Last week, a collar was literally being sewn when a customer email came in.
She had ordered a martingale collar and realized she forgot to add a buckle upgrade. In many manufacturing environments, that kind of change would mean canceling the order, submitting a ticket, or waiting for the next production run. In our case, it meant walking across the hall to the sewing room at the Refugee Collective and saying, “Hey, can we add a buckle to this one before it goes out?”
The buckle was added, and the order was packed up and shipped it that same day. Those kinds of moments capture our manufacturing process pretty well.
When people think of manufacturing, they often picture giant warehouses, endless shelves of inventory, and products arriving by the container-load. And while that’s one version of manufacturing, it’s very different from the way many small businesses operate — especially businesses producing locally and in small batches.
A lot of our products are made to order, or produced in very small runs. We don’t keep every possible color combination and size sitting in a warehouse ready to ship. Many pieces are made specifically for each order, and we love the moments when customers realize there are actual humans cutting, sewing, and assembling their dog’s gear in real time.
With our collars alone, we carry multiple webbing widths, dozens of colors, multiple hardware finishes, and several product styles. Once you add custom sizing and color combinations, the number of possible variations gets very large very quickly.
Instead of keeping every variation pre-made, we focus heavily on keeping the supplies ready for production. If we have the materials on hand, we can move quickly.
That approach comes from necessity as much as philosophy. We started Major Darling without outside funding, which meant we had to be extremely intentional about inventory. Large production runs tie up huge amounts of cash and often create waste when products don’t sell exactly as expected. Small-batch production gave us flexibility, which ended up shaping almost everything about how we operate.
Our products are sewn locally through our long-time manufacturing partnership with the Refugee Collective, whose sewing room is in the same building as our studio. That proximity completely changes how we work day to day. Communication usually looks less like emails and more like walking over to a sewing machine to ask a question while a product is being made. If we have materials on hand, we can often prototype or revise something the same day.
Before starting Major Darling, I worked in furniture design, and one thing I learned very quickly in that world was that domestic manufacturing and overseas manufacturing are often optimized for completely different things. Large-scale overseas manufacturing is incredibly efficient at producing huge quantities consistently. Domestic manufacturing at a smaller scale tends to work better when you need quick changes, customization, or smaller runs.
That philosophy carried over directly into Major Darling.
Many of the things we offer — custom sizing, unusual color combinations, made-to-order products, small retailer runs, rush orders, private label collaborations — simply wouldn’t function the same way in a massive production system.
One of the least glamorous but most important parts of running a small manufacturing business is inventory tracking. We’ve gradually evolved our weekly production sheets over the years from a basic list of what needed to be sewn into something much more detailed and collaborative. We added reference photos to help communicate designs clearly and color-coded hardware categories so the system was easier for everyone on the team to use regardless of language barriers. Like most systems in small manufacturing environments, they evolved collaboratively over time based on real-world use. Eventually, we built out spreadsheets that automatically calculate how much hardware is needed each week and track when we’re running low on components.
Once you have a spreadsheet automatically warning you that you’re about to run out of 1” brass D-rings without paying for expensive inventory software, you feel like you’ve really accomplished something.
But there’s also something deeply satisfying about seeing systems evolve alongside the products themselves.
Most new products at Major Darling still begin with me physically making them first. I tweak proportions, test details, and revise things repeatedly before they ever move into production. Even small adjustments can completely change how a product feels. When we introduced smaller sizes of our wide martingale collars, I made several versions that just didn’t feel quite right before finally landing on the proportions that worked.
That process takes time, but it also creates products that feel thoughtfully refined rather than rushed to market.
Sometimes mistakes even turn into new ideas.
Our recent Pink Lemonade collection actually began because we accidentally ordered the wrong color of webbing. Instead of treating it like a disaster, we leaned into it and turned it into a limited-run collection. Customers loved it. For a moment, it was tempting to permanently add another color into our already complicated inventory system, but ultimately we decided to keep it limited edition. That’s another reality of small-batch manufacturing: every new variation adds complexity behind the scenes… additional inventory to stock and track, storage, planning, and website updates.
None of this is meant as a complaint. In many ways, this is exactly what I love about producing locally and at a human scale.
There’s something incredibly rewarding about being closely connected to the making process — watching products move from raw materials into finished pieces just a few feet away, collaborating daily with a team we’ve worked alongside for years, solving problems in real time, and building systems that can stay flexible as the business grows.
Small-batch manufacturing isn’t always the fastest or easiest path. It requires constant balancing, careful planning, and a willingness to adapt. But it also allows us to create products in a way that feels personal, responsive, and intentional.
And sometimes, it means a collar already being sewn can still make it into the mail that same afternoon with the exact buckle a customer hoped for.