.
Private label
You buy a design the factory already developed and put your label on it. Private label manufacturing moves quickly because the pattern exists and has been sewn before.
Manufacturing package
All of the above, plus the sourcing, the development and the accountability for the finished garment. For the terminology itself and where the acronym FPP comes from, we laid it out in what full package production means.
How to read a manufacturing package quote before you sign it
Most bad experiences with a package trace back to a scope nobody wrote down. Six questions separate a real package from a sewing quote wearing the name:
- Who buys the fabric, and what happens if the mill delivers a different lot?
- Is the sample physical and shipped to you, or a photo on a screen?
- What is the minimum, and is it counted per style or per color?
- What happens to a garment that fails inspection, and who absorbs it?
- Who keeps the patterns and the graded sizes once the order closes?
- What sits outside the quoted price, in writing?
Our minimum is 36 pieces per reference per color, and the plant runs roughly 25,000 to 30,000 units a month, so a cautious first run and a serious repeat order fit in the same schedule. The brands that have produced with us are on our customers page.
Frequently asked questions about the manufacturing package
Is a manufacturing package the same as full package production?
Yes. Manufacturing package, full package and FPP describe the same commercial model: one factory carries the style from development through finished, packed garments, and buys the materials along the way. The wording shifts by region and by whoever is writing the purchase order.
Do I need a tech pack to request a manufacturing package?
No. A reference image uploaded to our quoting tool is enough to open the conversation. Our team writes the tech pack during development, and you review it before the first sample gets cut.
What is the minimum order for a manufacturing package?
36 pieces per reference per color. The count applies to each color separately, so the same shirt in three colorways carries three minimums rather than one, which is worth planning around before you finalize a first collection.
Who handles freight and import duties?
We quote EXW by default, meaning the goods are priced placed at our facilities in Colombia and you appoint the freight forwarder. When a brand prefers a delivered price into the United States, we agree DDP at the start, before the quote is issued.
How long does a manufacturing package take from first contact to delivery?
Development runs 2 to 8 weeks and production runs 30 to 45 business days after you approve the physical sample. Fabric availability is the variable that moves those dates most, which is why we confirm the mill before committing to a delivery week.
Where to start depends on what you already have
Arriving with a reference image and no technical documentation is normal, and it means you start at development and let the tech pack fall out of the first sample round. Arriving with a graded pattern and an approved fabric means you can go straight to sampling and cut weeks off the front half. Producing in Asia today and looking for a plant that answers the same morning you write is a third case: send one style you already sell, and compare the sample you get back against the one you have now.
GAT Fashion Lab is a clothing factory in Cali, Colombia, with 20+ years making apparel for brands across the United States and Latin America. A manufacturing package with us gives you a physical sample you signed off on, garments cut and sewn in our own plant, and one team replying inside your working hours. Upload a reference image to our quoting tool and we will come back with the scope, the minimum and the timeline for your style.
