Custom Button Manufacturing
Custom buttons have a minimum order quantity (MOQ) of 5,000 pieces. We can provide design work for your brand upfront. Custom brass buttons generally cost €200, while Zamac buttons cost €400 (prices for enameled or other specialty button types may vary depending on the design). Since molds are required for production, we are unable to provide physical samples before the final run.
Brass vs Zamac Buttons
Zamac vs. Brass: Technical & Production Comparison
| Feature / Metric | Zamac (Zinc Alloy) | Brass |
| Primary Base Metal | Zinc (alloyed with aluminum, magnesium, copper) | Copper & Zinc alloy |
| Manufacturing Method | Die-Casting: Liquid metal is injected into a steel mold cavity. | Stamping: High-pressure press stamps the shape from a flat metal sheet. |
| Design / Logo Capability | Excellent (3D): Perfect for complex, curved shapes, sharp relief details, hollowed backs, and intricate borders. | Good (2D): Best for flat or slightly domed surfaces, simple embossed/debossed line work. |
| Average Mold Fee (approx.) | Higher: ~€400 (requires precision steel injection molds). | Lower: ~€200 (requires stamping dies). |
| Weight & Feel | Heavy & Solid: Feeling of premium luxury due to the solid cast density. | Lightweight: Hollow-backed shell wrapped around a core pin. |
| Rust & Wash Resistance | Moderate: Naturally oxidizes if the protective electroplating layer chips during harsh stone or acid washing. | Excellent: 100% rust-proof. Extremely durable under heavy industrial chemical washes. |
| Tensile / Pull Strength | Good, but more rigid. Extreme shear stress can cause it to snap. | Excellent. Ductile metal that bends rather than breaks under heavy physical stress. |
| Needle Detector Test | Riskier: Low-purity alloys can contain trace ferrous elements that trigger detection machines. | Highly Safe: Pure brass is non-magnetic, ensuring zero false alarms during retail export scans. |
Which one should you choose?
Brass is way more classic. If button is not centerpiece of your model brass is safer. Diesel, G-Star RAW, Replay, Calvin Klein Jeans, Armani Exchange kind of brands use zamac buttons.
Choose Zamac if your design features a prominent, highly detailed 3D brand logo, you want a heavy “premium weight” button, and you have the budget to cover the higher upfront mold costs (€400).
Choose Brass if you want a classic heritage look with a lower mold investment (€200), and you must guarantee trouble-free needle detection for export.
Rivets at coin pocket
The pants in the photo are 14 oz. Rivets can also be attached to the watch pocket, but there is a possibility they might fall off in the long run. While the tack pierces through two layers of fabric at the pocket edges, it goes through 4 layers at the watch pocket, and the fabric becomes as stiff as a rock. Because of this, applying capped or nipple rivets to the watch pocket is very risky. Nipple rivets are more durable due to the tack traveling a longer distance, but using them on the watch pocket is still a major risk. On thinner pants, any kind of rivet can be used on the watch pocket.
YKK Zip vs Others
YKK is generally used as the industry standard, but that doesn’t mean the other brands are bad. If you need to manufacture the trousers very cheaply, you’ll cut costs even on the zipper. Beyond that, there isn’t much more to say.
Zip vs Button Fly
Zip is flexible, button is rigid
Skinny jeans always use a zip fly. On 100% cotton jeans, depending on the style, the fly can be either a zipper or a button fly. A button fly used to be thought of mainly as a men’s-jeans thing, but these days it’s used even on women’s jeans — and honestly, the men’s/women’s divide in fashion is closing up more and more anyway.
With a button fly, the front rise comes out to the same measurement regardless of size. With a zipper, we have the option of using a shorter zip on smaller sizes, but as long as there’s enough room in the front rise, there isn’t much difference between the two. It used to be that the zipper-versus-button choice on the fly varied from country to country, but that’s no longer really a thing.
Bottom line: if you’re undecided, a zipper is always the safer. And it’s not something that affects sales one way or the other.
Neon Color Production
Dyeing Neon vs. Normal Colors: Side-by-Side Comparison
| Factor | Normal Colors | Neon Colors |
|---|---|---|
| Dye Chemistry | Established reactive, vat, acid, or disperse dyes with proven formulations | Specialty fluorescent dyes; often limited dye class options; newer chemistry |
| Lightfastness | Good to excellent (often 5–8/8 on standard tests) | Poor to fair (typically 2–4/8); fades noticeably in 1–2 months of sun exposure |
| Wash Fastness | 4–5/5 typical (minimal color loss over 20+ home washes) | 2–3/5 common; bleeding and crocking risk increases; dye can transfer to other garments |
| Rubbing/Crocking | Low (fiber-bound, especially vat dyes) | High; loose dye particles on surface make crocking a real problem, especially on pale fabrics |
| Temperature Stability | Stable 40–90°C; many dyes improve at higher temps | Degrades above 60°C; brightness loss accelerates; high temps can cause shade shifts |
| pH Sensitivity | Moderate; ranges accommodate small pH shifts | Extreme; narrow pH window (±0.5 can alter shade noticeably) |
| Leveling/Evenness | Relatively forgiving; standard leveling agents work reliably | Difficult; uneven strike-off is common, especially on tight weaves like gabardine |
| Penetration on Tight Weaves | Adequate even on gabardine with standard conditions | Poor; tight weave resists fluorescent dye molecules; surface-heavy dyeing common |
| Cost per kg | $8–25 typically | $20–100+ (4–10× more expensive) |
| Sourcing & Consistency | Wide supplier base; batch-to-batch variation low | Limited suppliers; batch variation higher; discontinued shades are common |
| Regulatory Approval | Standard OEKO-TEX, ZDHC, EU restrictions well-known | Stricter scrutiny; some fluorescent brighteners banned in EU; compliance documentation harder |
| Sampling Cost | Low (small dye quantities sufficient) | High (need more dye to get readable neon effect; failed trials are expensive) |
| Customer Expectations | Durability built into product positioning | Customer often unaware neon = short-lived; complaints common |
| Post-Treatments | Standard finishes (softening, anti-static) suffice | Require cationic fixatives to improve wash fastness; adds process steps & cost |
| Storage Stability | Dyed fabric remains stable 6–12 months in cool, dry conditions | Neon dyes fade during storage; accelerated by light and humidity; shelf life 2–4 months |
Neon Fabric Manufacturing
Instead of dyeing a PFD white product, we can produce fabric directly in neon color. When manufacturing neon color fabric, we can apply a Teflon coating to the fabric to increase color durability. This imparts a slight stiffness to the fabric, but we overcome this with a rinse wash.
Pantone Code vs Real Product
Products can be dyed directly from a Pantone code, but only after the Pantone specification has been tested and validated through lab work on the specific fabric being used. Keep in mind that the same Pantone code may not produce identical results across different fabrics — particularly if you’ve previously matched that code to a different fabric.
Dry Process Examples as Video
Applying Dry Processes to Denim Samples: A Guide to Ripping, Whiskers, and Other Finishes.
Video below belongs to jeans above.
Optic White vs Milk White
What’s the Difference?
Optic White
Made with bleaching agents and optical brighteners (fluorescent whitening agents). The process uses harsh chemicals—chlorine, peroxide, caustic soda—to achieve maximum brightness. Result: brilliant, uniform white that photographs well and reads unmistakably “white” to end consumers. Trade-off: fiber stress, higher chemical use, and optical brighteners fade slightly with repeated washing.
Milk White
Achieved with gentler bleaching and minimal or no optical brighteners. Relies on clean cotton and careful processing rather than aggressive chemistry. Result: warmer, softer white with better durability and wash-fastness. Trade-off: requires higher-quality base material and is less forgiving of production inconsistencies.
Gabardine vs Denim
The two have different use cases. Gabardine fabric is generally used when making colored products. This entirely depends on what the customer wants. The two photos on the left show mustard-colored denim fabric, the same way you’d have blue-black, etc. If a worn/faded effect is desired, denim fabric is the preferred choice. The two photos on the right, on the other hand, show a pair of pants made entirely from PFD gabardine fabric.
PFD = Prepared For Dyeing
This is also why, from a manufacturing standpoint, denim is far more complex to produce than canvas. You need to control the exact indigo penetration depth, the ring-spinning tension, and then the wash process to either protect or deliberately remove that surface dye. Canvas just needs to be woven and (optionally) dyed.
Why denim fades — and gabardine doesn’t?
Denim is rope-dyed with indigo: the dye penetrates only the outer shell of the ring-spun cotton fibre, leaving a white core intact. Those long warp floats in the 3/1 pattern sit proud of the surface — friction and washing chip away the indigo shell and expose the white underneath. Fade follows the weave exactly: whiskers form where the fabric bends at the hips, honeycombs at the knees — precisely where the raised floats compress and release most.
Gabardine is piece-dyed after weaving. Dye goes all the way through the fibre. No surface shell, no white core — nothing to reveal. And because the 2/2 structure has no dominant floating thread sitting exposed, there is no “high point” taking friction first. Colour loss is slow and uniform, never a pattern.
Does every blue fabric fade to the same color? What is Greencast
As some blue fabrics get lighter, they reveal a greenish undertone from beneath. Others fade straight toward ice blue. Depending on the customer’s style preference, these types of fabrics can be used accordingly. Applying a tint on top of the jeans, as shown in the photo below, is a completely different thing. You can tell whether the underlying color of the fabric is a natural green cast or the result of a tint by checking the white lining fabric of jeans— if it shows a color other than white, that’s your indicator
Photos below are yellow tint examples.
If you keep jeans for a few years it could get yellow tint effect by itself too.
The Denim Wash Menu: Rinse, Stone, Enzyme, Bleach, Acid, Mud and Vintage
Fabric swatch cards are made to show only the colors that could be considered classic for denim fabric. The table below shows a few classic denim washing methods. However, if we apply only one of these processes, we get a plain, flat denim look with no effect. To make the jeans more eye-catching, we usually apply 4-5 different processes one after another, in sequence. What we’re asking from the customer is to send us any denim/jeans color they like, along with any comments they may have. The photos below are just a few different examples.
