How Much Fabric for 50, 100, 200 or 500 People?

The formula behind every number here

Every total on this page is the same sum: headcount multiplied by sets per person multiplied by meters per set, plus 10 percent for cutting wastage. Nothing else. The tables just save you the arithmetic.

Meters per set is about 3 m for an adult trouser-and-shirt set and about 2 m for a junior school set. Add a blazer and an adult set rises to roughly 5 m.

Adult programs: corporate, hospital, hotel, security

Totals below are for trouser-and-shirt sets, wastage included, in a single shade.

Add a blazer to the set and multiply the figures by about 1.7.

School programs: junior and senior

Junior sizes take roughly a third less cloth than adult, so a school batch is far smaller than headcount alone suggests. Senior students take adult meterage.

A mixed school splits across both tables: run the junior and senior counts separately and add the totals.

Which order tier your program lands in

The totals matter because they decide how the fabric is supplied. Ready stock starts at 50 m per shade and comes from running shades. Custom shades are woven to order from 500 m per shade, which is what lets a program lock its exact colour and hold it across reorders.

• Under 500 m: ready-stock shade, order exactly what you need, quickest to dispatch.
• 500 m and above: custom shade woven in one dye lot, colour locked for reorders.
• Above about 1,500 m: comfortably a single-lot custom program, worth planning the full year in one go.
• Split across several shades: each shade carries its own minimum, so a four-colour program needs 500 m in each colour to go custom.

Add a buffer before you place the order

The wastage margin already sits inside these numbers. What is not in them is the buffer for people who join mid-year, garments that get damaged, and sizes that come out different from the ratio you planned.

For an institutional program, 5 to 10 percent above the table figure is the usual buffer. Ordering it in the same lot is far safer than reordering later, because a later lot is a different dye batch and can sit a shade away from the original.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How much fabric for 100 uniforms?

About 330 m at 150 cm width for 100 adult trouser-and-shirt sets, wastage included. For 100 junior school sets it is closer to 220 m.

How much fabric for a 500-student school?

About 1,100 m in junior sizes for one set each, or 2,200 m for two sets each. Senior students take adult meterage, so a senior batch of 500 on two sets each is nearer 3,300 m.

Is the wastage already included in these totals?

Yes. Every figure includes a 10 percent cutting wastage margin on top of the raw garment meterage. What it does not include is a buffer for mid-year joiners or damaged garments, which is a separate 5 to 10 percent.

What if my program uses more than one colour?

Split the headcount by colour and run each one through the table separately. Each shade carries its own minimum, so a program that clears 500 m in total can still fall short in an individual colour.

Can I order less than 50 m?

Ready stock starts at 50 m per shade. Below that we can send swatches and sample cards so you can approve the fabric, but a cut length under the minimum is not a production order.

Should I order the whole year at once?

If the program runs to a fixed headcount, yes. One lot means one dye batch and one shade across every garment, and it usually clears the custom minimum comfortably. Split orders across the year risk a visible shade step between batches.