The fastest route to a sweater with your name in the neck: we start from a construction we have already proven, and you choose the yarn, the colours and the size run. No design development, no tech pack, no waiting for a block to be built — and no pretending the piece is exclusively yours.
White label knitwear means the garment already exists as a construction before you arrive. The block is drafted, the machine programme is written, the fit has been knitted and corrected. You choose the yarn, the colours, the size run and the trims, and your woven label goes into the neck. Nothing is designed from scratch, which is exactly why it is the quickest and cheapest way to put a knitted product on a shelf under your brand.
It is also why the product is not uniquely yours: a house construction is not protected for one buyer. That is a fair trade, but it should be made deliberately rather than discovered later. Kiwi Giyim has knitted in Gaziantep since 2010 and works in all three models — white label, private label and pure OEM. This page covers the first, and tells you when one of the other two serves you better.
Suppliers use these three terms interchangeably, and they should not. They are different answers to a single question: who created the design?
| White label | Private label | OEM / ODM | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting point | Our existing house construction | Your design and your tech pack | OEM: your design. ODM: we design from your brief |
| Who owns the design | Nobody exclusively — the block is generic | You | OEM: you. ODM: negotiated with the maker |
| You supply | Yarn and colour choice, size run, labels | Tech pack, measurements, labels | Full specification, or a brief for ODM |
| Development time | None — straight to a confirmation sample | One to three sample rounds | OEM: as private label. ODM: a design step before sampling |
| Development cost | One sample, 80–180 USD | Each round at 80–180 USD | 80–180 USD per round, plus the design step for ODM |
| Uniqueness | Low — yours by yarn, colour and label | High — the piece is yours | High — the construction is developed for you either way |
| Main risk | A competitor can use the same block | Spend before you know the category sells | ODM: the creative starting point sits with the factory |
| MOQ with us | 250 per colour, per size | 250 per colour, per size | 250 per colour, per size |
| Sampling | 10–14 days | 10–14 days per round | 10–14 days per round |
| Best for | A first drop, a corporate programme, a category test | A brand with a fit it wants to own | OEM: brands arriving with a full specification. ODM: brands with no in-house designer |
Note the row that does not move: the minimum is 250 pieces per colour and per size in all three columns. Read the terms in more depth in OEM vs ODM vs private label.
The machines are ours: 22 dedicated flat-knit machines — 15 Shima Seiki including WHOLEGARMENT, and 7 Stoll CMS — run by a 50-plus in-house team with capacity for around 100,000 pieces a month. Full list on capabilities.
The floor in white label is exactly the floor in private label and OEM. Flat knitwear is knitted to shape from a machine programme written per size, and yarn is purchased per colour, so both dimensions carry a minimum. An existing block saves you development, not set-up.
One style in three colours across five sizes is 3 × 5 × 250 = 3,750 pieces. That number, not the 250 headline, decides whether a white label programme is realistic for you right now. Fewer colours and a tighter size run are the two levers that keep a first order small.
A confirmation sample is a single unit at 80–180 USD in 10–14 days. You handle the actual construction in your actual yarn and colour before committing to a production quantity.
We are not the right factory for a 50-piece run, and calling it white label does not change that. We would rather lose the enquiry than take a deposit for an order we cannot run properly.
You pick a construction, a yarn and a colour. There is no tech pack to write, no block to draft and no fit round to schedule. The confirmation sample is knitted in 10–14 days at 80–180 USD.
Unchanged from any other model. Knitting, linking, finishing and in-house QC take the time they take — an existing programme does not knit faster than a new one.
Transit time depends on your route and Incoterm, and import treatment depends on your customs authority. Both are confirmed in writing with the quotation rather than estimated on a landing page.
White label saves development spend, not knitting cost. The yarn, the machine time and the finishing are identical to a private label order of the same construction.
That last card is where expectations usually break. White label is not a cheaper garment; it is a cheaper start — one sample instead of four, and no weeks spent drafting a block. The full sequence is on our process page.
Kampala has a growing boutique and designer scene alongside steady corporate, school and institutional demand for branded knit product, and the highland climate means light knit layers are worn genuinely rather than seasonally. Everything is handled in English, from the first specification question to the shipping documents.
Uganda is landlocked, so goods sail to an East African port and move overland to Kampala, and we plan that inland leg into the schedule openly and confirm transit, Incoterm and duty treatment in writing at quotation. Labelling is applied in-house to your specification — brand label, fibre composition and care instructions — so you confirm the wording your market requires and we produce to it. What we will not do is guess a regulatory requirement on your behalf; we produce to the spec you approve.
White label earns its place at the start, when the expensive question is not is this design right? but will this category sell at all? A house construction answers that with real sell-through data instead of a forecast, for the cost of one sample.
Then the answers get specific. The body length is wrong for your customer. The rib reads too traditional. You want a stitch nobody else on the rail has. At that point you have stopped buying a construction and started designing one, which is private label, or pure OEM if you arrive with a full specification. Same factory, same machines, same 250 minimum — the brief simply gets deeper. If the construction itself is the question, compare the routes on our seamless knitwear page, and see finished programmes on our work.
The dividing line is who paid to create the shape. In white label the construction is already ours — drafted, programmed and fit-corrected long before you enquired — so you take it as it stands and make it yours through yarn, colours, sizing, trims and your own label. Private label reverses that: the block is developed to your tech pack, so the garment belongs to your brand and nobody else can order it. One costs a single sample and no development weeks; the other costs sampling rounds and buys exclusivity in return.
No. Nothing sits finished in a warehouse waiting for a label. Every white label order is knitted after you confirm it, in your yarn and your colours, on our own flat-knit machines. What already exists is the construction — the house block and the machine programme — not the garment.
No. The minimum is 250 pieces per colour and per size in all three models: white label, private label and OEM. One style in three colours across five sizes is 3 × 5 × 250 = 3,750 pieces. The minimum is driven by machine set-up per size and yarn purchase per colour, and neither of those changes because the block already exists.
In principle yes, and that is the honest trade-off. A house block is not exclusive to one buyer. Your yarn, colours, measurements, trims and labelling make the finished piece look like yours, but the construction underneath is not protected. If exclusivity matters to your positioning, private label or OEM is the right route.
Never. Styles developed for a client are covered by NDA and stay with that client, permanently. Our white label starting points are generic house constructions — crew necks, v-necks, cardigans, knit tops, vests and seamless WHOLEGARMENT bodies — which we adapt in gauge, yarn, colour and measurements.
By planning it rather than hiding it. There is an ocean leg to an East African port and then an overland leg to Kampala, and both are built into the schedule we give you at quotation rather than added as a surprise. We would rather quote a realistic date and hit it than quote an optimistic one and explain it later.
More sourcing answers on our general FAQ.
Tell us the category, the yarn direction, the colours and the quantity — a reference garment or a photograph is enough to start. We reply within one business day with feasibility, indicative pricing and an honest read on whether white label or your own design serves you better.