Promotional T Shirts – What’s New and Upcoming in This Vibrant Industry
March is the month when many of us in the promotional t shirt industry get together at the NEC Birmigham for the Printwear and Promotion Show to see the latest developments and products.
This year there has been a race by many of the main t shirt manufacturers to get their range of ‘planet friendly’ t shirts into the market place , by planet friendly I am of course referring to the organic cotton types, Fairtrade and wait for it – Bamboo, and no it’s not as uncomfortable as you are thinking!
One genuine breakthrough is the world’s first fully recycled t shirt by American company Anvil, this shirt apparently ticks all the right boxes with it’s green credentials. Using materials that were destined for landfill – yarn waste, new apparel cuttings and industrial fibres are sorted by color and made into a lint material known as shoddy, this is then spun into a yarn used to produce the recycled shirts.
A lot of t shirt manufacturers have woken up to the massive health & fitness potential for their clothing
and many of them featured special treatments applied to fabrics which are designed to provide optimum performance for the user. One such company Alo, who’s unique treatments and fabrics include Cool Fit , draws moisture away from the body and anti-microbial treatment for odor free clothing.
When it comes to printing on t shirts the future is digital, with most people being able to create artwork direct from their laptop or PC it is now possible fort-shirt printers to turnaround small custom design shirts without charging over the odds.
There will be rich pickings for the companies who get the technology right, as this will generate increasing turnover for the printer and ink manufacturers, as well as the print shops and online store owners who will be offering previously undreamed of creative design and image reproduction capabilities.
It appears the promotional T-shirt market as a whole will continue to grow this year due to the versatility it offers as a promotional material. The freedom that comes with being able to personalize a T-shirt with a particular message due to the sophisticated printing technologies now available, means they may be more widely used as a marketing tool. That said, premium ranges of T-shirts may not flourish as much as the budget and mid-range counterparts due to the current economic climate. womens short sleeve pajama set