28/06/2010 by admin.

While on the whole, less money was spent on clothes in the 1970s, by contrast the amount spent on leisure, sport and holidays, was rising. This was perhaps due in part to the changing work wear patterns faced by many. While workers who had spent years doing a job they thought they had a life faced redundancy, some of the luckier jobless received redundancy payouts which went some way in helping to structure their leisure time.

Others who held on to their jobs faced the prospect of becoming one of the increasing numbers of part-time workers. It is not surprising that the 1970s saw the rise of new industries devoted to leisure and the garment industry responded with sportswear. Sportswear was more than just a wardrobe of leisure clothing: it implied a break with the tradition of wearing a Sunday best suit and came to refer to a whole lifestyle, optimised by the running shoe and the fleecy, hooded jogging suit. By the end of the decade Esquire magazine estimated that there were around 30 million joggers in America, including one Jimmy Carter.

The functionalism of sportswear began to make inroads into the working wardrobe. Collars and ties gave way to polo shirts and T-shirts; suit jackets began to lose their nipped in waists and little by little became transform into the blouson-style casual jacket. Jeans loosened up as baggy thigh versions became popular and the tight-fitting, bell bottom flared trousers of the early 1970s were replaced by peg-top styles, full at the waist but narrow at the ankle, in a sort of city version of the jogging pants.

One of the leaders in luxury men’s leisurewear and sportswear in the 1970s was Daniel Hechter, who founded the men’s fashion designer club in France in 1978 with other sportswear designers most noticeably Jean Cacharel. The club organised widely publicised fashion shows to promote men’s clothing that was more versatile than the traditional garments being presented by the suit designers and bespoke tailors. What marked the club’s collection was a new silhouette created by soft unstructured clothes. The aim of these garments was to make suits and jackets lighter and more comfortable and resulted in a fitted jackets with loose armholes and rounded shoulders, lower buttons, longer lapels and shorter tails. By the end of the decade the unstructured silhouette dominated menswear and came to be associated with one design in particular Giorgio Armani. It was a silhouette that would persist until the mid-1980s when the business suit was re-born with the young, upwardly mobile professionals who turned to “Power Dressing”.

Posted in menswear, sportswear, polo shirt | No Comments »

15/06/2010 by admin.

A problem that crops up more and more nowadays is the situation where the customer wants to supply the T shirt printing company with their own T-shirts. The customer thinks that he has managed to get a batch of T-shirts at a bargain price so he can save money on the total job. But does not realise that this can be very much a false economy.

Often people will sell t-shirts on places like eBay which are batches of poorly made T-shirts at a bargain price. These T-shirts look alright and if you just wear them a few times and not have them printed, they would probably be okay. They are meant for market stalls and probably have a manufacturing error that is not visible to the naked eye.

As a T-shirt printer it is not uncommon to receive a bad batch of T-shirts or polo shirts that start to stain or perhaps would have stiching that come undone when the garments are going through the stresses and strains of the printing process. In this event the T-shirt printer just returns the bad batch to the supplier and gets replacements sent free of charge. The problem comes when a customer supplies the T-shirts that he wants printed and during the printing process where they are subjected high temperatures, pressure and chemicals the T-shirts start to discolour or go patchy.

You then have the customer accusing you of ruining his T-shirts and wanting you to pay for their replacement. I personally find that it is too great a risk to take on. Ok you will probable have no problem with customer t-shirts 8 out of 10 times, but if it does go wrong you will either end up paying for the replacements or loose the customer for ever.

Posted in polo shirt, T-shirt, T shirt Printing | No Comments »

22/04/2010 by admin.

A change in the weather always brings about a complete change in the type of clothing that is being ordered for the t shirt printing industry. In the winter you are embroidering jackets and fleeces. In the Summer you are printing onto t-shirts and shorts. The Autumn and spring time tend to be quite similar, with sweatshirts and polo shirts.

The other factor about Spring that does differentiate it from Autumn is the type of activity that goes on in early Summer and Spring.

The two main areas we are talking about are Weddings and sports events like Marathons. Marathons are great because you don’t just have the runners with their high cost, dry-fit running vests, you also get all their supporters wearing normal cotton t-shirts.

Then the wedding season also indirectly helps the t shirt printing industry. No, we don’t decorate wedding dresses, but where there is a wedding you will usually find a Stag and Hen night do. The customization for these parties is getting more and more sophisticated, with ever more expensive tops and even more complicated decoration.

Posted in Hen night, Stag do, Spring, Jacket, sportswear, polo shirt, Running vest, T-shirt | No Comments »

01/02/2010 by admin.

A more up market look is generated by the polo shirt. This can be warn by men or women and come in many shapes and sizes. the major types of polo shirt are cotton, mixed cotton and man made fiber, short sleeve and long sleeved.

Schools use polo shirts for school uniform, because the can take the rough treatment they will get from the kids and are not to expensive to replace. Plus the tend to look smarter because they have a collar.

The other positive attribute of the polo is that you can embroider it. T-shirts tend to be too thin and can chafe. With the polo’s longer life expectancy the permanence of embroidery is worth the extra cost.

Posted in polo shirt, Cotton | No Comments »