Custom lace development
From your reference to a pattern that can be made
Send us an image, a physical sample, a sketch, a market sample or a change you want made to one of our patterns. We read what the lace has to be, convert it into a construction our machines can run, and follow it through sampling and confirmation to production - one team from your first file to the shipped order.
What starts a development
- An image
- A physical sample
- A sketch or technical drawing
- A sample bought in another market
- A change to an existing pattern of ours
- A direction that is still rough
Before a development
We look for what already exists first
The archive holds more than 120,000 patterns and over 10,000 regular patterns and ready swatches, searchable by image, texture, pattern number and stock status. A request is answered from that archive before anything is developed, because a pattern that already runs is quicker, cheaper and lower risk than one that has to be built.
From the archive
Your image, sample or description is searched against the archive and filtered by our sales and pattern specialists, so what comes back is a shortlist you can judge rather than a wall of near-misses. A close pattern can often be modified rather than developed from nothing.
New development
When no close pattern can meet the requirements you cannot compromise on, we develop. That is a decision taken with you after one or more rounds of finding and feedback - not a fixed number of rounds, and not a rule that every request ends in a new pattern.
The work
From a reference to a pattern the machines can run
Development is a technical conversion, not a redraw. Five things happen between the file you send and the pattern we can put on a machine.
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Read the reference
What the lace has to be: the structure, the hand, the pattern scale, the material it is expected to be made in, and what it is going into. A physical sample is the clearest reference, because it can be analysed rather than interpreted.
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Convert it into a construction
A sketch is not a machine file. The design is converted into a construction our machines can actually run, and the material and process it needs are worked out at the same time, because those decide whether the idea is producible at all.
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Give it its own identity
The development gets its own pattern number, so it can be quoted, sampled, produced and repeated without confusion. Where a change affects production identity, cost, quality, process or a future repeat, it becomes a separate identifiable version and its link to the original is kept.
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Check the direction, then sample
Photographs and video carry the first check, so a direction can be corrected before anything ships internationally. Once the direction is right, a physical sample goes out - and only your physical confirmation counts as the confirmation.
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Confirm the development before we commit
Nothing is committed to pattern-making, machine time or special material until you clearly confirm the development. Where the development is charged, the fee, the payment method, whether it is deducted against a later bulk order and on what conditions are all agreed first.
Cost and quotation
How a development is priced
There is no single rate per metre to publish, because a lace order is not priced on the metre alone. What a pattern costs to make is what decides what it costs to buy, and that is worked out per pattern, per specification and per quantity.
What the price is built from
- Material
- Yarn
- Pattern complexity
- Machine
- Process
- Weight and consumption
- Quantity
- Production resource
- Production cost
- Lead time
- Commercial terms
- Current market conditions
What a formal quotation states
- Project and pattern number
- Specification and quality
- Quantity conditions
- Unit price and currency
- Trade and delivery terms
- Payment terms
- Validity
- Any special conditions
A development fee is neither automatic nor automatically waived. A new or complex development is judged on its difficulty, its cost and the project behind it, and a fee also helps establish whether the development is a real one. Where a deduction against the bulk order is agreed, it is recorded before the work starts and honoured afterwards.
Quantity changes the price, so a figure given without a quantity is a reference rather than a final price; where a quantity is not yet fixed, the quotation carries the conditions and the validity with it. A material, specification or delivery change is re-quoted rather than carried over.
Before we start
What we need from you
A development goes faster when the brief is complete, and most of what slows one down is a requirement that arrives late. These are the things we ask for at the start; you do not have to have all of them decided.
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The reference
The image at the highest resolution you have, the physical sample, or the sketch. A physical sample tells us more than any photograph, so sending it is worth the courier.
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What it is going into
The garment or product the lace becomes part of, and where it sits on it. This decides the hand, the structure and how the pattern has to behave in wear.
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The attributes it has to hold
Material, width, weight and consumption, stretch, pattern scale and colour - as far as you already know them. Where one of these is open, we will tell you what the alternatives mean for the price and the lead time.
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Colour direction
A reference, a swatch or a standard. If the order needs a new colour, the colour is matched and approved before bulk production rather than at the end of it.
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Quantity, or a range
An expected quantity or a band you are working inside. Quantity is confirmed per project, and until it is known the price stays conditional rather than final.
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Target price band and market
The band you need to land in and the market the lace sells into, so the construction and the production resource are chosen for it from the start.
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Testing and conformity requirements
Tell us at the brief stage. They can change the material, the production resource, the cost, the lead time and sometimes the feasibility, which is why they belong in the quotation rather than in the days before shipment.
What is not the same
A finished development is not a confirmed sample, and neither is an order
These three moments are treated as one all the time, and that is where projects stall. We keep them apart, in writing.
Technical completion
The pattern runs and the lace exists. It is our internal milestone: it says the idea is producible, not that the product is agreed.
Your sample confirmation
The physical sample you confirm is the quality baseline. It is kept, and bulk production, inspection and any repeat order are measured against it.
Your purchase order
The order begins when you place it. The confirmed sample and the order together hold the technical and commercial conditions the order runs on.
Your design
A development you paid for is not a pattern we shop around
Your sketch, your unpublished idea and the pattern we make from it are handled as yours. That holds while the work is running, before you have asked us for confidentiality.
Where a design is clearly yours, unpublished and specific to your project, it is not offered to other customers while it is being developed. Where you ask us to keep a pattern confidential, it does not enter our normal recommendation system at all.
Exclusivity is arranged as its own terms - which patterns, which market or region, which use, from when and for how long - rather than as a yes or no. It is agreed in writing before it matters, not after.
Who works on it
One responsible person holds your development from the first file to the confirmed sample and the order that follows. Behind them, the pattern specialists do the conversion, production and supply-chain colleagues work out how and where it will be made, and inspection works to the sample you confirmed.
You are not asked to coordinate those teams, and a technical question does not have to travel through you to reach the person who can answer it.
Next step
Send the reference, and what the lace has to do
A photograph, a sample, a sketch or a pattern number, plus what it is going into and the quantity you have in mind, is enough for us to say what is possible, whether an existing pattern gets you there, and what the development would take.
Email gdp@lace-dog.com
Phone / WhatsApp 86-13185381515 WhatsApp