ImagesMagUK_Digital_Edition_Feb18

AskAdy... Adrian Burton of South East Workwear runs the popular AskAdy site, which hosts independent reviews of workwear garments. Now Ady is sharing his expert opinions with the readers of Images . This month, he’s discussing polo shirts and DTG printing One of the trickiest things I get asked for is to recommend a polo shirt. I am asked daily what polo I think is best for a builder, a fitness professional, an electronics engineer... You might think that a polo is just a polo, but it’s not! 25 odd years ago, when I first started selling, workwear polos were easy. Most of the products had a good cotton content and we stuck to a couple to sell. Now, however, things have changed hugely and my sales guys have had to build up a very technical knowledge of the different materials and applications of the garments as well as which processes can be used to decorate them. The polo now not only comes in a variety of materials, but also in a huge array of colours and styles, with two- tone polo shirt sales currently going through the roof. For a fantastic range of two-tone products look at the Kustom Kit range; Dickies Everyday Workwear also has a huge range now. Every brand seems to be coming out with their own take on what would be a good colour combination, which makes our life much easier when designing a uniform package for our customers. We can give them the bespoke look that they want, away from the run of the mill navy blue and black polos, and without the expense of a mass production run of 1,000 bespoke pieces and the eight weeks or so lead time involved in getting the items shipped in from abroad. Embroidery on most of these products is no problem as the backing materials these days are so good that you can get great embroidery clarity on even the thinnest and flimsiest fabrics; GS UK offers a great range of products. One thing to consider when decorating polos is that DTG printers can encounter problems achieving a high quality print onto a piqué-type material. You will also need a high cotton content garment to ensure good adhesion to the fabric. With this in mind, here is some advice for those who want to use DTG on polos: the B&C Safran is a very good, close-knit polo shirt that is available in a mass of colours. It is 100% cotton, but used in conjunction with a pre-mixed Image Armor pretreatment, it works a treat. The pretreatment is so good that we have even achieved durable, high quality prints on hi-vis waistcoats and AWDis Just Cool products during our in- house testing. Although we personally wouldn’t use DTG on hi-vis garments for our customers as it’s too slow – we prefer to use transfers – our tests do show how good this pretreatment is. INDUSTRY NEWS www.images-magazine.com 08 images FEBRUARY 2018 WORKWEAR REVIEW To see AskAdy’s DTG tips, visit www.images-magazine.com . Two-tone polos, such as this Kustom Kit style, are currently very popular with customers, reports Ady New colourway for Spiro’s basketball kit Spiro’s Basketball mini collection is now available in a new white colourway. Included in the range is the Basketball Men’s Quick Dry Top (S278M) and Basketball Quick Dry Shorts (S279M). www.spiroactivewear.com Beatrice Fihn at the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony Nobel Peace Prize winner wears Embroline- embroidered dress When Beatrice Fihn accepted the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize she became the first person in the world to wear an outfit featuring an embroidery created with the thread-colouring Embroline attachment from Coloreel. Beatrice, of ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons), wore a dress designed by Bahareh Ardakani and decorated with crystals and Embroline embroideries using more than half a million stitches and 4,000m of thread. Designer Bahareh commented: “Embroline opens up entirely new ways of creating embroideries that have not been possible before. Embroline is definitely the future of embroidery.” www.coloreel.com