Production runs from the day the fabric is booked
The date counts from fabric booking, not from your order, and stretches over Chinese New Year, Ramadan, the Eids and the shipping peak.
NUMBER: lead time (the factory’s)TOOL: the calendar
The clock starts when the fabric is booked, not when you sign. Fabric takes its own weeks before a single garment is cut, which is why a “45 day” promise and a 90 day reality can both be true. And the calendar is not smooth: Chinese New Year stops China for weeks, Ramadan slows and the Eids stop Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the July to October shipping peak fills vessels and raises freight. The calendar has the dates; plan the order backwards from them.
The lead time is the factory’s number. Nobody publishes one, because it moves with the mill, the order book and the season. Get it in writing at quote time, dated from fabric booking, and the office asks for exactly that.
What a bad answer looks like: “45 days” with no start date, or a lead time counted from your signature rather than from the fabric booking, so the fabric weeks are hidden inside it.
