According to a recent report from Sheffield Hallam University, the two sectors that will benefit most from the London Olympics are gambling and sports clothing. The research suggests that the UK sporting economy will expand and the clothing industry in particular is likely to grow by 15% in the next three years, while the gambling industry is predicted to grow by around 6% over the same period.

The long term trend of the British sporting industry to take a larger share of national economic activity is likely to accelerate as a result of the Olympics, and will spike in specific areas if British athletes win gold medals during the games: already Mo Farah’s impact on distance running has been seen not just in medal tallies and young people entering the sport but in an increase in sales of United Jack running vests and his trademark white-rimmed running glasses. As sports stars like Freddie Flintoff and Jonny Wilkinson develop their own sporting clothing brands, this trend will become a large part of both the economy and the fashion consciousness of the nation.

One of the greatest growth areas of sports clothing is branded winter wear, especially clothing that has UV protection against winter sun. Snow reflects around 80% of UV radiation, which is much higher than the 10% reflected by water, but most people forget to wear sunscreen in winter who would always put on suncream when they wore shorts and a T-shirt on the beach.

Men are much more likely to develop melanoma (a sun related skin cancer) than women because they wear less sunscreening products and tend to exercise outdoors more, giving them a greater risk of exposure to high UV levels on a regular basis, especially if they play team sports such as rugby or football where hats and sunglasses are not generally worn.

The excellent and exhaustive blog, Clothes on Film has taken its annual trip through just about every film that came out this year (and some that we’d never heard of but apparently premiered anyway) to look at what clothing tells us about character. It’s fascinating.

Helena Bonham Carter and Colin Firth both played with reality – Helena by sticking to it and wearing genuine vintage fur, while Colin insisted on not wearing a suit jacket underneath his overcoat because it made him too bulky to be a realistic King George VI. Russell Brand played Arthur Bach in suits tailored by Martin Greenfield in New York to included a wide range of fabrics and to look like Savile Row tailoring while meeting the demands of an active character on a film
set.

Several films this year also focus on masculinity, using the most traditional symbol, the plain white T-shirt as worn by Elvis Presley and James Dean and seen in Drive worn by Ryan Gosling and even by Captain America! So plain white T-shirts for men add to their sense of masculinity, but make women feel vulnerable because of the risk of underwear showing through. Putting male staff in white and women in grey, blue or black T-shirts can create an impression of gender balance.

On TV, Boardwalk Empire also used Martin Greenfield to dress its characters in 1920s style and this focus has been particularly important in giving the impression of authority, power and prestige – according to the designers, this has involved using ‘hard’ dressing such as starch, brilliant whites and matte neutrals like beige and hats. Baseball style or soft caps were saved for lower ranking characters while harder headwear like fedoras or boaters were worn by bosses. Hats functioned to reveal who had power. That’s something that businesses tend to forget – if you put somebody in a
baseball cap, they have no authority – so let senior staff go bare-headed or give them a hat with a harder profile that denotes power.

There’s a lot to learn from film … and smart companies will use a designer who has a finger on the pulse to ensure that staff uniforms convey some of these subtle messages that help boost business success and productivity.

Once again, printed T-shirts have caused a debate, this time on the football pitch. Liverpoo’s Luis Suarez has been suspended for racist language and his teammates chose to wear a T-shirt with his image on for their match with Wigan this week. It didn’t go down too well with some other players …

Paul McGrath said he was ‘saddened’ to see the Liverpool players in their printed T-shirts and would have been ‘… much happier if they had worn anti-racist t-shirts’ while Jason Roberts (Blackburn Rovers) chipped in on Twitter to ask if other clubs were now going to wear T-shirts with the image of Man U’s Patrice Evra, against who Suarez has been found guilty of using the offending language?

But Kenny Dalgish, Liverpool Manager and Suarez supporting T-shirt wearer was unrepentant claiming that he and the players were showing their their respect and admiration for the suspended player.

It’s yet another piece of evidence that shows how easily printed clothing can become part of a wider controversy – and why it’s important to ensure that your design, slogan or clever promotional idea doesn’t cause confusion or draw criticism from wider society if your intent is to win friends for your product or brand.

With the bad news about retail sales over the past month, it may be time for many small businesses to design a strategy that uses promotional clothing to increase awareness and boost sales.

One of the easiest ways to win a good share of the Christmas spend is to offer something for nothing. Station a couple of temps outside your premises, giving passers-by a voucher for a free mince pie or glass of mulled apple juice. Set up the hospitality station in the heart of the shop or business, so that people have to walk right in to get their freebie and ensure you have good footfall with a couple more staff members giving away the food or drink and more guiding people back on a circular route through the space so that there isn’t a log-jam. Dress the temps and food servers in appropriate hospitality clothing such as branded aprons and caps trimmed with holly or tinsel so that their role is clear.

Alternatively, identify a local good cause and print some promotional T-shirts for your staff, including both your logo and theirs. Tell the press that you’re going to donate a certain percentage of every purchase over £100 to the charity and make sure you have posters and flyers so that customers know their spend is going to help the good cause. Make sure you issue a press release detailing the amount donated and featuring a picture of your staff in their promotional clothing. It gives you three chances at good publicity: through publicity for the event, during the event itself, and as a good news story after the event.

As the American government faces cutbacks, President Obama has told government agencies to reduce spending on ‘extraneous promotional items’ such as mouse pads and coffee mugs. It’s not quite as silly as it sounds: each department is required to demonstrate how it’s going to reduce wasteful spending and/or create more efficient ways of operating.

Commemorative gifts such as backpacks have been ruled out except for where such an item has a clear purpose so that the logo-emblazoned baseball caps and printed T-shirts many American agencies give away to both staff and visitors may now become rare items. However some branded clothing has been given a special status: the printed jackets FBI agents wear on raids will remain because they are classed as ‘essential work-related clothing’.

So how can the average business be sure that it’s not wasting money on inappropriate branded clothing? Customer or staff research in advance of placing an order is key to getting it right. There’s no point designing and printing hundreds of bags for your customers if they actually prefer to carry backpacks. If your staff wear baseball caps and you order beanie hats, you’re likely to find that your investment is wasted.

In Pennsylvania a businessman has started a new charitable organisation to provide encouragement to the masses and T-shirts to the most disadvantaged in American society, such as homeless people.

The idea behind the People Helping People Project is simple. For every T-shirt somebody purchases, another will be given away free to a disadvantaged individual.

The T-shirts for sale have inspirational messages on them, along with inspiring images such as the sun breaking free from clouds. The founder of the organisation says that he’s responding to a sense of gloom in US society, “ … the recession, the layoffs, the floods, the earthquakes, people are panicking …I want to inspire them and let them know that they just gotta go another day,” says David Wrobel.

The project also includes the option to sign up for a newsletter packed with inspirational tips, and it’s intended that in future there will be an option for individuals to buy their own shirt and nominate a person to receive the free one, along with a handwritten note of encouragement. People Helping People is also considering offering printing business T-shirts to businesses and clubs with their own company’s logo on them. For each one purchased, another T-shirt would be given away to a needy individual.

The New Zealand Rugby Union is fearful of a boycott of the 2015 World Cup, and it’s partly down to branded clothing.

The International Rugby Board (IRB) has controls over the way national sponsors can be included in international tournaments which means that national teams lose money – according to New Zealand, $13 million in a world cup year. How so?

Rugby and football are very different: at a FIFA World Cup the teams are allowed to continue to promote their individual sponsors by having them appear on clothing worn at the team hotels and at press conferences up to two days before every match. But the IRB imposes a complete ban all sponsors (except their own) at the Rugby World Cup. This means that photo opportunities, interviews and other publicity activities that usually allow a team to parade in branded clothing before a big match are denied to the rugby teams.

And in South Africa the team jerseys being sold to the Springboks fans have caused ructions. One MP has said that he will boycott the national shirts, because they were made in China instead of South Africa – and that this denied the country’s struggling clothing industry a chance to benefit from the Springbok phenomenon.

The South African Rugby Union has been lambasted by the national Trade Union Congress for ignoring national job-creation policy, causing a national and international flurry.

Neither national team has achieved the kind of publicity it hoped with its branded clothing initiatives, and while neither of them are likely to be thrilled by the way their promotional clothing initiatives have worked out, neither issue is likely to cause a long term problem for the national team.  The unanticipated outcomes might have been avoided by operating a better sourcing policy, having regard for fair trade and organic products in relation to national pride, and understanding and considering the constraints of sponsorship agreements in advance of investing in them.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is designing clothing. Marketing Week reveals that the charity branded clothing, along with gifts and pet food, will be launched to attract new supporters and to boost fundraising campaigns. Already there is a range of cuddly toys in production to appeal to young children this Christmas. The aim is to find new sources of income.

The charity says it has established a brand style guide to give a consistent appearance that will encompass shops, shelters and products including staff uniforms and clothing for sale.

Such is the interest in branded clothing for business, that a new one-day conference is planned in 2012, to cover digital and screen printing technologies for fashion lines and promotional clothing.

It’s being organised by ESMA – the European Specialist Printing Manufacturers Association and will include an examination of the swiftly returning interest in brand clothing and the innovations in print technology including digital, 3D, and sensoric textiles which can monitor and even respond to changes in the temperature or humidity level of the body or to outside stimuli by, for example, emitting heat or light from the fabric itself.

Screen printing will also be explored with new technologies in computer to film technology for T-shirt printing.

The one-day event will take place on 3 February in Stuttgart as part the international textile trade fair TV TecStyle Visions.

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.

Whether it’s a sunshiny top to be worn by professional dance partners on a cruise ship, a crisp white number for staff at a convention or a durable grey T-shirt for delivery drivers to wear when representing your organisation, a T-shirt is a brilliant shop-front for your organisation.

Some individuals in a business can carry a different message to others – one company in the West of England has delivery staff who wear ‘How’s my smiling?’ T-shirts, featuring a delivery van image and a number to call if the delivery person is particularly pleasant … as a result of this simple message, they are finding that they get first orders from organisations in buildings they’ve delivered to, because the T-shirts have created a recognition factor.

Words and pictures

One key feature of a marketable popular T-shirt is a popular or funny slogan. Can your business create an amusing but professional slogan or image that makes it memorable? Sheila’s Wheels insurance company made a splash with their vivid pink TV adverts – and the follow through led to a ‘fan’ site, downloadable adverts and music and even staff wearing pink and Sheila’s Wheels tribute acts! The Meerkats are producing an even bigger public recognition factor – can your business do the same?

Choose a garment

Using really high quality blank T-shirts and good print quality gives you durable and attractive T-shirts for your employees.

Work with your printer

A T-shirt printer has the skills and capacity to produce fairly short runs so you can test the water on your new ideas, maybe by outfitting a single department or region, before sinking lots of capital into them.