A t-shirt that fails is a disappointed customer. A children’s garment that fails can be a recall, and in the UK it can be your name on it rather than the factory’s, because the importer carries obligations the manufacturer abroad does not.
That changes what you should ask a supplier. These are the questions worth asking before an order, and what a serious answer sounds like.
“Which of these stages happen in your building?”
Start where you would with any factory. Knitting, dyeing, cutting, stitching, decoration, packing — which are yours, and which go out?
For children’s wear the answer matters more than usual, because every subcontracted stage is a place where an unapproved trim, a different dye lot or a substituted thread can enter without anyone recording it. A factory that runs its own cutting and stitching can tell you what went into a specific batch. One that brokered your order to whoever had capacity often cannot.
The general vetting questions apply here too — this is the children’s-wear layer on top of them.
“How do you handle cords and drawstrings?”
This is the single biggest mechanical hazard in children’s clothing, and it is what BS EN 14682 addresses. The standard covers cords and drawstrings on children’s clothing and sets out where they are not permitted, where they are restricted in length, and how they must be finished.
In broad terms it treats the neck and hood area of garments for younger children as the highest-risk zone, and restricts free ends and loops elsewhere. The reason is entrapment — a hood cord catching on playground equipment or a bus door.
The practical question to a factory is not “do you comply” — everyone says yes. It is: what do you do instead? A good answer is specific. Ours is that we build children’s styles without neck drawcords at all, and use elasticated or self-fabric alternatives where the design wants that look.
Ask, too, what happens if your own design includes a cord. A factory that will run whatever you draw without raising it is not protecting you.
We are a knitwear manufacturer, not a compliance consultancy, so treat the above as the shape of the problem rather than legal advice. Confirm the current version and scope of BS EN 14682 with your own testing house or lawyer before you finalise a range — the standard is revised, and your product and age bands determine what applies. What the cord standard covers and the alternatives to a neck cord goes through it in more detail.
“What do you do about small parts and trims?”
Buttons, poppers, appliqués, beads, zip pulls and badges are all choking hazards on younger children’s garments, and they are also the parts most likely to be substituted quietly if a trim runs short.
Worth asking:
- Are trims attached by machine to a set pull-force, and is that checked?
- Do you keep the trim supplier fixed for the run, or substitute if stock runs out?
- Can you supply the trim documentation my testing house will want?
Our own approach on kids’ styles is to keep hard trims to a minimum in the first place, use flat labels or heat-transfer neck prints rather than scratchy woven tags, and supply the fabric and trim documentation a compliance team asks for.
“How is the garment labelled for the UK market?”
Two different things get conflated here.
Legally required: fibre composition labelling, under the UK Textile Products (Labelling and Fibre Composition) Regulations. That is the part that is a legal obligation on the product.
Commercially required: care symbols and washing instructions, importer name and address, size, and often a batch or style reference. Not all of these are textile-labelling law, but you will struggle to sell into UK retail without them, and your own compliance team will usually require them.
Ask whether the factory applies all of it in-house. We do — the point is that goods arrive ready for your shelf or your 3PL rather than for a relabelling table, which is where margin quietly disappears.
“Can you trace a batch back if I need to?”
The question nobody asks until they need to. If a problem surfaces six months after delivery, can the factory tell you which fabric lot, which dye lot and which production date your affected cartons came from?
This is what makes a recall a contained event rather than an open-ended one. Ask what tracking information they can put on or in the garment, and what they retain internally.
“What testing will you support, and who pays?”
Third-party lab testing on children’s wear typically covers things like flammability, and chemical and physical safety depending on the product and destination. SGS, Bureau Veritas and Intertek all operate in India and in Tirupur specifically.
The answer you want is that testing and inspection are treated as normal procurement, not as an accusation. A factory that becomes defensive about a third-party inspector has told you something more useful than the test result would have.
Who pays is negotiable and worth agreeing in writing before the first order rather than after the first failure.
“What can you actually make, and how much of it?”
Finally the ordinary commercial questions. For children’s knitwear ours are:
| Sizes | 0–6 months through 14–15 years |
| Fabric | Softer-handle combed cotton jersey, usually 140–180 GSM |
| Minimum | 300 pieces per style per colour on stock fabric |
| Sample | 7–10 working days |
| Production | 30–45 days after sample approval |
| Sea freight to Felixstowe or Southampton | 24–32 days |
Hand-feel is what parents judge first, which is why the fabric weight for kids sits lower than for an adult retail tee — the GSM logic is the same, the right answer is just different. For children’s activewear the fibre changes too, and what a sportswear tech pack needs is a different specification again.
- How to find a clothing manufacturer for a UK brand
- Sportswear manufacturing: fabrics, seams and what to specify
- Private label vs white label for UK brands
- UK textile labelling: what must legally be on the label
- BS EN 14682: cords and drawstrings on children’s clothing
- UK vs US size grading: why your tech pack must say which
- Importing apparel into the UK after Brexit
- Felixstowe or Southampton: shipping apparel from India
- What your customs broker needs from your supplier
We manufacture children’s knitwear in Tirupur for UK brands and wholesalers, with no neck drawcords, minimal hard trims and UK-market labelling applied in the factory. If you want to work through the list above with us — or send a testing house to do it — tell us what you are making and we will start from a 300-piece first order if that suits you better than committing deep.
Keep reading
BS EN 14682: cords and drawstrings on children's clothing
What the cord and drawstring standard covers, why the neck and hood area is treated as the highest risk, and the questions to put to a factory before a children's range goes into production.
CPSIA and children's clothing: what US importers must check
Children's apparel entering the US carries obligations adult garments do not — testing, certification and tracking labels. What CPSIA covers and the questions to put to a factory.
UK textile labelling: what must legally be on the label
Fibre composition is the legal requirement. Care symbols, importer details and size are commercial necessities that get mistaken for law. The difference matters, and so does who carries the obligation.