Embroidery, printing, sublimation, and leather patches — all four run in-house at our factories in China and Cambodia, from 150 pieces per SKU.
Custom hat manufacturing covers the four decoration techniques that turn a plain hat into a branded one: embroidery, printing, sublimation, and leather patches. Jiuwang — Zhejiang Jiuwang Flax Century Technology Co., Ltd., founded in 1987 — runs all four in-house at our factories in Wenling, Zhejiang and Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Minimums start at 150 pieces per SKU, first samples ship in 5–7 working days, and this page explains which technique suits which hat, what artwork files we need, and how to prepare a tech pack that gets sampled right the first time.
The short version: embroidery for fabric and tight weaves, printing for flat panels and ribbons, sublimation for polyester, and leather patches for everything the needle and the ink can't handle.
Fabric hats, tight paper braid, ribbon bands, sweatbands
Skip it onOpen weaves: raffia, crochet, loose braid
Flat fabric panels, underbrims, ribbons, linings
Skip it onUneven straw surfaces
Polyester fabrics, ribbons, and linings in light colors
Skip it onNatural fibers, dark grounds
Open-weave straw, felt, braid, fabric — nearly anything
Skip it onVery fine hats where patch weight distorts the crown
We build with 17 natural, synthetic, and paper fibers — the full list is on our materials page — and the fiber decides the decoration more often than the logo does. Bring us the artwork and the hat style, and we will tell you on the first call which of the four routes will survive production.
Embroidery is the default for most B2B hat programs, and for good reason: thread outlasts ink, reads as premium at retail, and handles curved surfaces without distortion. On our lines it goes onto fabric bucket hats and 6-panel styles, onto tightly woven paper braid crowns, and onto ribbon bands and inner sweatbands where a small woven logo does quiet work.
The limitation is the weave. Raffia, crochet, and loose braid constructions are full of air — stitches sink into the gaps, needle perforation weakens the strand, and the result looks worse after one season of wear. When a buyer wants embroidery on an open weave, we recommend one of two detours: an embroidered patch sewn onto the crown, or a leather patch instead. Both survive; direct stitching does not.
150 pieces per SKU
Vector files (AI, EPS, or PDF) with Pantone Solid Coated codes for each thread color. If your design is already digitized, send the DST file and we run it as-is; threads are matched to your Pantone references during sampling.
First embroidered sample in 5–7 working days; revisions in 3–7 working days.
Printing wins where the design has fine lines, halftones, or more colors than thread can carry economically. We run screen printing for spot-color work — inks mixed to Pantone — and heat transfer for multi-color or photographic detail on assembled hats where a screen can't reach.
The natural homes for print on a hat are the flat surfaces: fabric panels on bucket hats, underbrims — a printed underbrim is one of the most photographed details in current hat retail — ribbon bands, and interior linings where a brand story or care message lives. What print does not like is texture. Straw and braid surfaces are ridged, and ink bridges the ridges unevenly — so on woven hats we print the ribbon or attach a printed twill label rather than fight the surface.
150 pieces per SKU
Vector AI, EPS, or PDF for logos and type; raster elements at 300 dpi at final print size; Pantone Solid Coated codes for every spot color.
Printed strike-offs and a full sample in 5–7 working days; revisions in 3–7 working days.
Sublimation is chemistry, not coating. The dye turns to gas under heat and bonds inside polyester fiber, which means the print has zero hand-feel, will not crack or peel, and can run edge-to-edge — all-over patterns, gradients, photographic art. If your design covers the whole hat rather than sitting on it, this is the technique.
The same chemistry sets the boundaries. Sublimation only bonds to polyester and high-polyester blends, so it is off the table for the natural fibers that make up much of our straw and braid range — paper, raffia, wheat, and their cousins. It also needs a white or light ground, because the process adds dye rather than opaque ink. In practice we sublimate polyester bucket hats and sport styles, polyester ribbons and hatbands on natural-fiber hats, and interior linings — a full-color lining inside a plain raffia fedora is a trick several of our fashion clients use to make an unboxing feel expensive.
150 pieces per SKU
Raster art at 300 dpi at full output size; logos and type as vector. Supply Pantone references for critical brand colors — sublimation's color range differs from ink on paper, so we confirm achievable matches on the press during sampling.
First sample in 5–7 working days; revisions in 3–7 working days.
A leather patch is the answer to the question every straw-hat buyer eventually asks: how do you brand a hat that can't be stitched or printed? The patch carries the decoration, and the hat only has to carry the patch. We sew genuine leather and PU (vegan) leather patches onto raffia, seagrass, crochet, loose braid, felt, and fabric styles — debossed, embossed, or printed with your mark.
Debossing gives the deep, tactile logo that reads well on camera and ages gracefully; printing on leather allows color. For open weaves we back the patch placement so stitching pulls against reinforcement rather than bare strands. Buyers with restricted substance lists usually specify PU — we run OEKO-TEX-compliant options, and our certifications (BSCI, ISO 9001, ISO 14001, WRAP, and Sedex among them) cover the factories doing the sewing.
150 pieces per SKU
Vector line art (AI, EPS, or PDF). A standard deboss is single-level, so flatten gradients into line work, and specify patch shape, size, and placement in millimeters.
Patch tooling plus a sewn sample in 5–7 working days; revisions in 3–7 working days.
The programs that sample right on the first pass share one habit: a complete tech pack. Email us at info@cn-hat.com for our tech pack checklist, and see our OEM/ODM process guide for what happens after you send it. A good hat tech pack contains:
Send it over and you will get a quote valid for 30 days, a first sample in 5–7 working days, and bulk production typically in 30 days — around 45 in peak season.
Send your artwork and target styles — we reply within 24 hours.
Talk to Us →