Archive for October, 2007
About 1925 the word sweatshirt emerged to describe the clothing worn by athletes while warming up, before sporting events or cooling down afterwards. The earliest sweatshirts were utilitarian gray pullovers, manufactured by the Feinbloom brothers who founded the Knickerbocker Knitting Company in the USA in 1919, to knit substantial sweaters.
The company is now known as Champion Products and has had a long history of innovation in casual wear. It pioneered a heavy-duty cotton fabric, later patented as reverse-weave, and used to manufacture sweatshirts for athletes (rather than fashion).
‘Champion’ sweatshirts were only the earliest of several industry innovations including the first cotton football jerseys, the first hooded sweatshirts (originally worn on the sidelines during games), the first reversible T-shirts (for the American Navy during World War II), the first breathable mesh shirts and shorts, the first lined nylon-shell jackets, and the first comfortable, supportive jogging bra for women. This sports bra, which evolved into the Jogbra, was originally designed by two women joggers who sewed men’s athletic supporters together to wear while running! It went on sale in 1977 and has been a bestseller ever since.
The craze for sporting university names on sweats started in the1960s and is still going strong around the world, but by the 1970s the T-shirt slogan craze had began to show up on sweatshirts too – now a version of the sweatshirt without a bottom band or cuffs is the clothing of choice for skateboarders too. Sweatshirt girls photograph by genvessel, used under a creative commons attribution licence
October 29th, 2007
One special school in Wales has seen a marked improvement in the last academic year, with pupil achievements up and exclusions down, but pupils are keen to do even better. And a large part of their desire for better performance is linked to the creation of a school uniform based on that old favourite, the polo-shirt!
As part of a campaign led by the new head-teacher, the pupils, all boys aged 11 to 16, were asked to design a school badge and given a say in the new uniform colours. A design based around the ‘G’ of Greenhill
School in a gothic cross was chosen as the winner, and pupils voted to wear black.
“The uniform will help ensure that Greenhill has an identity like all the other schools in the city,” said Assistant Head Phil Haynes. “The pupils have played their part in the design and agreeing on the colour. Now we are organising fundraising events to help ensure that we can purchase a polo-shirt with the school badge for every pupil to help families with the cost of paying for the entire uniform. This is all part of our bid to raise standards. Our aim is not just to be a good school but a great school. And we tell the pupils that while they may have had difficulties and have been referred to Greenhill, this is a fresh start and a chance to achieve their best and look to the future.” To help raise funds for the new polo-shirts, an auction will be held at the school site on Saturday, November 10.
Polo-shirt school fashions photography by laffy4k, used under a creative commons attribution licence
October 26th, 2007
The Postal Strike is over and boy are we glad!
To make sure all our customers received their goods on time from www.polo-shirts.co.uk we used a courier delivery service for all orders during the disruption. Now the strike is over we will be going back to our normal service of sending packages under 1 kilo by royal mail.
October 23rd, 2007
Since the early 90s, we’ve been hearing about the death of the traditional office uniform – the spread of ‘business casual’ from companies like Ford in the USA has suggested to many that the days of the shirt, jacket and tie are numbered. Is it true?
Yes, and no. Some firms, particularly those in innovative industries like electronics, computing and service areas have gone ‘all the way’, meaning you may be greeted in their reception area by an apparent skater dude or goth gal. Innocent Smoothies, for example, have no dress code at all.
On the other hand, many companies operate just the Dress Down Friday, usually they also ban shorts and flip-flops and other highly casual items and insist that those meeting clients stick to formal wear.
One of the criticisms of dress down policies is that they can encourage some staff to dress inappropriately for work. This is why a policy is usually created to define ‘casual’ – for many companies this means men must wear tops with collars (polo shirts in, T-shirts out), midriffs are covered and clothing colours should be ‘business-appropriate’. That does still leave some room for confusion though – my colour-blind colleague who can’t tell grey from turquoise may find himself inadvertently flouting that kind of advice.
For people who are used to fairly formal office environments, a new casual wear policy may make them feel uneasy but most casual wear policies emphasise casual is optional – if a person is happier wearing a suit to work, then they should feel comfortable to do so. And it only takes a trip to the Square Mile or Westminster to see how little the new business casual approach has penetrated certain areas of business life. On the other hand, many companies have chosen to offer casual uniforms – a bit of a contradiction in terms – but basically a choice of lower body wear, balanced by an employer supplied and branded soft-collared top (often a polo shirt with a choice of long or short sleeves) which is identical for both men and women. This approach deals with a number of issues:
- it ensures appropriate clothing and employee recognition,
- it removes the need for employees to buy work clothing, and
- it demonstrates a clear sense of gender, age and cultural equality.
‘Suit on scooter’ photograph by JoF used under a creative commons attribution licence.
October 18th, 2007
Auto Express recently published the results of an experiment they carried out to test the effectiveness of high visibility vests – a bit of a misnomer that, as we’d called them waistcoats or jackets, ‘vest’ being the American term, but anyway ….
They tested four roads, one lit by street lamps, the other three not. A person stood on the roadside as the testers drover past. For the first test he wore his street clothes; for the second a high visibility vest. A stopwatch recorded the gap between the driver spotting the pedestrian and the vehicle reaching him – in other words, the driver’s reaction time. The pedestrian was relocated for each test so the driver couldn’t anticipate his position. The results were shocking.
Route one was a narrow, heavily wooded rural road with light but fast-moving traffic and no pavement or street lamps. At 40mph, blinded by oncoming headlamps, the driver spotted the pedestrian only three seconds before reaching him. In reflective gear, the reaction time was more than tripled to eleven seconds meaning the reaction distance was nearly quadrupled!
The next story is even worse - on a fast, unlit dual carriageway at 65mph, the pedestrian wasn’t spotted until two seconds before being passed – barely time to operate the stopwatch! The driver would never have avoided him had he stepped into the road but with the high visibility top, the time was seven seconds and the reaction distance was again virtually quadrupled. Interestingly, in the third ‘unlit’ test – the only one carried out with headlamps on full beam – the differentials were smaller but the overall reaction times better. On a open A-road there was more opportunity to spot the pedestrian. At 40mph the figure was six seconds. With the high visibility clothing, sixteen seconds - over twice the time and about two-and-a-half times the viewing distance. The final trial was on a busy, lit suburban A-road at 35mph. As you would expect, the pedestrian was spotted much sooner, without and with a vest. The reaction time was 25 seconds when the pedestrian had the vest on, so the driver even had time to pull over to help without endangering pedestrian, himself or other traffic.
Perhaps it’s time for Britain to follow the lead of Spain, Italy and Portugal, and make it compulsory for drivers to carry high visibility vests and wear them in a breakdown?
Safety vests must be worn photograph by Exfordy, used under a creative commons attribution licence
October 16th, 2007
Tesco is to become the first supermarket to sell clothes on the internet, a move expected to send shockwaves through the UK fashion industry. The store giant will sell around three hundred items of women’s clothing online and retail experts said the move, planned for late October, would worry other fashion brands in the all-important period before Christmas. It is the latest bid by supermarkets to muscle in on the lucrative clothing market, and demands a response from rival supermarkets Asda and Sainsbury’s, who both have own label ranges that are sold in-store but not online. Asda has already announced plans to launch a similar service next year.
Professor Leigh Sparks, an expert in retail studies from Stirling University, warned that the move appeared to be timed to have maximum impact on the competition. He said the timing was interesting because internet sales peak at Christmas although he made clear that there is a downside; customers worry about whether orders placed around Christmas will arrive in time - especially in light of the current wave of postal strikes. He added that Tesco was unlikely to draw shoppers from high fashion outlets, because its clothing range had a different target purchaser.
Tesco photograph by exfordy, used under a creative commons licence
October 11th, 2007
As the minnows swim into the same pool as the whales, (sorry Scotland, better luck next time!) and coaches and managers are sacked, left right and centre, it’s a good time to look at the background to the game’s most famous product (apart from Johnny Wilkinson’s kicking skills, of course) the shirt.
A rugby shirt is also known as a jersey, and the term describes shirts worn by both rugby union and rugby league players. In sports terms it may have long or short sleeves, although the garment trade views long sleeves as standard. Traditionally, rugby shirts had a buttoned opening, called a placket, which is similar to that used in polo shirts but with a stiffer collar. However, modern rugby shirts often have a very small collar so as to provide less material for a potential tackler to get hold of – of course that would be illegal, and never happens, but isn’t it interesting that garment design has been altered to prevent it happening anyway?
Standard shirt designs consist of five or six horizontal stripes or “hoops” in alternating colours. Football shirts traditionally have vertical stripes instead, apart from Q.P.R. who have always had a competition shirt with hoops – nobody seems to know why! As rugby is played mainly in winter, a cotton rugby kit can weigh around 6 lb when wet. This extra weight has to be carried by the player, in addition to running in wet, heavy ground, and this is why most competition shirts have an element of polyester in the fabric mix, because it doesn’t soak up water like cotton does.
Rugby World Cup winners 2003 photograph by Bombdog, used under a creative commons attribution licence
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About 1925 the word sweatshirt emerged to describe the clothing worn by athletes while warming up, before sporting events or cooling down afterwards. The earliest sweatshirts were utilitarian gray pullovers, manufactured by the Feinbloom brothers who founded the Knickerbocker Knitting Company in the USA in 1919, to knit substantial sweaters. 
