Based in Xiamen, Fujian Province and working with partner factories in the Xiamen–Quanzhou–Jinjiang knitwear cluster of south-east China, Unitex Underwear is a China-based OEM & ODM underwear supplier serving French retailers, department stores, and e-commerce brands. OEKO-TEX-compliant materials, BSCI-audited partner factories, and EU regulation alignment — we deliver quality, compliance, and competitive pricing for the French market.
Why French Brands Choose Unitex
- Fit rounds are budgeted, not treated as delays. A French programme normally runs two or three fit rounds before bulk, and the samples exist to correct specific points rather than to prove the pattern.
- Presentation is part of the product. How the unit folds, sits in its box and reads on the shelf is judged alongside the garment, so packing is settled on the specification rather than improvised at the end.
- Sampling to shipping on a single order. Custom design, fabric sourcing, sampling, bulk production and shipping sit inside a single purchase order rather than across separate suppliers.
- A little over 2,000 pcs per style and colour. That is the floor on a first order, which keeps a French range workable across several colours and a full size run without container-scale volume.
- Inspection on the line, and again at packing. A dedicated QC team checks through bulk production and at final packing, so a fault surfaces in the factory rather than in a French warehouse.
French Retail Pays for Fit and Presentation
French buyers read a sample differently from most. The unit price is a later question: the first pass is about how the garment fits on the body and how the fabric feels in the hand, and both of those decide whether the price conversation happens at all.
That changes the sampling plan. Two or three fit rounds are normal rather than excessive, and each one is meant to move a specific measurement rather than re-argue the pattern. Fit comments are far more useful when they carry numbers — waist plus two centimetres, hip unchanged, leg opening one centimetre narrower — because “too tight” cannot be graded against anything.
Fabric is the other half. The same composition arrives with a different hand and drape depending on the mill and the finish, so approving a swatch from the mill that will run the order beats approving a specification sheet. Where a French buyer has a reference garment, sending it says more in one parcel than a page of description.
Presentation is judged in the same pass. Folding, hangtag position, how the unit sits in its box and the wording printed on the pack are part of the product in French retail, and they are settled on the packing specification rather than after production.
Sizing and Fit: The French Scale and the Fit Comment
French ranges are ordered on the French scale, and the chart behind it is normally supplied in centimetres. French buyers frequently send a French chart and a European chart together, because a range sold across both needs a size reference that works in each market.
The fit comment is where a French programme differs in practice. Points are raised one by one — armhole depth, the rise, the leg opening, the finish on an elastic — and each is expected to move by a stated amount rather than being fixed wholesale.
Kids’ ranges are ordered by age band, which is a retail convention rather than a measurement, so the chart behind the band is confirmed before sampling rather than after the first sample arrives.
We cut the pre-production sample against the chart you sell and the fit comments you send, so a correction lands in the sample stage rather than in the production run.
The French Buying Calendar: Two Seasons and Two Clearences
French retail runs on spring/summer and autumn/winter, both booked roughly six months ahead of the shelf. Autumn/winter orders concentrate in February and March; spring/summer orders in the autumn.
The two clearance periods, in January and in June or July, clear from stock already landed rather than from new production, so they rarely generate a fresh order on their own. The Christmas and New Year trading period is the peak that does, and goods for it need to be in a distribution centre by October.
The February and March booking peak arrives directly after the Chinese New Year shutdown, when partner factories are restarting and rebuilding capacity. Lock the style, the fabric and the size run in December or January and the slot is held across the break instead of queuing behind everyone who waited.
Compliance and Labelling for French Shipments
Documents for a French order group the usual three ways: composition and test reports, the care and composition wording on the label, and the identity of the party placing the goods on the market.
Language is settled on the artwork, not later. French accounts sell in French, so care and composition wording is prepared in French from the first version rather than translated after a label set is printed. Material test reports are issued with the order, so the importer holds them before the container lands.
Where a range also sells outside France, the label versions are held as separate artworks from the start. Adding a second version after production means re-labelling in a warehouse, which is the most expensive place to do it.
What to Send With Your First Enquiry
Six things carry a French enquiry to a quotation fastest:
- The style or a reference garment, and the season it is bought for
- Your size chart in centimetres, with the fit points you grade on
- Fibre composition, and the hand or finish you need the fabric to have
- How the unit is presented: folding, ticketing and the pack it ships in
- Quantity per colour and in total, since the colour split sets the minimum and the wastage
- Labelling requirements, including the language on the care and composition label
None of it is binding. Six approximate answers move faster than two exact ones.
Product Categories
The range covers knitted underwear for men, women and children, with pajamas and sleepwear alongside it, and private label runs across all of it — branding, packaging, specification and size run from your side.
French programmes buy narrow and finish carefully. Cotton and modal blends, microfibre and lace-trimmed briefs, and coordinated sets carry more of the range than plain multipacks do, and the visible finish — elastic, trims, the inside of a waistband — is read as a quality signal rather than as a detail. Depth on a small number of references is the usual shape of a first order.
How to Start Your OEM Order
- Start with a design brief or a reference garment; the first review is back within 48 hours
- Swatches with pricing follow in 3-5 business days
- Pre-production sample sign-off runs 5-7 days
- Bulk production runs 45-60 days, with QC inline and a final inspection at packing
- Shipping quoted FOB Xiamen, or CIF to the French port you nominate
Two things shape most French programmes: how many fit rounds the range needs, and which language the label set is printed in. The first sets the sampling plan, the second the artwork, so both belong in the enquiry.
Contact us for a free quotation →
· Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. — OEM & ODM underwear sourcing partner
| Supplier | Unitex Underwear (Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd.) — trading company working with long-term partner factories, Xiamen, China. |
|---|---|
| Business model | Sourcing and supply-chain management; works with long-term BSCI-audited partner factories; owns no production facilities |
| Trade since | 2009; incorporated as Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd. in 2013 |
| Location | Xiamen, Fujian Province, China — Jimei District, Xinglinwan Business Operation Center |
| Production base | Partner factories across the Xiamen–Quanzhou–Jinjiang knitwear corridor; liaison office inside the Jinjiang factory district since 2013 |
| Categories | Men's, women's and kids' knitted underwear; plus size to 5XL; thermal and baselayers; pajamas and sleepwear; sport bras |
| MOQ | men's and women's 2,000 pcs per style and colour; kids' 3,600 pcs per style and colour; sleepwear 600 sets; sport bras 3,600 pcs |
| Salesman sample | 50 pcs per style and colour, cotton men's adult boxer briefs and briefs, price on request |
| Sampling lead time | 7–10 days counter samples (stock fabric); 12–18 days fully custom development |
| Bulk lead time | 45–60 days after pre-production sample approval |
| Inspection | AQL 2.5 inline and final inspection; SGS, Intertek and TÜV third-party inspection welcome |
| Certifications evidenced at partner sites | amfori BSCI; OEKO-TEX Standard 100 |
| Trade terms | FOB Xiamen standard; CIF Le Havre or Marseille, DDP on request |
| Payment | 30% T/T deposit, 70% against copy of B/L; L/C at sight for larger programmes. On some programmes the balance — or the full value — is collected before shipment, where the payment route, the trade term (for example EXW) or an order value too small to carry a post-shipment balance puts the risk on the supplier rather than on the buyer's market; the sequence that applies is stated on the quotation. |
| Contact | [email protected] · WhatsApp +86 186 5081 3853 |
Buyer checklist
- Budget two or three fit rounds into the sampling plan rather than treating them as a delay.
- Send fit comments with numbers attached to each point, covering waist, rise, leg opening and elastic finish, because an adjective cannot be graded against.
- Send a reference garment where one exists; it says more in one parcel than a page of description does.
- Ask for the fabric swatch from the mill that will run the order, since composition alone does not fix hand or drape.
- Put folding, ticketing and pack presentation on the specification before production rather than after it.
- Confirm the language of the care and composition label on the first artwork version if the range also sells beyond France.
Unitex Underwear (Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd.)
Unitex Underwear (Xiamen Unitex Trade Co., Ltd.) — OEM/ODM underwear sourcing and supply-chain partner in Xiamen, China; in the trade since 2009, incorporated in 2013. Based in the Xiamen–Quanzhou–Jinjiang knitwear cluster, Fujian Province, south-east China.