If you’re buying workplace uniforms it can be tough to decide what’s best for your team. There’s a wide range of variables: price, colour, cut, design, printing, embroidery … the permutations seem almost endless. Here are a few tips to simplify the decision-making process:

• Price is vital, but remember that initial price may not be the whole story. Thin, cheap clothing may not launder well, or may fade or warp, giving a poor impression of your business and maybe causing your staff to feel demoralised. You may also end up replacing cheap uniforms quicker. Google your shortlisted brands and see what reviewers have to say about durability.

• Colour matters, and it’s best to pick something that resembles your business logo, often called your ‘livery’ in the trade. A complementary colour can harmonise with that livery, while a contrasting colour adds life to the item. Designers and garment printers have vast experience in what colours work well, so call on their expertise to help you get something that will look good and be easy to see. Take their advice on whether to go for embroidery or printing too, as they will have knowledge of clothing use in similar industries to yours.

• Allow for weather variations, and remember that an air conditioned office may be colder than a heated driver’s cab, so your view of what your employees need may be inaccurate. Give them the opportunity to layer clothing: a vest under a shirt or a polo-shirt that can be worn with a jacket or fleece, a cap or a knit hat.

In Punjab, a recent press conference has made a startling claim – recent outbreaks of ‘hot-headed’ behaviour by the police (including lathi charges – lathis being the Indian equivalent of a baton) could be put down to the colour of their new uniforms: black.

The uniforms have been changed from white to black recently, and a senior policeman and several of his colleagues concurred, but others have said that it’s more necessary to have a change of police thinking than of police uniforms.

However – colour psychology has some interesting insights into this idea. It claims that colour can have a profound effect on behaviour and further, says that black clothing denotes authority, power, strength, evil (?), intelligence, death or mourning, while grey, a popular colour for military uniforms, and for casual clothing in the motor industry, gives an aura of neutrality, timelessness and practicality. Blue – the colour most chosen for casual clothing across the world, provides an atmosphere of calmness, wisdom, loyalty and truth but may also seem cold and uncaring.

When choosing uniform items, highlighting with a contrasting colour can be useful. So blue can be made warm and jolly with orange printing, or grey can be given life and verve by the addition of purple embroidery.

When ordering clothing for companies, schools or teams, it’s important to get the beset value for money possible. Here are four tips to help get the most from your budget:

1. Keep a record of previous purchases. Don’t forget to include the date of ordering, sizes and a copy of any artwork you supply to the manufacturer or printer. This helps when placing a new order, as you may find you need to adjust the amount of clothing you order in each size, or the time of year at which you order, to get the best discount. Schools may find that they need more clothes in the larger child sizes than they had appreciated, as children get taller every year, and that they are not using all the smaller sizes, so money is being wasted on unworn polo-shirts or shorts.

2. Record turnover and causes for it. It can be difficult to keep track of uniform disbursement, but where possible, you can try to establish why uniform clothing needs to be replaced or upgraded. Planning ahead can also save you money: ordering summer clothing in good time for the warm weather can mean you benefit from a slower free delivery, rather than having to pay a premium delivery rate for a rush order.

3. Ask about discounts. Sometimes you can get a better discount by purchasing more, or changing your delivery options – if you’ve kept a good record of your past purchasing, you can probably work out ways to make savings on bulk purchases and still make good use of everything you buy.

4. Ask about extras. Many suppliers can offer a range of accessories and supplementary options that support uniform clothing, such as high-visibility detailing on winter clothing, logos on summer caps that protect the wearers from sunburn, or even value-added extras such as printed bags in which to transport the new clothing being supplied

Closed loop manufacturing has become an increasing focus of Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives and McDonald’s are leading the way. It’s no surprise that uniforms that are related to the London Olympics have been under scrutiny for their environmental impacts, and that high profile companies are keen to ensure their promotional activities are in line with the latest social and environmental guidelines.

Many organisations, from Marks & Spencer to the National Grid, are looking into producing closed-loop clothing, whereby some of the polyester in the original garment is broken down into a polymer that can then be respun into a yarn that is rewoven into new clothing.

A London based consultancy, Worn Again, is helping other corporations to repurpose their corporate clothing into new items. For example, the old Eurostar headrests were repurposed into bags and utility pouches for Eurostar train managers, Royal Mail winter jackets have also been recycled into bags. It’s claimed that 33.4 million uniforms are purchased each year, of which something less than 5% are recycled.

The key messages here are:

1. Look at corporate clothing through its entire lifetime and plan an end-of-life use that can be a good story for the corporation.
2. Set up clothing collection systems in the workplace to gather corporate clothing for re-cycling or closed-loop processing.
3. Re-use, repurpose and recycle any workplace clothing that can’t be built into a closed loop process, and ensure that embroidery or printing can contribute to the repurposing by have logos printed in areas that can then be re-used to make smaller, ‘ready-branded’ items.

As British football fans focus on the recovery of Fabrice Muamba after a collapse on the football pitch, supportive T-shirts abound. Meantime, in New Jersey, America, a new T-shirt raises awareness of brain injury – its causes, its treatment and the need to raise funds for people with such injuries. The limited edition shirt is on sale for a month only.

Footballers are lifting their team shirts to show messages of support for Fabrice Muamba and his family, and the awareness of the risks of cardiac arrest and the value of knowing CPR and being able to do it on somebody whose heart has stopped.

Such awareness raising activities can be a valuable support to community activities – also being promoted this week is a walk for a hospice, linked to Davina McCall’s personal trainer whose relatives benefited from the hospice’s existence and TOWIE star Amy Childs wearing a Sport Relief T-shirt.

Of course not every business can find a celebrity to endorse them, but just about every business can find a good cause that needs public awareness and offer to sponsor a T-shirt or polo shirt that will help raise the profile of the cause. It can be extremely cheap, and by linking a subtle brand element such as a logo, to the awareness raising T-shirt, companies can create a long term association between themselves and a popular and worthy cause which benefits both parties.

Linking such T-shirts to an event can be even more positive: a marathon team, a group undertaking a world record, a flash mob or just giving out information leaflets about the cause in the street all bring a new recognition of the cause, and of the company that is supporting it through branded clothing.

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.

Chris Matyszczyk over at CNet News has a thought-provoking post about branded clothing as worn by people in start-up industries, which covers a lot of territory in a very pithy fashion.

Two things really stood out for me:

1 – his point that if you wear your brand so obviously on your clothing, it deprives others of a natural way to get into business conversation with you: if your company is emblazoned on your front, the chance to explain, explore, persuade and downright charm others into seeing your company the way you do is gone, they know your company name and probably form a judgement about it, and you, without ever needing to speak to you. That’s a wasted opportunity because maybe, just maybe, you have a solution for them that isn’t evident until you get conversation.

2 – brands come and go, and some brands today are utterly contemptible – would anybody wear a ‘Ratner’s’ T-shirt these days, or wander around a business convention with ‘I bank with Barings’ on their sweatshirt and expect to get any kind of response other than disbelief and scorn? So sometimes it’s important to think about what you’re saying and how it may be remembered.

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.

It’s not always easy to see how you can promote your business: if you’re a plumber then you have contact details on the side of your van; if you’re a baker you put Bakery above your shopfront or market stall, but many businesses these days are more difficult to showcase.

How does a horse-sitter (somebody who exercises horses while their owner is unable to) or a pilates instructor or a public speaking coach get the kind of publicity that other businesses rack up simply by having a shop or vehicle?

It may require a certain amount of ingenuity. If you’re a horse sitter or dog walker, it may be worth getting customised clothing for the animals you work with: dog jackets and dog T-shirts are big fashion business, as well as ideal promotional surfaces, and giving the owner of your dogs a free garment for their animal can help spread your message to others.

For a Pilates instructor, sponsorship may be a great way to go: offering a free session to the local bowls club or running group, followed by having your logo and contact number on their club clothing, is an effective way of enhancing a local visibility and spreading the message to likely clients. It allows you to become identified with something that is positive (sports for older people or community fitness) and can lead to opportunities such as having a stall at a race or local competition.

For a speaking coach, why not consider sponsoring a schools debate – getting children involved in public speaking can lead to a lot of free publicity, local newspapers, TV and radio always love to feature kids doing something interesting and positive and if they are wearing clothing branded with your logo, that can be a lot of free publicity!

Twice in recent days, promotional clothing has hit the headlines for the wrong reasons. To begin with, one retailer managed to list T-shirts for sale that appeared to predict a win in the upcoming England v Scotland match!

It appears that an online stock checking system was incorrectly implemented, so that a promotional T-shirt that had been designed to commemorate the 2008 Calcutta Cup win by Scotland were reoffered for sale, in relation to the opening Six Nations match which has yet to be played. Last time the two sides met, England won.

Scotland fans seem to have decided that relisting old T-shirt was a bad omen: the Scots have a story that many companies produced commemorative ties and sportswear based on a confidently predicted English Grand Slam victory in 1990, which had to be destroyed when Scotland won 13-7. The parallels have left many superstitious Scotland supporters very unhappy!

Also making negative headlines is the new ruling that New York City police officers cannot wear, own or possess anything that carries the famous NYPD shield, unless that item is an official uniform component. The ban has caused an outcry, as many officers chose to wear non-official shield-bearing clothing when they are off duty, as a sign of solidarity, particularly since 9/11.

A spokesman for the NYPD said, “The department wants to deter the unprofessional appearance associated with unauthorized police-related logos and slogans.” However, the president of the police union claims that the ruling is nonsensical and may infringe the right to free speech. Many officers are already asking why the only people in the world who can’t have an NYPD keyring or vest are the members of the NYPD itself.

Both stories highlight the risks involved in pre-empting anything, whether it’s public opinion, a sporting result, or market testing before choosing promotional material. It’s difficult to turn bad press into good news, and taking time to ensure that promotional clothing is legal, decent and accurately portrays the story you wish to tell can save a lot of negative headlines.