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When you see celebrities getting off a plane, they never look like the shambling dishevelled wrecks we are when we fly. Going first class helps, but celebs are also clever about what they wear on flights. Boldy printed T-shirts are a top choice for two reasons:
1. You can dress them up or down
2. They are easy to transport
And a third reason, that might not matter to Paris Hilton or Victoria Beckham, but does to the average traveller – they are economical to buy and clean.
There’s really only one downside – T-shirts do tend to wrinkle. Here’s how to get rid of the creases before wearing a T-shirt when you don’t have an iron handy:
1. Put your T-shirt in a tumble dryer with a slightly damp towel – after fifteen minutes the towel will be dry and the shirt free of wrinkles
2. No tumble dryer? Hang your T-shirt on the shower rail and run the shower as hot as it goes – after a few minutes the creases will drop from the T-shirt. If your wrinkled garment is a screenprinted T-shirt remember to turn it inside out before putting in the tumble-dryer to prolong its life.
3. No shower? How about this – dampen the most wrinkled parts of the garment, and then dry them using a hair dryer set on medium – put your hand between the front and back of the T-shirt to allow the air to circulate faster – this literally blasts the creases away.
Polo shirts can also be perked up using this method, especially if they are the 50/50 cotton/polyester polo-shirts which tend not to crease anyway. In winter, heavyweight sweatshirts have the same appeal, but if you want to wear one that you’ve packed for a flight, don’t fold it in your carry-on bag, instead, roll it up with the sleeves crossed over the front – that way you don’t get any square creases that are obvious when you wear it.
The England team have revealed their new 2010 World Cup strip, which is based on the 1966 World Cup winning shirt. It’s a red jersey with the standard Three Lions logo which has above it a raised red embroidered star, to celebrate England’s one World Cup victory.
Using embroidery in this way is a classic style that adds intricacy without making a garment look too fussy. Standard uses for embroidery include:
Promotional wear – like the England strip described above. Because embroidery has a long pedigree, it carries echoes of tradition and ceremony. But as contemporary embroidery is designed and carried out using computer technology, there is no limit to the size, shape and colour of the text that can be sewn to a garment and still be legible.
Brand images – company logos and monograms are commonly used on work clothing – where a personalised uniform may carry the staff member’s name as well as the company logo.
Monogramming – famously, young women embroidered their initials on sheets and pillowcases in their ‘hope’ chests and then, when they found a husband, rushed to add his initials to their monogram before the wedding. Today monogramming is seen on everything from plush towels in a spa through to the pockets of the smart shirts worn by City traders.
Embroidery is one of the most durable ways to decorate clothing, as well as being one of the most impressive looking, which is probably why the England designers have chosen to embroider the single red star, for the 1966 win, so elegantly over the England symbol on the football shirts they hope will be worn in another victorious final.
Most of us are familiar with the kind of promotional clothing used by fun runs and other events, like concerts. Right now the internet is packed with a variety of T-shirts that have been designed to raise funds for the victims of the Haiti earthquake. But many items of promotional clothing, like printed or embroidered T-shirts, have more value than just their fund-raising potential.
• First, these items of clothing commemorate an event or person – this gives them a sentimental value.
• Second, if they are well-designed garments, they also have a chance of developing ‘collector’ status – this is where something that was designed to recognised a current event ends up becoming a nostalgic emblem.
• Third, items like embroidered caps or printed messenger bags have recently developed cult status: this happens when the design is iconic and much copied, but the original item is coveted for its rarity and brand status.
A business can’t necessarily aim to develop these kinds of value in their clothing, but it can always aim to choose designs, colours, styles and qualities of clothing that might help it achieve added value in its chosen staff uniform or promotional clothing.
2012 means Summer Olympics, for the UK at least. Sports clothing retailer JJB is relying on the Olympic boost to pull it out of a slump, in part by appointing four times Olympic Gold winner Sir Matthew Pinsent as anNon-executive director.
But all businesses, not just sports retailers, can benefit from the ‘Olympic effect’. Choosing to invest in the buzz that comes from the Olympics is a good way of building teams and creating new energy in your business. There are two ways of doing this:
1 – picking champions
You may already have sports-people in your organisation – at a much lower level than the Olympic standard. But investing in them and setting up support systems can encourage all your staff to see that you believe in their talents and personal development. Companies can do this by:
1. Sponsoring a local event like a fun run, or a youth football team, or offering to pay for branded sports clothing for an amateur sports team, whether they are darts players or netballers.
2. Getting staff involved in supporting a local football or other team by organising visits to watch matches and investing in promotional clothing that says ‘X business is supporting Y team’ which can be worn in the workplace.
3. Funding a skills development day for local sports people – bringing in a trainer to help sporty types to improve their performance and setting up a stall about your business and what it has to offer alongside the sports work.
2 – making champions
Getting an entire business involved in healthy activity can sound impossible, but if you make active life part of the personal development of all your staff, it bring rewards because they take less time off, have more energy and a great team spirit. Companies can do this by:
1. Picking a range of sports: swimming, running and a ball sport are the best options, and offering staff a range of ways of engaging with them. Some companies offer an extra half hour lunchbreak once a week for people who go to the local pool and swim during that time. Others set up after work ball games and provide printed T-shirts and sporting equipment for staff to take to the local park.
4. Some businesses sponsor a charity and get all employees involved in a fun run or sponsored walk with special motivational branded clothing that links the business to the good cause and creates recognition in the public of the way the company is supporting the local community.
Clothing carries a lot of social symbology – the hoodie, reviled as the clothing choice of anti-social youth, is also the garment of choice for the boxing fraternity, in fact it’s hard to find a picture of Amir Khan clothed, where he’s wearing anything else!
T-shirts are seen as the casual clothing chosen by those who are relaxed and out to have a good time, which is why Durham City Council has chosen them as a reward for good behaviour over Christmas. When drinkers in city pubs by food or a non-alcoholic drink, they are being offered a black T-shirt with an image that resembles a rock band logo, saying Best Bar None, and the hope is that it will cut alcohol related crime by reducing binge drinking. Carol Feenan, Durham County Council Best Bar None Manager, said, ‘The free T-shirts are proving extremely popular amongst both customers and staff alike.’
So if clothing carries such strong images, what does your company’s uniform say about you? Would a new style polo-shirt improve your image of efficiency and calm, or perhaps smarter shirts with an embroidered monogram would help create the air of upmarket service that you wish to convey? Maybe your casual friendly attitude would be better conveyed by a slimline fleece than your current bulky jackets? Choosing uniforms that convey the right social symbology can really help your business generate the right impression.
This week a trio of celebrities: choreographer Arlene Phillips, girlfriend of Arsenal star Theo Walcott – Melanie Slade, and fashion designer Tracey Boyd, revealed their take on classic white T-shirts.
Their designs are part of the Race for Life 2010 collection – raising money for Cancer Research UK. Always a summer wardrobe necessity the collection of white t-shirts comprises three very different styles which will earn money for the charity.
This kind of celebrity/charity tie-in is high profile, but it’s easy for a small business to develop a similar public profile – why not ask a local school or design students from a local college to create a T-shirt for your staff to wear for a sales promotion? Run it like a TV competition, with T-shirt face-offs where the designs are modelled by local dance and drama students, and a voting system and involve the local press in publicising it. You can give the winning T-shirt designer a prize and make a donation to a local charity of their choice to further increase your public profile. Then get the most popular T-shirts printed and worn by your team, it’s a positive investment in your business and a boost to local talent too.
The California-based Hoelzer Reich apparel company has been banned from sponsoring fighters at future UFC and WEC (cage and martial arts fights) events in the UK. Concerns were raised over the company’s “German-themed” apparel worn by fighters as they entered the ring – the symbols used on a shirt worn by a boxer at the weekend appeared to resemble the Iron Cross and a logo closely resembling the SS emblem.
One problem is that such symbology is obviously offensive to many people and using it unintentionally on corporate clothing, or as part of a uniform, could mean a disastrous PR result.
Another problem is that designers, especially young ones, tend to like to work with edgy, provocative material, while businesses trying to build respect and loyalty want solid, respectful symbolism – a lightning flash on a polo-shirt collar might look like it represents speed to the designer, but to the general public it can look very much like a Nazi SS reference.
This is why it’s important, when designing corporate clothing, promotional T-shirts or uniforms, to do some product testing with the workforce and with the public. This can also be a great way to get good publicity – select a short list of designs and ask your customers to vote on which polo-shirt they think your staff would look best in, or offer them a range of T-shirt designs to pick from and give the person who manages to put them in the same preference order as your CEO a prize. While the publicity is good, what’s even better is that you don’t make any mistakes about logos or symbols that then come back to bite you.
We all know that branding and sponsorship go hand in hand, and that the world’s sporting stars are so heavily branded and sponsored it’s amazing they can stay upright under the weight of all the decals and logos. So how can you get some of this action for yourself?
Look for local opportunities. One small local firm sponsors branded aprons for the children at a local primary school to wear during arts and domestic science activities. Every year the best artist and best cook are celebrated in a school assembly where their names are added to a school cup and they are given special T-shirts to wear during the classes, to commemorate their success. It brings great local brand recognition, helps support local education, and results in local news coverage every year when the presentation is made.
Run competitions. A sandwich delivery firm runs regular ‘invent the sarnie’ competitions for its customers. The best sandwich filling is made, a free sandwich with that filling is given to the winning customer every day for a week and he or she is filmed in a company branded hat and T-shirt eating their winnings! Again, this results in good local press coverage, with details of the competition being announced on local radio each time it’s run, and it builds customer loyalty.
This kind of sponsorship may not be quite as good as having Jensen Button on your team, but the rewards can be substantial.
It’s not just catwalk models and footballers who can earn a fortune wearing T-shirts. Jason Sadler of Florida, has found a way to earn money and promote his Iwearyourshirt.com business.
The concept was very simple – he decided that he would wear a different T-shirt every day for 365 days starting on 1 January 2009. The first T-shirt he would wear he would wear for just a dollar from the supplier, the second day’s T-shirt would ‘cost’ 2 dollars (plus a free T-shirt of course) and so on until the end of the year when he would earn $365 for his 31 December T-shirt.
Of course there had to be publicity to make his idea work, so he wears the T-shirt all day and his activities: working, shopping, meeting friends, appear on ustream.tv, Twitter, facebook and other social media. Now he’s planning his 2010 ‘living calendar’ and already has advance bookings for 163 days of the year – and he’s doubled his prices!
He says his girlfriend has refused to go out with him on days when he’s wearing a really ugly T-shirt, and that he’s sending his 365 T-shirts from 2009 to an Africa charity.
So how do other businesses convert this idea to their needs – how about getting dogs at a local rehoming shelter to wear your promotional products – each day they are filmed you pay a tiny fee and they feature on Youtube – good for them, good for you, good for business! Or perhaps a local athlete could be persuaded to wear your gear for a year, or maybe a class of school students could wear a T-shirt to destruction by passing it around the class and seeing how many days it could be washed and worn before falling apart … or seem which of them could make their personalised schoolbag last the longest … there are a thousand ways this kind of ‘viral’ approach could be used to promote businesses.
Janet Street Porter has told Femail that she doesn’t ‘feel the need to parade around wearing a wacky T-shirt … to validate my compassion.’ And she says she won’t be ‘dressing down this Friday for PoverTee Day, an event raising funds for ActionAid.’
Fortunately, she’s in the minority and many people find that buying, or designing, a T-shirt is a crucial part of showing their commitment to a good cause, whether it’s helping to fund a charity or to declare support for a great brand or company, or to campaign to keep a local footpath open.
T-shirts are a fantastic promotional tool because they speak, but they are silent. It’s a shame that Paul O’Grady and Alan Titchmarsh didn’t know that, because then they wouldn’t have had their knuckles rapped by OFCOM whose most recent judgement found them both to have promoted and given undue prominence to certain products.
In the UK this activity, called product placement, is forbidden on TV programmes. And yet, as long as the message isn’t abusive in some way, you can wear a T-shirt on TV, saying anything you like, and nobody will turn a hair. Clever marketers will take note and get their T-shirts worn by people who turn up in the local and national media – it’s a guaranteed way to get yourself on the telly!
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Customised Uniforms | Promotional Clothing | Embroidered Polo Shirts | Printed T-Shirts | Embroidered Shirts | Personalised Sweatshirts | Promotional Fleeces | Embroidered Clothing | Screen Printed Clothing
Transfer and Cad Cut Printed Clothing | T-Shirt Printing | Cheap Clothes