Posts filed under 'Embroidery'
Karen Davidson, great-granddaughter of Harley-Davidson co-founder William A. Davidson is creative director of general merchandise for Harley-Davidson and supervises design for the company’s two decade old MotorClothes division. Since 1947, when the first Harley leather jackets appeared, the biker ‘uniform’ of black leather jacket, jeans and T-shirt has been a classic, but now things are changing – the traditional ‘leather’ has been joined by leather treated to be water resistant, and even by cottons and synthetic materials.
As bikers have aged, they have also wanted more from their clothing, like shirts that work on the bike and in the office too. And the customer mix has changed: men purchase about 60% of the clothing and women buy 40%. This has meant creating brighter colours and new styles along the classic lines. Pink leather jackets were introduced a couple years ago and fitted Harley T-shirts are a big seller. Now the line is expanding again to include grommets and appliqués to personalise both T-shirts and jackets.
Harley-Davidson T-shirt courtesy of jorgemejia
August 1st, 2008
Military and heraldic embroidery might seem a long way away from modern clothing, but although its history is ancient, the art is fully up to date. One family of embroiderers (called bullion workers because their embroidery took place with golden thread, actually silk woven with genuine gold bullion) came to England in 1767. They were originally Huguenot refugees from Flanders who’d learned their skills in entourage of Catherine de Medicis, when she married into the French court in the 16th century.
In this period heraldic art was used to show the pomp and power of the wearer - garments trimmed with gold lace and embroidery show the rank and achievements of the person they fitted. The family’s name was Hand. The business continued and thrived, moving into embroidery for wedding dresses and stage costumes too. By 2001, M. Hand, merged with the Lock firm of embroiders to form a business that focuses on military, fashion and couture embroidery.
Today you can actually tour the Hand and Lock showrooms and see hand embroidery with genuine gold thread take place in front of you – it’s an astonishing sight. Their embroidery is sent around the world and appears on everything from the dresses worn on stage by Celine Dion to the crests and emblems worn by Princes William and Harry, and other officers, on dress parade.
Although it might sound far removed from daily life, most of us absorb the impressions of crests and emblems every day, although they probably aren’t hand-embroidered from pure gold! Every school blazer carries a crest, every police department has an emblem along with its shield, every soldier bears his rank, and company along with other insignia and the first thing we do when a meter reader knocks on our door is ask to see his or her ID – which will have a crest or emblem on it! Embroidery on workwear is usually machine embroidered now, which makes it a lot cheaper than Hand and Lock’s output (here’s a clue, they still price their products in guineas, never a sign of something cheap) but still gives the same impression of officialdom, history and heritage.
Workwear insignia courtesy of connor365
June 24th, 2008
Heathrow is in the news again. Not, not another Terminal 5 debacle, just a T-shirt one. A young man travelling through the airport (that is, in transit) was stopped and questioned about his T-shirt which bore an image of Megatron who was armed with a gun.
Well yes, Megatron is a cartoon robot from another planet and featured in the cult TV series (and later, film) Transformers. So the picture was of a fictional cartoon robot with a gun for an arm. Hardly an incitement to terrorism, or even a blueprint for terror (’first find your evil alien robot planet, then recruit your evil alien robot …’ doesn’t really work, does it?) But even so, Heathrow security didn’t like the T-shirt and made the passenger put on a different one, saying they would arrest him if he put it back on.
Meanwhile, Police officers in Geneva are red-faced about their promotional activities! They commissioned 500 T-shirts and 250 caps to feature the Geneva police and Euro 2008 logos – an order total of around £5,000 – which they were selling to raise funds and promote their role in policing the highly publicised event. But their colleagues from the anti-fraud unit investigated the company that provided the T-shirts and discovered it didn’t have permission from UEFA to use the tournament logo!
The city police had to withdraw their items from public sale and are waiting to hear from UEFA before deciding what to do with the garments.
Megatron courtesy of Simon Davison
June 6th, 2008
In Botswana the Francistown Voice newspaper has launched a ground-breaking campaign to destroy the silence and shame that surround the spread of HIV and AIDS in Africa. The Voice is challenging its readers to undergo an HIV test, whether or not they think they are at risk of the disease, to show unity in the battle against HIV and AIDS. As a reward for undergoing the process of testing, everybody who comes forward for the test will be featured in the paper, allowing them to pass on their own views about HIV and AIDS and will be given the a special T-shirt as a token of appreciation from the newspaper and its partners. The T-shirts will bear a special (yet to be decided) message on the front and back, along with the red ribbon that is recognized worldwide as the HIV symbol.
The project follows the successful launch of Botswana’s HIV and AIDS policy in the workplace, which guides journalists when reporting on HIV and AIDS, and aims to avoid stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV&AIDS.
Meanwhile, in Adelaide, the most expensive T-shirt in Australia has been unveiled at $1000. The skull print T-shirt has been imported, of course, and originated with Canadian label Dom Rebel. It’s sprinkled 1080 handset Swarovski crystals. Sort of like a portable Damien Hirst skull then except that one cost £50 million … even so, it’s quite a jump from the cost of an average Australian T-shirt - between $25 and $80, but the boutique that has purchased the shirt for retail is confident that it will sell. Or, as one of the boutique owners put it, ‘Our males shop just as much as girls and we are becoming more like Melbourne guys.’
May 20th, 2008
Hand Embroidery
Originally embroidery was undertaken by hand and, in many cultures, it was work undertaken by women. Some of the most famous Western embroidery is religious, and can be found in the clothing and church decorations used in traditional religions. In India, sequins and beads are added to the design. Such work has always been expensive and reserved for the richest and most powerful members of society – Henry VIII had bed hangings, cushions for the royal barge and ‘hose’ (stockings) all embroidered with his favourite symbols and his monogram – and he used the same symbols with different monograms for stained glass windows in his palaces – the first monarch to ‘brand’ himself! He gave many of his craftsmen a headache though; each time he married a new wife, the poor men who made the windows had to take out the monogram and replace it with the initials of the most recent bride!
Direct embroidery
Direct embroidery is performed onto the fabric with the help of computerised machinery which gives a professional long-lasting appearance to the design and is equally suitable for text or logos. To give a perfect result, the logo has to be redrawn manually into a format that the embroidery machine can ‘read’ – this process is called digitisation. It allows for any kind of logo, but especially plain text in simple fonts to be converted to crisp, elegant designs that are easily legible on clothing and match the colours of your brand logo. Direct embroidery is hard-wearing and can be washed regularly without losing its shape or hues.
Embroidered white coats courtesy of cesarastudillo
February 19th, 2008
In one of the David and Goliath battles that are becoming increasingly common as brands globalise, French fashion house Lacoste has lost a court battle against a Gloucestershire dental practice, after arguing in court that the surgery’s use of a crocodile logo was too similar to the famous trademark found on its shirts, T-shirts and other merchandise.
The case was first heard in May, when a judge ruled in favour of dentists Tim Rumney and Simon Moore. Lacoste appealed and the case was heard again by a judge at the Intellection Property Office in London – heard, and rejected.
Responding to the appeal, the judge said it was unlikely for consumers to be confused by the logo. “Dental services are so different to clothing that the average customer of goods or services in question, who is reasonably well informed and reasonably observant and circumspect, would not make that mistake”.
Lacoste was ordered to pay £1,000 towards the dental practice’s legal fees after the initial hearing and must now pay a further £450 towards the costs of the second.
This kind of protection of copyright image, often seen as ‘bullying’ by smaller firms or individuals who are told they have infringed a major ‘mark’ will almost certainly increase in the future, because large companies have often been allowed a very wide latitude in copyright – Lacoste, for example, seemed to believe that any cartoon crocodile infringed their mark, which would mean nobody could draw crocodiles at all!
Lacoste logo by Bludgeoner86
January 4th, 2008
If you’re thinking about giving monogrammed gifts for Christmas, you need to get your orders in fast – there’s barely enough time to get goods back to you in time. Perhaps your preference is for a slogan? Same thing applies, order now if you don’t want to have empty hands on Christmas Day. Some of the most interesting monogrammed items around at present are nappy bags with the monogram of the DAD on them, to tell him that he is equally responsible for those nappy change moments!
If you have elderly friends or relatives who are in hospital, or care homes, why not give them monogrammed clothing? It can always be got back to them through the laundry system as it has their name on, and if they have Alzheimer’s Disease, something with their name clearly printed on it can be a great boon to them, as well as to visitors.
If you want to monogram children’s clothing, bear one thing in mind – initials are best. Strangers can hardly approach a child by reading his or her initials, but they can if you use the full name or nickname on clothing … better to be safe than sorry.
A very popular present is to have a bowling or darts teams shirts monogrammed with the team name – think about this at home, with a ‘window cleaner’ T-shirt for Dad and a ‘Sunday lunch’ one for Mum etc. It’s a lot of fun for very little money. And even the dog can have a monogrammed item …
monogrammed dog by ninjapoodles
