Journey
Set up as a textiles, clothing or leather manufacturer
Learning path for new textile, clothing and leather or footwear manufacturers. Get your products correctly labelled and safe to place on the GB market, set up environmental permits and effluent controls if you dye, finish or tan, check restricted and protected materials under UK REACH and CITES, and verify everything with a compliance checklist.
What this journey is for
Making textiles, clothing, leather or footwear means you are taking on the role of a manufacturer in the eyes of UK product-safety and environmental law. Before your first product reaches a customer, you become responsible for proving it is labelled correctly and safe to sell, and — if you dye, finish or tan — for getting the right consents in place before you start. This journey walks you through that path in the order you will live it, from getting your products market-ready through to checking you have everything in place.
It does not give you the step-by-step instructions or the figures — those live in the guides it points to. It tells you where you are, why each stage matters, and which guide to open next.
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Get your products labelled and safe to place on the market
This step comes before you sell anything. Whatever you make — fabric, garments, footwear or leather goods — you have to be able to show it is correctly labelled and meets the safety rules that apply before it goes on sale. Fibre and footwear labelling, nightwear flammability, personal protective equipment conformity and general product safety all sit here. Getting this picture right at the start saves you from discovering a missed obligation late, when stock is already made and expensive to fix. It also helps you decide, honestly, whether your product is ready for sale or needs more work first.
Label and place textiles, clothing and footwear on the GB market
Get your products labelled and safe to place on the market. Fibre and footwear labelling, nightwear flammability, PPE conformity and general product safety — what every textile, clothing and footwear maker must do before sale.
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Set up environmental permits and effluent controls
This step applies only to makers who run wet processes — if you dye or finish textiles, or tan leather, you need the right environmental permits and trade-effluent consent in place before you start those processes. If you do not dye, finish or tan, you can move past this step. For everyone who does, this is the stage with the longest lead times. Arrange the consents at the outset rather than leaving them until launch.
Environmental permits and effluent controls for textile finishing and leather tanning
Set up environmental permits and effluent controls. If you dye or finish textiles or tan leather, you need permits and trade-effluent consent before you start the wet processes.
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Check restricted and protected materials
What you make and sell is shaped by what it is made of. The substances in your dyes, finishes and leather are governed by chemicals rules. Any endangered-species materials you use are governed by rules on protected species. These materials questions run through everything you produce. It pays to understand them before you commit to a design or a supplier. A restricted substance or a protected material discovered late can force you to redesign or re-source. Build these checks into how you choose materials rather than treating them as an afterthought.
Restricted and protected materials: UK REACH and CITES for textiles and leather
Check restricted and protected materials. The substances in your dyes, finishes and leather under UK REACH, and any endangered-species materials under CITES, determine what you can lawfully make and sell.
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Verify you have covered everything
Once the moving parts are in motion, take a step back and check the whole picture holds together. A compliance checklist lets you confirm, in one place, that each obligation is genuinely met rather than assumed. Use it as your readiness review before launch. Come back to it as your range changes — your obligations can shift as you add new products, materials or processes.
Textiles, clothing and leather manufacturer: compliance checklist
Verify you have covered everything with the compliance checklist before launch and as your range changes, so you can confirm you are ready to sell and stay compliant as you grow.
You will also need the general business set-up duties
Alongside the sector-specific path above, every manufacturing business carries a set of general obligations that are not unique to this sector but are just as compulsory. As you build the business you will also need to:
- protect the people who work for you — meet your workplace health and safety duties, including the assessments and controls that apply where you handle substances and use machinery. See the workplace health and safety legal obligations guide.
- hold employers' liability insurance once you take anyone on. See the employers' liability insurance guide.
- handle personal data lawfully — most businesses must complete data protection registration with the ICO. See the register with the ICO guide.
- meet your fire safety duties for the premises you work from, including the fire risk assessment that applies to your workplace. See the fire safety responsibilities guide.
If you make upholstered or filled textile furnishings, you take on additional furniture fire-safety duties beyond the product rules above. Follow the furniture-sector guidance for what those involve. These general duties run in parallel with the sector path rather than after it, so set them up as you establish the business.
Where this leaves you
You now have the shape of the whole task. Get your products labelled and safe to place on the market, set up environmental permits and effluent controls if you dye, finish or tan, check your restricted and protected materials, and verify the lot. All this happens alongside putting the general business set-up obligations in place around it. Work the four guides in order and you will have a clear, defensible position from your first product launch onwards.