Wholesale sourcing notes
Wholesale Hanfu ordering, in four deliberate stages.
Wholesale Hanfu ordering follows four stages — silhouette shortlist, sample evaluation, order sheet confirmation and production scheduling. Each stage depends on the one before it, and each asks you to prepare something concrete. This page walks through all four, then covers the operational decisions that decide whether a reorder is easy or painful: sizing spread, packing, labeling and how the studio's production windows fall across the year.
Written for independent boutiques, cultural performance buyers and retail teams who need to read a garment before committing to quantity.
- Stages
- Four, in fixed order
- Sample pack
- Swatches plus one finished garment
- Production windows
- Spring and autumn
The sequence
Four stages, in this order, nothing improvised.
The sequence exists because each stage produces a document the next stage needs. Skip one and the order sheet is built on assumptions; the workshop then resolves those assumptions its own way, and the first finished garment becomes your sample by accident. Below is what happens at each stage and what you should have ready before it begins.
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Silhouette shortlist
We start from dynasty silhouettes rather than a flat product list, because silhouette decides the customer, the season and the price band before fabric ever enters the conversation. A Ming-style robe reads formal and layered; a Jin-style top reads lighter and easier to wear across sizes. You shortlist two or three directions that fit your floor.
What you prepare
- Your customer profile: occasion wear, performance costume or everyday cultural dress
- A rough quantity range per style, even if provisional
- Your target retail price band, so fabric weight can be matched to it
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Sample evaluation
The sample pack is a paid set: swatches for the candidate fabrics plus one finished sample garment, with a printed evaluation worksheet. Handle the garment, wear it if you can, and record what you find — drape, seam finish, how the collar sits, how the fabric creases after an hour of wear. The worksheet exists so your notes survive the week.
What you prepare
- A named person on your side who will make the fit judgement
- Two or three wearers close to your size range for the fit check
- Completed worksheet notes, including any requested adjustments
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Order sheet confirmation
Once the sample is approved, the order sheet becomes the single source of truth: style code, fabric, colourway, size spread, packing format and labeling details. Nothing is scheduled until this sheet is confirmed in writing, because the workshop cuts from it directly. This is the stage where sizing and packing decisions must already be settled.
What you prepare
- Final size spread per style, not a single average size
- Packing format and any hangtag or label wording you need applied
- Delivery window and destination, so scheduling can be matched to it
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Production scheduling
The confirmed sheet enters one of the studio's two production windows. Scheduling is quoted by window, not by a guess at a date, and the wholesale coordinator prepares the packing list from the same sheet. Because the sheet is frozen, reorder planning can start from a known baseline rather than from memory.
What you prepare
- Agreement on which production window you are booking into
- Any reorder intention noted now, so fabric can be reserved alongside the first run
- A receiving contact who can confirm the packing list on arrival
Operational reference
Sizing spread, packing and labeling are three separate decisions.
Most rework in a wholesale order traces back to one of these three being left implicit. They are settled at the order sheet stage, but they are decided earlier — so it helps to see them side by side before you shortlist.
| Decision | What it affects | What to supply | Common mistake |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sizing spread | How the garment sits on your actual customers, and how many units sell at full price | A size ratio per style — for example a small-run spread weighted to the middle sizes | Ordering one average size across the whole run, then discovering the extremes are missing |
| Packing | Receiving time, storage footprint and whether garments arrive presentable | Flat-fold or hanging preference, units per pack, and how packs should be grouped | Leaving packing unspecified, so it is decided at the workshop's convenience |
| Labeling | Whether the garment can go straight to the rail or needs work on arrival | Exact wording for any label or hangtag, plus care and fibre text you need shown | Sending label wording after production has started, which reopens the order sheet |
All three are recorded on the order sheet. If any one is still open, the sheet is not confirmed and production is not scheduled.
Working note
When a sample comes back from a workshop I look at three things before anything else: how the collar meets the neck when the wearer turns their head, whether the sleeve seam pulls when the arm lifts, and how the fabric falls after it has been folded in a bag overnight. A garment can pass every measurement on the sheet and still fail all three. That is why the sample pack includes a finished garment and not only swatches — you cannot judge drape from a square of cloth.
Textile and fit reviewer Hanfu Supplier studio
Production calendar
Two production windows, and what they ask of your buying calendar.
The studio schedules production in a spring window and an autumn window. A confirmed order sheet is booked into the window that follows it, which means the practical lead time you experience is set as much by when you confirm the sheet as by the size of the order.
The consequence is simple: work backwards from your own selling season. If a style needs to be on your rail before a winter capsule, the autumn window is the one that matters — and the sample evaluation has to be finished well before it opens.
Sample requests are advised several weeks ahead of a seasonal buying deadline. That gap is not administrative padding: it covers transit of the sample pack, a wear test long enough to be meaningful, a round of adjustment notes, and the time for the order sheet to be confirmed in writing before the window fills.
Buyers who request a sample pack a week before their deadline usually end up either ordering un-evaluated, or waiting for the next window. Neither is a good outcome, and both are avoidable with a small amount of back-timing.
Spring window
Booked from confirmed order sheets ahead of the spring season.
Autumn window
Booked from confirmed order sheets ahead of the autumn season.
Next step
Start with the sample pack, or talk the order through first.
The process begins at stage two for most buyers: the sample pack is the only way to make a real fit judgement. If your order needs discussion before you get there — mixed sizes, a performance group, an unusual delivery window — the Contact page sets out what to prepare.
Prefer to read the silhouette options first? The Dynasty Collections page sets out each direction with fabric and fit notes.