Building a Knitwear Colour Range: How to Choose Colours That Sell Through

Colour is the fastest way to make a knitwear range look either considered or chaotic. It is also where inexperienced buyers lose the most money — partly through colours that do not sell, and partly through dyelot minimums that turn a small order into a large one. Here is how to build a colour range that sells and still respects production reality.

The Structural Split: 60/30/10

A commercial knitwear colour range is not a mood board. It is a portfolio with a job for each colour:

The 60% carries your sell-through. The 30% makes the range feel current. The 10% creates the image — and is the colour you should produce least of, because statement colours have the highest markdown risk.

Neutrals Are Not Boring, They Are Bankable

New brands consistently underweight neutrals because neutrals feel uncreative. Then they discover that black and cream sell at full price through the entire season while a bold seasonal colour sells at full price for six weeks and at 40% off thereafter.

The discipline: carry your neutrals forward season after season. A camel that sold through becomes a permanent line item, not a re-invention each season. This also gives you a production advantage — see the dyelot point below.

The Dyeing Constraints Nobody Mentions

Colour choices are limited by production reality, and knowing these limits early prevents a beautiful range that cannot be made economically:

• Dyelot minimums. Yarn is dyed in minimum batches, often measured in tens to hundreds of kilograms per colour. A colour you plan for 40 pieces may require a dyelot that covers 200.
• Stock shades are cheaper and faster. Mill stock colours avoid a custom dye run entirely, which matters most at low volume.
• Colour behaves differently by fibre. A shade that reads correctly in cotton may shift in wool, and cashmere takes dye differently again. This is why a lab dip exists.
• Dark saturated shades hide inconsistencies better than pale pastels, which show every variation.

Practical implication: if you are ordering low volume, pick from stock shades for your secondary colours and reserve custom dyeing for your core neutrals where the dyelot will actually be consumed.

Colour Approval Workflow

Get this sequence right and you avoid the classic mid-production colour dispute:

1. Specify Pantone TCX references in the tech pack — never colour names alone.

2. Request lab dips for each colour from the actual yarn to be used.

3. Approve in daylight, not under factory lighting. Keep the approved dip as the standard.

4. Reference the approved dip in the contract so bulk is measured against it.

5. Check bulk against the approved dip at inspection, not just against the printed reference.

Reading Colour Performance

Post-season, review each colour by sell-through, not by how much you liked it:

• Full-price sell-through rate — the ranking that matters
• Markdown depth required — a colour that sold out at 40% off did not succeed
• Return rate — some colours carry higher return rates for fit-perception reasons
• Reorder demand — a colour buyers ask to repeat is a carry-over candidate

Three seasons of this data turns colour planning from intuition into a system.

FAQ

How many colours should a small knitwear collection have?

For a first range of two to four styles, a workable structure is three to five colours: two or three carry-over neutrals, one seasonal core, and at most one accent. More colours at low volume multiplies dyelot minimums and markdown risk.

What is the 60/30/10 rule in colour planning?

Roughly 60% of your buy in carry-over neutrals, 30% in seasonal core colours, and 10% in a statement accent. The split balances reliable sell-through with seasonal relevance and limits exposure on the highest-risk colour.

Why do factories charge more for custom colours?

Because yarn must be dyed in minimum batches. A custom colour requires a full dyelot even if your order is small, so the cost of that dyelot is spread across fewer garments. Choosing a mill stock shade avoids the custom dye run entirely.

Do I need a lab dip for every colour?

Yes, for every custom colour and any colour where the fibre differs from your reference. Lab dips are inexpensive or free and are the only reliable way to see how a shade behaves in the actual yarn before bulk dyeing commits the whole order.

Sources

• Textile colour reference standard (Pantone TCX) and fibre dyeing behaviour
• Knitwear yarn dyelot minimum and stock shade practice, Dalang (Dongguan) cluster (2026)

The Bottom Line

A colour range is a portfolio, not a palette. Weight it toward bankable neutrals, spend your accent budget on one statement colour, choose stock shades where volume is small, and approve every colour through a lab dip read in daylight. Then let sell-through data — not preference — decide what carries forward.

LINFAIR supports lab dips, stock shade matching and custom dyeing from Dalang, Dongguan, with colour approval through photo and video review before bulk. Send us your colour references and we will confirm what is achievable at your volume.