International School Uniform Supplier

What a school programme covers

Most schools run a core daily uniform, a PE and sports kit, and a small set of extras that carry the crest. We manufacture all three, so one supplier holds the colour standard across every garment a pupil wears rather than three suppliers each interpreting your navy slightly differently.

• Crested polos, sweatshirts, cardigans and knitwear in house or year-group colours
• PE and sports kit, including numbered team wear
• Woven shirts, blouses, trousers, skirts and pinafores
• Bags, totes and kit bags carrying the school crest
• Crest reproduction by embroidery or print, matched to your artwork

The minimum, stated against a size run

This is the question that decides whether direct buying is viable for your school, and it is the one most factories answer in a way that only becomes clear after you commit. Our minimum is 50 pieces per style for knitwear — polos, sweatshirts, PE tops, cardigans — and that 50 is counted per design, not per size. You choose the size curve inside it, so 50 polos can be graded from early years to senior rather than arriving as 50 identical garments.

Woven garments are different and we would rather say so now than at quotation: shirts, blouses, trousers, skirts and pinafores start at 300 pieces per style, because a woven run carries a separate fabric and cutting setup that does not amortise below that. A school of 200 pupils can usually reach that on a single shirt style across the whole school; a school of 60 usually cannot, and should keep its shirts with a local supplier and bring only the knitwear and PE kit direct.

Colours generally split within one design, so house colours do not each need their own minimum. Where a colour needs garment dyeing rather than dyed fabric, that runs its own floor of 25 pieces per colour.

Working backwards from the intake date

Uniform is one of the few orders with an immovable deadline: arriving in week two of term is a failure even if the garments are perfect. We plan the schedule backwards from the date you need stock in the building, not forwards from when the order is placed.

Allow 25–35 days from confirmed order to shipment, with sampling and approval sitting in front of that — a crest sample takes 7–10 days, and it is worth taking, because the crest is the one thing a parent body will judge instantly. Add your freight time and a buffer for customs clearance in your country. In practice a school ordering for an August or September intake should have artwork approved before the end of the previous term, and a school ordering for a January intake should be starting in October.

The full calendar, including the two points where schools most often lose a week, is set out in our guide to term-timed delivery.

Continuity between years

A uniform programme is judged on year two, not year one. Repeat orders are matched against the approved standard from the first production run — the same fabric specification, the same crest artwork and thread colours, the same grading — so a replacement polo bought in November sits next to one issued in September without a visible difference. Where a fabric or colour cannot be matched exactly, we tell you before production rather than shipping a near-match and hoping.

Buying as an institution, not as a brand

School purchasing runs through committees, budget lines and often a formal tender, and the paperwork matters as much as the quotation. We quote itemised per garment so a bursar can defend each line, supply the specification and compliance documentation a committee will ask for, and provide the sizing and cost detail a tender response needs.

On compliance we state plainly what we hold: our facility is BSCI certified, an audited social-compliance standard covering labour conditions, safety and working hours. We do not hold WRAP, OEKO-TEX, GOTS, GRS or ISO certification, and we will say so in a tender rather than imply otherwise — a claim that fails verification during a procurement process costs a school far more than the contract is worth.

Freight to your door is included in the unit price. Import duty and VAT in your country are settled by the school or its agent at clearance; we are not a DDP supplier, and we show that line separately so a budget is built on the real landed figure.

When buying direct is the wrong answer

Direct buying moves work onto the school: forecasting quantities per size before the intake is confirmed, holding stock somewhere, distributing to families, clearing the import, and paying 50% before production against a delivery months before parents pay. Below roughly 150 pupils that load rarely pays for itself, and a local supplier absorbing the size risk is earning their margin. Between 150 and 400 it becomes viable, particularly where someone already owns uniform as part of a wider role. Above 400 it is usually clearly worthwhile and the binding constraint becomes storage, not cost.

We would rather tell a 60-pupil school this at the enquiry stage than take a first order that goes badly. If your school sits under that line, the honest options are a hybrid — knitwear and PE kit direct, shirts locally — or staying where you are.