PHOTOGRAPHED FROM OUR STOCK
The cloth behind these terms
Unretouched photographs from our own floor. Colour varies between dye lots; the swatch card is the only reliable reference.
BUYING SILK · 100% MULBERRY SILK · FROM A CHINESE MILL
What is actually on the shelf, at what depth, and how a colour that is not gets made.
A colour card is a promise about availability, not just a list of shades. The question worth asking a mill is not how many colours it has, but how many metres of each it holds — a colour you can only get by dyeing 300 metres is not a stock colour in any useful sense.
We hold 300–500 metres per colour on the stock families across 15+ colours, and the current card goes out by post. Anything not on it is dyed to order from 40 metres with a lab dip approved first.
A stock colour held at 300–500 m covers a repeat order without a new dye lot. That is what makes it a buying option rather than a reference.
Silk is a natural fibre and dyeing is a wet process. The card shows the current standard; the dip and the retained sample are how a specific order is pinned down.
A colour on a monitor is an emitted colour; on cloth it is a reflected one. Approve from the card or the dip, never from an image.
| Stock colour | Dyed to order | |
|---|---|---|
| Availability | On the shelf | Made for you |
| Depth | 300–500 m per colour | Your quantity, from 40 m |
| Minimum | 1 metre | 40 metres per colour |
| Approval | None needed | Lab dip before bulk |
| Lead time | Dispatches in days | Dyed after approval |
| Use when | Sampling, short runs, repeat programmes | Branded colours, exact matches |
Treat the card as a snapshot rather than a contract. Stock colours turn over with the season and with what happens to be on the shelf, so the colour you specified last year may have been re-dyed since. If a colour is load-bearing for your programme, say so and have it held.
Keep the card you approved. When a dispute about shade comes up eight months later, the question is not what the colour looks like now but what it looked like when you signed off, and only the physical card answers that.
These search phrases all land here because they mean the same thing:
If you were looking for a different commercial question, the wholesale page covers programmes and the ready-stock page covers what is on the shelf right now.
Fifteen and more across the stock families, held at 300–500 metres per colour. The current card is the accurate list — colour ranges move with the season and with what is on the shelf.
Yes. Any Pantone reference or physical swatch can be dyed to order from 40 metres per colour, with a lab dip approved before the bulk run.
The card represents the current standard for that colour. Silk is a natural fibre and dye lots vary within a tolerance; for an exact requirement, approve a lab dip and we will retain a cutting from the bulk against your next order.
They do, and then they are re-dyed. If a programme depends on a specific colour, tell us and we will hold against it rather than assuming the shelf will still have it in six months.
Yes, and you should. Ask for the card in the family you are buying, or for a one-metre cut in the stock colours you are considering — the same dye reads differently on a satin face and on a crepe.
PHOTOGRAPHED FROM OUR STOCK
Unretouched photographs from our own floor. Colour varies between dye lots; the swatch card is the only reliable reference.
Tell us the quantity and the colour and we will quote it with a confirmed dispatch date.
