Need a custom shirt maker for one-off.

[Ryan Guillory]

Hey guys, I'm not sure where else to find this, I'm in the US and I'm trying to have a long sleeve fishing-type shirt remade in a different fabric. Does anyone know how to do this or where I can find someone who can do this for me? Essentially I'm trying to get a prototype shirt made, potentially after the 1st one I'd have revisions or order several more to hand out to field testers before I'd move into small mass production. Thanks for any help.

 

[ReflectiveMaterials]

Just to understand the question better - is your question how you can best get a shirt made for yourself, or how to best get a sample made with the intention of producing a bulk order?
You can always get any of the standard bespoke shirt makers to make you what you want if your intention is to use it as a first prototype. I'm sure a place like Turnbull or Charvet would make you pretty much anything you want as long as you don't tell them you are planning on using it to start your own brand. That's certainly not the route I'd go. I'd rather start locating a factory now and have them make the proto since you'd have to do that at some point anyways and most factories hate it when you just pass them a shirt to copy without any pattern or spec sheet.
Would you make the proto with your own trim and findings?

If you are looking at moving into bulk production, the question really becomes - what is your desired production location, MSRP target, unit target, etc?
If you are looking for anything sub 100 units in bulk production, you will likely be paying sample price for each shirt (which means you will make no money selling them - think $80-$160 CMT cost per shirt) if you want to work with a real factory. You'd need to be based in the region that factory is in unless you want to pay a QC agent for a run, which will again, kill any chance of getting a margin on it.