Posts filed under 'Uniforms'
The American Politics Journal, which is a rather tongue-in-cheek publication anyway, has taken issue with the uniforms Ralph Lauren designed for US Olympic team members to wear during the opening ceremony. Or rather, they loved the uniforms, loathed the great big white polo pony plastered on the men’s jackets. As the journal puts it ‘Of course, this is typically American: create something combining taste and quality, and then reduce it to rubble it by advertising where you bought it – and how much you paid’.
Well maybe. But then, Ralph Lauren paid a pretty penny to become the licensed producer of Olympic replica wear – why shouldn’t the company get its brand in the camera’s eye? Possibly because the Olympics are claimed to be an advertising free zone, but come along, we all know that the sponsorship opportunities are heavily fought over – Ralph Lauren was just a bit more up front about its role and intentions than some of the other designers and is getting more publicity as a result – and isn’t that the point of promotional clothing?
August 19th, 2008
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
No, not another post about whether the Pope or George Clooney is more popular, because the answer is becoming increasingly clear: it’s the Pope. As well developing his own line of snazzy T-shirts to celebrate his US tour, he’s featured on a goalie’s front … there’s just one problem, it’s the wrong Pope!
Celtic’s goalkeeper Artur Boruc caused another storm of controversy last week (it’s not his first storm, he attracts them like Wimbledon fortnight does) dividing Scottish football fans into two unequal, and very noisy, groups. As the Pole took the applause of the home faithful at the end of the Hoops’ 3-2 Old Firm victory over their most bitter rivals, Rangers, he removed his player’s shirt to reveal an immediately controversial T-shirt underneath. It showed not Benedict XVI, the current pontiff, but Pope John Paul II and read ‘God bless The Pope’.
Gordon Strachan poured oil on the fire in his after-match comments. The Celtic manager laughed off the incident with the peculiar comment, ‘He’s not a bad lad, to be fair,’ without making clear whether he was referencing the former head of the Catholic Church or the goalie. ‘If it was “God bless Myra Hindley”, I might have a problem,’ he concluded, leaving us all to wonder exactly what goes on in the average footballer’s, or football manager’s, head!
Celtic fans celebrating in their usual style courtesy of dustpuppy
May 2nd, 2008
When you’re deciding to get a company identity, you tend to think about letterheads, business cards and signs over shopfronts, increasingly people recognise the need to have a web-friendly logo too, but very ever pause to think about their brand identity when it comes to staff clothing. Working with a designer, like the multinationals do, can give you the edge when it comes to immediately identifiable company clothing, but if you’re going to go it alone, here are some things to consider:
Does your logo have relevance to your customers’ requirements, not just your own business? It’s not much use choosing a Rolls-Royce as your logo if you’re in the delivery business, even if you did start your company delivering from a Rolls-Royce, your potential customers don’t know that and they don’t care! They want a logo that tells them you’re a delivery company.Does it appeal to you and your staff? Expecting people to wear something that makes them feel degraded or ill-equipped to represent you in the workplace is a bad investment – you’ll lose good staff and you’ll lose your public image. Regardless of how much you love your wife/daughter/brother and how good a degree they got from arts college, if they design a logo that is cute, when your team think of themselves as cool professionals, everybody loses. Does the logo demonstrate:
- A sense of balance – is the relationship between image and any typeface balanced and harmonious?
- A sense of colour – the logo has to work winter and summer, for men and women, and on a range of clothing from T-shirts to winter coats
- Creativity – can it be read, but is it more than just your company name turned into an emblem? Does it say something about your company, your aims and perspective and your distinctiveness? That Rolls Royce, with a large letter bearing your company name strapped to its roof, would be creative and fun
- Sensible typography – this is vital – what’s the point of a logo that nobody can read? Drive along any town centre and you’ll see one or two shops whose names are written in such fancy script you can’t actually be sure what they are called – don’t let that be you!
Logo courtesy of squeakymarmot
March 31st, 2008
A survey from Source-e, which specialises in research for the marketing and promotional industries, has found that what we always suspected is true. When we’re given a freebie, most of us keep it – but what’s more surprising is that 89% of those who replied to the survey keep small items of promotional merchandise in their work bag, briefcase or handbag.
69 % of those receiving promotional merchandise keep it rather than giving it to a member of their family or a colleague. This offers strong evidence for the positive link between promotional merchandise, branding and sales and shows that the British public don’t only retain and use items (like T-shirts, which are very popular ‘giveaways’ with the public) but are equally happy to carry smaller promotional items with them When questioned about an item of promotional merchandise they had been given and were currently carrying around 23% replied that it was a pen while 10% of respondents said it was a USB stick and a further 10% said a keyring.
71% cent of respondents had heard of the company that presented them with the item and exactly the same number of people could (without looking) name the company that had presented them with the item suggesting that repeat exposure to an item that is used on a regular basis is kept at the forefront of people’s minds – and that’s why promotional clothing works so well too, because it reinforces the brand and name of a company in the customer’s mind, whenever they see a uniformed member of staff or a member of the public wearing that company’s logo.
Brand T-shirt courtesy of adactio
