Minimum Colour Quantity and Dye Lots

What a dye lot is

A dye lot is a single batch of fabric coloured in one vat. Dyeing is a batch process with a vat size, chemistry and setup cost, so dye houses set a minimum weight or length per lot — commonly in the region of a hundred-plus kilos, or several hundred metres of fabric, per colour.

That minimum does not care how many garments you want. It resets for every colour, and for every fabric construction within that colour.

MOQ vs MCQ

MOQ — minimum order quantity — is what most brands ask about. MCQ, minimum colour quantity, is the one that actually bites. A factory may accept 300 pieces across a style, but require 60 per colourway; behind that, the dye house requires enough fabric for considerably more.

So a five-colour launch is not one order at your MOQ. It is five separate material commitments stacked on top of each other.

The arithmetic, worked through

1. You want 300 pieces: 5 colours, 60 each
2. Your garment uses 1.5 yards, so 60 pieces needs 90 yards
3. The dye minimum is 300 yards per colour
4. You must buy 300 yards x 5 colours = 1,500 yards
5. You will use 450. You have paid for 1,050 yards of fabric you cannot sell.

That is how a “300 piece” first run quietly becomes a five-figure fabric bill. Nothing went wrong; the colour plan was just never costed.

Shade variation between lots

A second issue follows from the first. Two lots of the same colour will not match exactly — that is the nature of batch dyeing. If you reorder, the new lot can be visibly different from the first, which matters most on garments sold as sets or where panels are cut from different lots.

This is why production is cut from a single lot wherever possible, and why “we will just reorder more later” is a weaker plan than it sounds.

How to plan colour properly

• Launch in fewer colours than feels exciting — two or three, not six
• Use stock fabric for the colours you are least sure about
• Put your volume behind one hero colour and treat the rest as tests
• Check whether black and white are available as stock in your fabric — they often are
• Where a colour must be custom, make it the one you will reorder
• Ask for the dye-lot minimum in writing before approving a colour plan

The one-line version

Colourways are the most expensive decision a small brand makes without realising it is a cost decision at all. Every additional colour is a separate minimum, a separate lot and a separate risk — price it before you choose it.