If promotional clothing does its job, it will become an heirloom – vintage T-shirts, retro fashion boiler suits and dresses, previously loved ties and bags, all these are desirable but fragile items. Modern promotional clothing may become the much-desired heirloom of the future, and knowing how to care for it can help you and your team enjoy your custom printed or embroidered work-wear, your team T-shirts or your on-tour hoodies.

Giving this information to your clients, either as a cute promotional leaflet or as a care page on your website, can have an unexpected bonus effect – it builds customer loyalty by showing that you have an ethical approach to making the most of the clothing you sell/provide.

• Washing – if your T-shirts are printed, always turn them inside out before washing and dry them on a line, inside out, not in a tumble dryer. This means that the printed image isn’t constantly being rubbed up against other fabrics which can abrade it. Wash dark fabrics on the lowest possible temperature.
• Stains – salt is the best way to remove deodorant stains from dark clothing. Just wet the stain with cold water, pour salt onto it and gently press it into the stain. Next day, add about 2 tablespoons of salt to the wash water. To avoid these stains in the first place, apply deodorant the night before – it prevents damp and odour just the same, but it stops the aluminium in the deodorant getting onto the fabric. If you spill something oily on promotional clothing, soak the stain, as soon as possible, in pure washing up liquid – preferably an environmentally friendly one as it’s less likely to contain bright pigments like blue or green that can actually tint the garment. Leave for an hour and then dip the stain in a small bowl of white vinegar and wash. Most oily stains will have completely disappeared.
• Pressing/Ironing – not everybody irons their T-shirts but most people iron, or have their shirts laundered – if your cotton shirts are monogrammed, it’s best not to iron over the embroidery directly. Instead lay an old white pillowcase or tea-towel over the embroidered area and run the iron over that.

There are three key concerns when selecting promotional clothing

• Budget
• Appearance
• Performance

Budget is simple and is usually the tightest and most evident constraint on promotional clothing. There will usually be a limit on what can be spent, and within that limit the clothing has to be effective and attractive.

Appearance can be shaped by material – cheap T-shirts do not last long, but if you are promoting a short-term event such as a weekend sale or a festival, they may be all that is required. More substantial materials will give a longer life to the garment and a more solid appearance to the clothing which reflects on the brand the promotional clothing supports. Bear in mind the climate and population in your chosen area: if there are many older residents, you are more likely to succeed with polo-shirts than T-shirts, but if there’s a large student population, jogging pants and T-shirts will be much more popular than classic clothing items.

Performance is part of the process of applying promotional clothing to the world. If you choose embroidered baseball caps, they will get much more wear in summer than winter, while knit hats will be more popular in winter than summer. Barbecue aprons are summer clothing but gloves and scarves perform best for their brand in winter. Making a wise selection gets your message out their for the maximum period of time, but other businesses will know this too, so don’t disregard the competition when planning your promotional clothing: your garments have to be attractive to get worn as well as season-appropriate.

The cult of the celebrity chef has become established around the globe: TV chefs have huge followings and branded restaurants are found everywhere from cruise ships to capital cities.

Now kitchen uniforms get the star treatment, as increasing numbers of venues opt for stylish clothing, not just for table staff, but for kitchen employees too, to bring a sense of the theatrical to dining out. Personalising chef’s uniforms has become a standard treatment, especially in ‘view’ dining venues where tours of the kitchen, or windows opening on to it, are commonplace. This allows each chef to create a sense of identity for him or herself, and gives them a chance to personalise the experience each diner receives.

Hotelier has recently reported on this phenomenon with particular focus on the Middle East, where celebrity chefs have just started to appear, but where colourful uniforms for kitchen staff have been much more acceptable than has been the case in the USA and Europe, until very recently.

Retaining key staff is also a feature of personalising uniforms for employees as have embroidered names or other identifying emblems such as logos can help companies to keep individuals and promote their identities within their industry.

It appears that the subject of school uniforms is a hot one, and not just because children attending school during the recent cold spell have been turning up with several layers under their uniforms to keep them warm. While Tam Baillie, Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People thinks boys should be able to wear skirts to school because otherwise school uniform codes are a “discriminatory practice” against “gender variant” pupils.

In Scotland, of course, gender differences are rarely focused on who wears trousers, so the debate is a genuinely interesting one around how students “develop a strong sense of who they are” which can mean having a range of options from which children choose is more sensitive to cultural, gender and other differences but doesn’t foster such a strong sense of identity as a limited uniform where people dress like each other to develop a sense of team spirit.

Michael Gove certainly thinks so. According to radio station Totnes FM, the Education Secretary believes that a local school, King Edward VI community college, should introduce a uniform. His comments have left parents, who are still waiting to vote on the plans, somewhat confused at his interest in one school’s policy.

It’s true that uniforms often foster conformity – everybody from airline pilots to Hell’s Angels gains a sense of solidarity from dressing like each other – and everybody ‘outside’ that group gains from being able to identify which individual is a pilot and which a biker, so there’s a value to society from being able to recognise who’s in which ‘team’. But there are other gains too: a uniform can create a sense of self-esteem and remove the differences that stop people working well together: a rich university graduate and a poor self-educated person are identical when they are playing a team game in the same strip or kit, on the same playing field, and that allows them to bond in a way that might never be possible if they weren’t similarly dressed.

There’s another advantage too: branded, printed and monogrammed clothing all allow outsiders to spot the person they want, whether it’s the manager in a restaurant or the striker in a football team – it’s an intelligent approach to teamwork that allows everybody to benefit.

For many companies, offering a personalised or branded gift at Christmas has several purposes:

1.    It recognises customer loyalty
2.    It creates brand recognition
3.    It offers a thank you to new customers who may not be fully engaged with the brand yet
4.    It establishes the company offering the gift as being substantial and caring.

These are great marketing opportunities that shouldn’t be neglected even when marketing budgets are tight. In fact, thinking creatively around the idea of a business to customer gift is a great way to establish some brand features that will encourage your customers to think of the company as one that supports them in tough times.

Branded clothing has practical value, unlike the traditional forms of corporate gift such bottles of wine or spirits, boxes of chocolates or the more modern and less personal approach of giving vouchers.

At the top end of the scale, monogrammed shirts, or hoodies for younger individuals offer a superb, highly-personalised approach to gift giving. It’s not a cheap way to recognise the customer’s value but for the truly valued client, it’s a brilliant approach. Think outside the box though, and see if you can select something that the customer will really value: sports clothing with a monogram that a customer can use for their favourite sport is an ideal way to say thank you.

In the middle of the market, T-shirts offer a chance to give a gift that gets worn, and is fully appreciated without breaking the bank. If your customers are young, find a young designer to style your company logo in a completely new way, that reflects current trends but if they’re more traditional, go for a classic and simple statement, maybe the company logo as a sleeve print or small embroidered detail with neat and unobtrusive contact details below it.

For the masses, if you have lots of customers and/or want to buy something that can be used for both Christmas gift and general promotional purposes, think about branded hats or lightweight bags. Don’t fall for too much novelty though: amusing images like Santa riding on your logo etc are only funny for a very short time and then fall out of favour and have no value to the recipient. It’s better to think about longevity and choose a hat or bag that will be used year round. Practicality is the key to a successful gift and you can double the promotional whammy you get from such items by running a competition that offers to reward the person who takes the best picture of their hat/bag in an unusual place or in a location appropriate to your business. Post the photos on facebook and tweet about them in your twitter account to get the maximum cross-platform marketing boost from your promotional clothing spend.

The recession means that many firms are having to forego the usual Christmas party for staff and forget about the usual bottle of tipple and box of chocs that have traditionally been given to employees at this time of year.

Instead, consider the value of investing in branded clothing for your team – it’s a workplace based gift that can benefit the individual and the company. Polo shirts or fleeces embroidered with the individual’s name or initials demonstrates that you value each person, and gives all your employee’s a chance to wear something new and exciting to work.

Personalised work clothing is also a great gift for promoting team development: it shows that you are investing in your staff and it gives them a sense of self-esteem and a long-term reminder of their value to the company.

You can even create a small brochure so that employees get to choose which item of branded clothing they would like to receive: T-shirts or hoodies appeal to the young and those who work away from the public eye but those in customer services might prefer to have a monogrammed shirt or a smart jacket. Offering a choice also shows that you respect individuality and gives your team a sense of having options and a stake in their own appearance.

Customers respond well to people in smart, well-kempt clothing too, so what benefits the team also improves customer relations.

It’s said that Brooks Brothers has dressed more American Presidents than any other clothing line, and this month it had a Scottish showcase in its Regent Street shop.

More than 300 fashionistas attended the event which featured knitwear, tweed, cashmere, ties, embroidered and embossed items and hand-made shirts. The occasion was the Harris Tweed centenary and Brooks Brothers used the event to highlight its own nearly two century pedigree, with photos of Abraham Lincoln (who got that black coat from the Brooks Brothers store), Andy Warhol and Clarke Gable, all dressed in Brooks Brother’s clothing.

It’s not just tweed that makes Brooks Brothers different – the brand has driven the search for new clothing fashions that it can import, such as bringing button-down shirts to the USA and inventing the wash and wear suit. Branding clothes with the classic Brooks Brothers logo has kept the company in the public mind as one that delivers a formal quality along with ease of wear and laundering and it has also been careful to supply clothes for TV shows that match its brand identity such as Mad Men and Glee.

This clever association of clothing, famous wearer and innovation has really driven the brand as one that innovates and yet contains the best of American heritage. Other companies might find a very different focus for their brands – more casual companies might like a figurehead who plays a cool sport to wear a sponsored polo shirt or to find a band or actor who typify the brand values and then to offer them promotional clothing to wear in public. Whatever way you play the famous clothing game, it benefits both brand and individual to be associated with each other.

Autumn’s rainfall has begun – heavy snow is projected for December and January. Giving your customers and employees with good winter wear and safety products means that you’re preparing them and your business for bad weather.

Winter work wear is a great opportunity to get your name in front of clients knitted hats, fleeces, hoodies and gloves are ideal elements for embroidery while jackets and high-vis clothing lend themselves brilliantly to printing.

All winter clothing offers the opportunity to invest in comfort and safety for your staff and clients, reminding them that your company’s service or product is around to make their lives easier. This means that they start to associate your name with being part of their solution which means promotional clothing serves a double purpose, instant solution and long term positive association with your brand.

For something a little different, creating ‘winter fun’ kits can be a good way to show customers that you’re always focused on the positive. Branded gloves, hats and scarves, neatly packaged with a cheap toboggan, make ideal Christmas giveaways, and to double their promotional effect you can run a competition where the person who sends in the funniest or most exciting photo of them wearing their promotional clothing on their toboggan wins a winter-themed prize like an adventure day on a dry ski slope or a chance to make an ice sculpture. You can even display the photos on your facebook page or company website and ask the public to vote for the winter to get a triple promotional boost from your printed or embroidered clothing.

The hospitality industry is changing rapidly. HR Magazine says it now provides one in 15 jobs in the UK, and that over 7% of the working population are in the hospitality sector – it’s also expected to be one of the largest growth areas for new employment in the next decade.

Uniforms for hospitality staff have changed as the sector has grown – polo-shirts and smart trousers have replaced button-through shirts as daywear in around a third of eating establishments and more than two-thirds of pubs and bars.

Even casinos are changing their clothing choices, opting for bright T-shirts under waistcoats for table-waiting staff and black uniforms for croupiers giving way to green, red or even purple as a corporate colour. It seems that these brighter colours are intended to create a ‘point of difference’, in allowing venues to differentiate themselves from other locations. Because they are still dark enough to take stains and spills in their stride, the green, red and purple shirts are proving popular with staff too.

Table staff are increasingly being given ‘throwaway’ clothing – ultra-bright T-shirts or vests overprinted with large messages about two-for-one cocktail prices, house specials, or special rates being offered at the attached hotel for lucky gamblers who’ve won big.

Aprons have become a big deal in up-scale dining, with pizza and flambé chefs who work at table being given special aprons, bearing their name, so that guests can specify which individual they wish to cook their food.

Some work clothing has Health and Safety implications – it has to meet the needs of staff who are exposed to the elements or work in difficult conditions. In these cases, High Visibility clothing allows the company, and the individual, to feel confident about safe working.  However, for many companies the chance to brand the outer clothing of their employees is not just about identification – it’s a way to generate public awareness, build team identity and create opportunities to add to the company’s profile.

Choosing the right jacket or fleece is important as it gives employees confidence in their appearance: it needs to be fully comfortable, easy to wear and smart. The logo and details you add to the jacket, whether it’s embroidered or printed, is the final finishing touch that gives a jacket or fleece its professional appearance.

A tailored jacket for women looks fantastic and is specially designed to look good on the female form, while a more relaxed blouson-style jacket works well for a younger workforce in a more casual environment.

Detailing on a jacket can range from a discreet logo and telephone number or website address through to large images that showcase your business activity along with promotional details that encourage people to come and find out more from the wearer.

Perhaps the most famous promotional jackets are American: the letter jackets worn by High School athletes and the ‘colours’ worn by biker gangs – they both have instant recognition factor and carry a strong message to the viewer. This is why it’s important to work with a good clothing printer to ensure that the message your clothing carries is more ‘letter’ than ‘chapter’ – printers and designers have experience in how people respond to images, colours and ideas, so calling on a reputable supplier of printed and embroidered clothing to help you put your brand jacket together is essential for maximum success.