“Seamless” means three quite different things on a factory floor. Two of them are knitted on our own machines in Gaziantep, and we quote them side by side so you can decide on fit, cost and pattern rather than on which technology sounds most advanced.
“Seamless knitwear” is a buyer's term, not a machine specification. Brands writing to us for a seamless knitwear manufacturer usually mean one of three genuinely different constructions, and the right one depends on the silhouette, the fibre and the shelf price, not on which technology carries the most prestige.
This page puts the three next to each other: what each does to your cost, what each does to your pattern, and where each one belongs. If you already know you want true single-piece construction, the technology detail lives on our WHOLEGARMENT knitwear manufacturer page. WHOLEGARMENT is Shima Seiki's registered trademark for one specific machine technology, while seamless is the generic word covering the whole no-seam and low-seam family. We keep the two apart on purpose, because the difference decides your quote.
The machine knits the body and both sleeves at the same time and joins them while knitting. The garment comes off three-dimensional and essentially finished: no side seam, no shoulder seam, no armhole seam, nothing to link afterwards. This is what Shima Seiki markets as WHOLEGARMENT, and we run those machines on our own floor. It is also the slowest construction per machine hour, which is what puts it at the top of the cost table.
Each panel is knitted to its final shape. The machine adds and drops needles to form the armhole, the sleeve cap and the neckline, so nothing is cut, and the panels are then joined stitch for stitch on a linking machine. There are seams, but they are flat linked joins along a knitted selvedge, not overlocked cut edges. Most premium knitwear in the world is built this way, and it is our highest-volume route. More on fully-fashioned.
Knit fabric is produced by the metre, laid up, cut against a marker and sewn on conventional machines. It is quick for jersey-weight product, but every panel edge is a raw cut edge and the marker leaves offcuts. We do not knit this in our own factory. We are a flat-knit house, so jersey, loungewear and adjacent knit ranges run through our vetted partner network, disclosed to you as a partner rather than presented as our floor. The comparison is on our flat-knit vs cut-and-sew page.
That third paragraph is the one most factories leave out. We would rather be narrow and accurate than claim a capability envelope we do not own.
If your brief could honestly go either way, say so and we will sample it both ways before you commit. That is cheaper than a bulk order in the wrong construction.
A single-piece seamless garment occupies the machine far longer than a set of flat panels. That throughput difference, not the yarn, is what separates the two on unit cost. We quote each construction against your actual tech pack rather than from a rate card.
A seamless style is one three-dimensional programme rather than a set of flat panels, so the engineering load sits on the first style. A repeat of that style does not carry the development work again — the programme is already on file with us.
Seamless has no seam allowance to let out: a fit change is reprogrammed, not re-cut. Budget one extra fit cycle on a first seamless block. Fully-fashioned lets us adjust panel width between samples, which is faster to correct.
250 pieces per colour and per size, whichever construction you choose. One style in three colours across five sizes is 3,750 pieces. Machine time differs between the routes; the minimum does not.
Knitting to shape has one physical consequence that marketing can neither add nor remove: the machine produces the piece at its final shape, so there is no cutting marker and essentially no cut-off waste. Single-piece seamless removes the linking allowance as well, fully-fashioned keeps a small one, and cut-and-sew keeps both.
We call it near zero-waste rather than zero-waste, and you should hear the caveat from us rather than from an auditor: set-up yarn, waste courses and rejected pieces still exist. The saving is real and it happens at source, but it is not absolute. More on how we handle it in sustainability.
We run 22 dedicated flat-knit machines — 15 Shima Seiki, including WHOLEGARMENT, and 7 Stoll CMS — at gauges from 3gg to 14gg, with a 50-plus in-house team and capacity for around 100,000 pieces a month. That mix is the whole point of this page: because seamless and fully-fashioned both sit on our own floor, one team quotes you both against one tech pack instead of steering you toward whatever happens to be installed.
Two things we state plainly. We are a pure knitwear manufacturer — flat-knit in-house, with no woven categories at all. And where a style falls outside our own machine envelope, it runs through our transparent partner network, named as such rather than passed off as our own production. Equipment detail on capabilities, finished programmes on our work.
UAE retail runs on a year-round mall and e-commerce calendar rather than a hard autumn drop, so the knitwear that sells is lightweight: fine-gauge layers for air-conditioned interiors, travel pieces for customers wintering in Europe, and elevated resort knits. Dubai is also a regional buying and re-export base, so a single programme often has to serve several markets at once, and preferential entry into the UAE is available for Turkish-origin goods under the Türkiye–UAE CEPA with a valid proof of origin — confirm the current treatment with your customs broker.
Goods leave Gaziantep for the UAE by sea to Jebel Ali, with air freight a practical option for samples and urgent top-ups; transit time, Incoterm and import treatment are confirmed in writing with your quotation rather than estimated on a web page. Kiwi Giyim has knitted in Gaziantep since 2010 under founder Mehmet Özbakır, and you deal with the factory rather than an agent — which matters most on the day a fit comment has to reach the knitting floor without passing through three inboxes. Background on about us.
It is a buyer's word covering three different constructions. Full seamless single-piece knitting, which Shima Seiki markets under its registered WHOLEGARMENT trademark, produces the body and both sleeves at once with nothing to link. Fully-fashioned knit-to-shape produces each panel at its final shape and links them with flat joins. Cut-and-sew knit cuts panels out of knitted fabric and sews them. Every WHOLEGARMENT garment is seamless; not everything sold as seamless is WHOLEGARMENT.
No, and we would rather say so on the first email. Our floor is flat-knit only: single-piece seamless on Shima Seiki WHOLEGARMENT machines and fully-fashioned knit-to-shape on Shima Seiki and Stoll. Cut-and-sew knit ranges such as jersey and loungewear are not knitted here; they run through our disclosed partner network. We have no woven capability of any kind.
250 pieces per colour and per size, the same floor as every other construction we run, because each size is knitted from its own machine programme and yarn is bought per colour. One style in three colours across five sizes is 3 × 5 × 250 = 3,750 pieces. Sampling carries no minimum: protos are single units at 80–180 USD depending on complexity.
No, and you will hear that at feasibility rather than after a failed sample. Heavy intarsia colourwork, very chunky low-gauge structures and heavily blocked silhouettes are usually better served by fully-fashioned, which reaches most of the same look with far better machine throughput. Single-piece seamless is strongest on clean, modern silhouettes at fine and mid gauges.
Sampling is 10–14 days at 80–180 USD per proto depending on complexity. Bulk production runs 45–60 days from sample approval. Freight sits on top of that and depends on your destination and Incoterm, which we confirm in writing at quotation.
Yes. We produce under your label and ship on FOB or DDP terms, and the same programme can serve your UAE retail and your regional distribution because the goods are identical. What changes market to market is labelling and documentation, so tell us at quotation which destinations the order will serve and we will produce the labels to the wording you approve.
More sourcing answers on our general FAQ.
Send your tech pack, a sketch or a garment you like. We reply within one business day with a feasibility read, an indicative price for each viable construction and an honest recommendation — including when the answer is that we are not the right factory.