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Its that time of that year when parents either wave teary-eyed as their little one trots off for their first day back at school or, as my parents will tell you, claw their reluctant child off the backseat of the car so they can finally have 5 minutes of peace. Each year parents have to go through the military operation of preparing their children for this momentous day. They have to spend more money than ever buying books that won‘t be read, multicoloured felt-tipped pens and most expensive of all, new uniforms. When we are all wanting to save money, can we still justify such expenditure on clothes which children clearly detest and quickly grow out of?
Putting expense to one side, I feel that there are certainly several key benefits to uniforms:
1) Improved discipline: The powerful thing about a uniform is that it immediately places a pupil into a formal environment. Indeed by putting on the uniform itself children have already obeyed the rules of the school, namely that ‘one has to wear a uniform in school‘. It is believed uniforms help teachers to keep control of ever increasing class numbers.
2) Equality: School uniforms stress that individuality and self-expression are not determined by designer clothing or the latest fashion trend, but rather by the individuals’ personal attributes. This goes a long way in helping students to judge people on people’s personalities rather self-esteem and self-worth.
3) School spirit: A uniform identifies a pupil with the school that he or she is attending and could foster a sense of belonging and camaraderie between children.
However with the increased competition between schools, there is more competition to impress future pupils and more importantly their parents. This has made more schools turn to more traditional private school styles of uniform including tie and blazer, rather than the far more economical state school attire.
Does more expense, mean more discipline, equality and self-esteem?
I’m not convinced that this turn to traditionalism is a step to improve children’s educations, but rather that schools have become victims of what their uniforms are designed to prevent. Much like children in the playground who do not have the right shoes, schools are now chastised for not conforming to the ‘in’ uniform trend. However a child’s education is surely determined by the motivation instilled in them by teachers, regardless of whether they are wearing blazers or polo-shirts. By turning to more expensive uniforms, do you think schools are now focussing too much on style rather than substance?
I am the American Dream, Mrs Federline, Brunettes are so hot right now, He loves me
In my opening blog, I made you a promise that I would bring you some inspiration and a bit of fun. Well who better to provide both than Britney Spears! It seems that she is the leading celebrity in wearing printed t-shirts…
Now I know taking fashion advice from a woman who has shaved her head and been booked into a psychiatric ward might seem a little strange but if there is one think this pop princess definitely knows, its how to make a statement. In her life of flashing light bulbs and paparazzi, Britney is well aware of all the stories that the press have been writing about her. When everyone wants a piece of her, its seems she wants her T-shirt to do all the talking for her.
For Britney it seems the best way to get something off your chest, is to get it printed on it. So if you got something bothering you, get it out of your mind and down on fabric! Have a look at our printable t-shirts.
With the econo
my how it is, there is no shame in not having a job at the moment. Most seem to be ‘career planning’, ‘weighing up their options’ or at the very least a ‘freelance facebooker’ (aren‘t we all?!). If only we could we could all invent dream jobs for ourselves!
Enter Jason Sadler or as Fox Business dubbed him ‘Entrepreneur of the Century’. With his salary in excess of $80,000 a year and a job description of ‘wear some printed t-shirts’, I feel that title might just be justified.
‘How the heck does he do it?!’
To put it simply, Jason Sadler’s body is for sale.…well, his torso at least. By putting his chest on sale to any business, charity or freelance facebooker that wants it, he offers to become their living and breathing billboard for one day of the year.
Jason Sadler has managed to create a cost effective marketing strategy which firms are willing to take a risk on. By wearing a promo t-shirt all day and writing about it to his facebook friends and twitter followers, a company’s logo can be exposed to potential customers. Jason even posts videos on youtube and holds webinars via his website (http://iwearyourshirt.com/) to inform people about the company that temporarily owns his chest. With over 17,000 followers on twitter, and 7,000 on facebook, he offers a business a new and innovative solution to social media coverage.
The power of a promo t-shirt has really gone global!
The demand for Sadler’s body and cheeky smile has been so great that he has had to employ someone to help him wear all those t-shirts. Sadler admits that his dream is to have to do nothing at all, but rather pay other people to do all the ‘hard work’ for him. His search for new recruits might be explained by him having to wear printed t-shirt 365 days a year and to any event, including weddings and funerals.
What the case of Jason Sadler proves is that companies are constantly looking for new ways to be innovative with their marketing strategies. By taking the hallmark of many companies PR strategies, the promotional t-shirt, and giving it a fresh twist, has Jason Sadler managed to create a job to make you all green with envy?
The Korea Times has revealed that in Seoul, there are concerns about dress codes in the workplace. A local survey of 578 recruitment officials revealed that complaints about ‘ugly’ workplace clothing are quite different to the ones that might be seen in the West – topping the list of unpopular garments are miniskirts and low-cut dresses!
After that, men wearing V-neck shirts that show their chests are considered the most offensive to colleagues. And third on the list: see-through clothes. Amazing. It’s a whole new insight to the world of Korean offices.
Fourth on the list of unpleasantness: unwashed garments – because they make the place smell bad. Fifth, slippers with bare feet (do they mean sandals, perhaps, or are the Korean office workers actually turning up in their fluffy footwear?) and eighth – sleeveless shirts or dresses.
If this sounds amazingly trendy – don’t forget that Korean Air had its 1990s uniform designed by the late Gianfranco Ferré. And if you get told off for wearing your bunny slippers to work, say they do it in Korea!
At a time when the ‘double dip’ is being talked about as a real possibility, recession-wise, it may seem odd to be advocating a uniform as a money-saving, and maybe even money-earning, measure, but there are four reasons that investing in a staff uniform can save money and may actually boost business.
1. Health and Safety – there are many reasons why wearing a uniform can save a business money and safety is the main one: investing in proper footwear, specially designed clothing such as overalls or aprons and carefully chosen accessories like toolbelts, caps or gloves can mean that there are many fewer accidents which not only means less time off work with injuries but is a major force in avoiding compensation and injury claims from disgruntled employees who’ve harmed themselves in the workplace.
2. Pocket money – literally! These days, when every penny counts, people love to be able to wear a workplace-provided uniform as it means that they don’t have to wear their own clothes in the workplace and that means they save money!
3. Productivity – people wearing uniforms tend to waste less time in the staff toilets, checking themselves out in the mirrors – a US based time and motion study found that uniform wearing retail staff worked, on average, 27 minutes more in a day than those in their own clothing.
4. Team building – when individuals are dressed alike, they become a team – that’s schools give children a vest to pull over their normal clothing when they are playing a team sport. Similarly, when people in the workplace are all dressed alike, even if it’s only the same printed T-shirt, they will identify as a team and be more committed to team goals.
This month an online shopfront with a difference has opened – it’s for Pope Benedict XVI’s September trip to the UK and offers a series of mementoes: an embroidered baseball cap like the one the Pope has been seen wearing himself this summer, keyrings and fridge magnets and a range of T-shirts including one that can be personalised to include the name of the individual’s local church.
Several commentators have remarked on how similar the highly detailed printed T-shirts are to heavy metal designs and colour schemes it’s hoped they will appeal to a wide range of ‘pilgrims’ to help cover the £7 million cost of the visit.
The church is not alone in merchandising for the trip: the National Secular Society also has an online presence offering T-shirts with the slogan ‘Pope Nope’.
If your business is merchandising for an event or promotion, try thinking about how you offer your merchandise – you can use the angle of local identity, perhaps by promoting your locality, alongside your business, offering T-shirts with maps to local parks but including your shop.
Try point of sale branding if you have a physical location too, such as on sunny days giving away a baseball cap with your telephone number on it, or a rain hat or umbrella on rainy days. You can even offer a random prize for people buying in your shop or ringing up, every sixtieth customer, or whatever, can be sent a promotional T-shirt with their order, and you can give unrecognisable information about each winner (eg their first name and initial of surname, to keep within data protection rules) on your website.
The Schoolwear Association is reporting that, once again, children are getting bigger. This year it’s trousers that are in the spotlight, as boys in particular become taller and sizes in specialist stores are now up to 36 inch leg lengths on 30 inch waists.
Trends in uniforms are subtle but vital to kids, who feel left out if they don’t have the ‘new look’ which this year includes waisted blazers for girls and deep coloured polo-shirts for Physical Education lessons.
And a school in Shropshire is threatening to exclude pupils who don’t stick to their uniform policy – after complaints from some people that students looked scruffy. Controversially, hoodies are not allowed, shoes have to be plain and black and accessories are limited to one watch and a pair of earrings. The idea is to encourage children to focus on their appearance as part of a drive towards higher standards and improved GCSE results.
There’s a clear link, in many people’s eyes, between uniform, expectation and achievement and whether it’s putting pupils in a set uniform or kitting out staff in a smart set of personalised workwear, uniform clothing is seen as a key feature in success.
The most recent example of ambush marketing was insanely successful in getting attention, although the cost may turn out to be too high.
Three dozen pretty women wearing bright orange mini-dresses stole the show during the World Cup. Every camera, including the TV ones, was focused on them, right up until the moment that they were kicked out of the stadium. They’d been hired by a brewery (Bavaria) to promote the company during the football match. Now two of the women and the brewery are facing charges “organising unlawful commercial activities”. And it wasn’t just the pretty women, Robbie Earle was in the stadium as an ambassador for England’s 2018 World Cup bid but he was dropped as a TV commentator and ambassador because the orange lovelies got into the match using tickets he was given for distribution to his family and friends.
Why all the fuss? Because Budweiser paid millions to have exclusive beer representation during the competition.
Sponsorship is big business and ambush marketing tries to achieve the same level of coverage for almost no expenditure. The little orange dresses had only a tiny brand marker, but every Dutch person had already seen the exact same dress being worn by the wife of Rafeal van der Vaart – one of Holland’s best players.
And it’s a dirty business – Linford Christie once wore contact lenses with a cut-out of a puma on them to a press conference, because his status as an Olympian forbade him promoting his sportswear sponsor at Olympic events. And Michael Jordan actually covered up his Reeboks vest when Nike sponsored not the US basketball team, but just the team’s news conferences!
So if you can get away with using some kind of promotional clothing to launch an ambush marketing caper around a sporting event, you might decide it’s worth a try, but don’t mix it with the Olympics! The Olympic committee are notorious for aggressively defending their logo and even words associated with the Olympics, and fines for breaking their rules are substantial – up to £20,000 for each offence.
It may seem insane to be thinking about promotional jackets now – given our tropical weather – but it’s the perfect moment to consider revising your uniform so that you have jackets that meet the needs of your staff and the needs of your company.
Staff requirements from promotional jackets
1. Easy to wear: clothing must allow the wearer to move easily, especially when undertaking tasks like loading vehicles, putting out stock, moving items of equipment etc
2. Washable: any garment has to be fresh and clean, so ensure your choice of jacket can be machine washed so that your employees have a chance to launder their outerwear easily
3. Breathable: in some environments a thick jacket is necessary, in others a lightweight one is better. Consider zip lining jackets or ordinary fleeces that can be worn under a waterproof jacket to allow staff to adjust their outer clothing to the conditions they experience
Brand requirements from promotional jackets
A jacket embroidered or printed with a company logo allows a brand to advertise itself, but it needs to be:
1. substantial – so that it lasts for several years: anything too lightweight won’t be a worthwhile return on the company’s investment
2. appropriately designed – an embroidered logo looks stylish, lasts well and gives an impression of seriousness and longevity. On the other hand, a bright over-printed jacket gives an impression of youth and freshness
3. worn! Seriously – a jacket that the staff hate just won’t be worn in public and that means your promotional budget is wasted.
Choosing a uniform for your workforce or charity that suits both men and women takes a little consideration.
The recent hot weather in the UK has been highlighting the differences between men and women and the way that they wear their uniforms. Several unions have received requests from women members for a review of uniform policy in the workplace after men have been allowed to wear either lightweight summer vests or to remove clothing on the upper body entirely during work breaks, but women have not been allowed to wear ‘bikini’ or ‘tankini’ tops.
The issue appears to be one of sexual equality, but the female workers say that it’s actually a temperature-related concern – men are allowed to wear less, and so they are finding it easier to cope with the heat; women are required to wear more and so they are suffering more from the effects of temperature increases.
Last year, Kent women police officers raised concerns that their compulsory uniforms were too revealing, clinging to their cleavages and causing ribald remarks when they were out on the beat.
To choose the right uniform:
• Involve women in the selection of clothing items
• Be sensitive to cultural differences – some women like to cover up, some are happy to flash the flesh, but men may also be modest or exhibitionist – try to offer a range of tops from long-sleeved shirts through to vests so that everybody can choose what suits them
• Remember that colours can affect comfort – clothing items such as white T-shirts can be revealing and tight clothing such as tailored trousers can accentuate the body.
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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