The Complete Pre-Order Process
(Approx. 5 min. reading time)
Hello Dearest!
We wanted to share with you our complete in-depth pre-order process! Whether you’re a repeat customer or you’ve got your cursor hovering over the Checkout button but need a little more clarity, keep reading! We hope you find this helpful when making your decision to bring us into your wardrobe.
As you may know, pieces from BRYAN van HAUGHTON are currently made-to-order on a pre-order basis. This allows us to operate inventory-free, reduce waste, and our global impact by only producing what is ordered. So here’s how it all works:
Step 1: Placing Your Pre-Order!
You’ve completed your purchase and you’ve received your order confirmation email and you’re just weeks away from being united with your new favorite piece in your wardrobe! Once you get your confirmation email, your order automatically populates on our end, and it is added to that week’s batch. At the start of each week, we create what is called a “cut ticket” which we use to place the order for all materials needed that aren’t currently on hand. This includes all of the fabric, buttons, zippers, trims, and anything else that we need to complete the production of your order.
This can typically take anywhere from 5-10 business days, especially during this time when supply chains are still recovering and trying to catch up from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and threats of new economic challenges. Despite that, our suppliers are nothing short of amazing and so we normally see about a 5-7 day turnaround from order to delivery on supplies.
An important thing to note is that, especially just after a new collection launch, the patterns are still in need of being altered into the additional sizes in our size range. All samples of our styles are made in our base size Medium; so for instance, if you’re order is the first cut in either XS, S, L, or XL, there is some additional lead time to have the pattern resized, however, this process is usually done at the same time that we’re waiting for all of the materials to arrive and doesn’t typically impact the time it takes to get your order completed!
Step 2: Materials Preparation and Pattern Cutting
This is one of the most time-consuming and labor-intensive steps in the process. Once all fabric, trims, and extras needed to cut and sew your order arrive, there’s an initial inspection that is done as part of our rigorous Quality Control process. Damaged or defective materials must be corrected, re-ordered, and re-delivered—this is rare, but it can add another week to the whole process if and when it does happen. The fabric is then pre-washed and pressed before it can be cut to reduce shrinking and skewing once the piece is in your closet and later routinely laundered. This usually takes about a day or two depending on the how much fabric is required for your ordered style(s).
Once the fabric is thoroughly laundered, dried, and pressed, it is spread onto our large cutting table and the pattern pieces are then laid overtop and marked onto the fabric (if only one of any size is ordered) or a large fabric-width sheet of paper with all of the pattern pieces marked is laid over several layers of the fabric and is cut all at once for duplicates of the same garment in the same or various sizes. Layers of fabric are “rested” for about 24 hours before being cut to reduce the skewing that can happen which could cause the final garment to look a little wonky, and no one likes that.
Step 3: Sewing
Depending on the size of that week’s cut ticket, the cut pieces of fabric are bundled by style, color, and size (i.e. all the pieces of a blouse in a size XS in green silk satin are bundled together, etc), and set aside for sewing. Oftentimes, if there are multiple orders of the same style, the garments are batch sewn in smaller steps, so all collars are sewn first, then sleeves, buttonholes, and so on which takes less time in the long run to finish each piece. If one garment was sewn from start to finish and took roughly four days to complete, the time it took to get five of that same garment completed would greatly increase, so a batch sewing method is the wisest choice and those five pieces can be completed from start to finish in half the time!
For clarity, it takes about two days to produce a single unit of The Blouse and around four days to produce a single unit of The Classic Trench from start to finish.
Step 4: Finishing, pressing & final QC.
Now that your order has been sewn, this is when we do things like sewing on buttons, cutting open buttonholes, and measuring all major points to ensure the correct fit and any loose threads get the snip. Each garment is strategically pressed several times throughout the production process, but the final press is where your order gets its last ironing. This is what elevates the garment from “finished” to “pristine”, and finally ready for presentation. Of course, the piece will have some creases due to folding for shipping, but it’s nothing a warm iron or light steaming can’t remedy!
Step 5: Order Fulfilment (Your order is prepared for shipping! Yay!)
This is by far our favorite part of the process because you’re now only about a week away from receiving your order! This is when we add our hang tag and carefully fold up your order in acid-free tissue paper before it goes into one of our 100% compostable mailer bags and into the hands of our parcel delivery partner. We also love to add in a few small tokens of appreciation at this step; we’ll never be able to thank you enough but you can bet we’re going to try!
While all times above are approximate, we hope this gives you a deeper look into the inner workings of BRYAN van HAUGHTON and our expected lead times to get your pre-order from our hands to yours.
You are the heart of our business and we’re so grateful for you!
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us via email or by sending us a DM on BlueSky!
xo
BRYAN van HAUGHTON
