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fashion

What is the Purpose? Fashionistas and the New Merch World

Go to the Justin Bieber site and try and buy some merch and instead you have to sign up for a newsletter. “Tour merch available everywhere now” except nowhere you would expect. It is a whole new  world out there of high fashion and $1,675 tour jackets. One printed word and a skimpy scrap of…

American Apparel Declares Bankruptcy – Relax

The New York Times this morning is reporting that American Apparel has filed for bankruptcy. It always is a scary word, this “bankruptcy,” but at least two big equipment manufacturers and one big garment company in our industry have gone through it and come out as very strong companies afterward. There really should different words, but instead…

American Apparel Lives to Fight Another Day

Several sources today say that American Apparel has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This does not affect screen print shops, don’t get your (skimpy American Apparel) panties in a bunch over it. Without giving it much thought I can think of at least five large companies in our industry that have been through Chapter 11.…

Low Cost Luxury and “Price per Wear”

If you want to buy a luxury item, you have to pay heavily for it, right?  A Tesla or a high end Mercedes is going to cost you 100K and a basic VW or Ford will cost less than 20K new. 80K for luxury. If you want a little luxury in your garment life, you…

What is a Good Shirt to Print On?

We often get requests to analyze shirts for manufacturers. I can tell you that some folks like Hanes and SanMar actually do care about you printers out there and try to make sure their products can be decorated. They don’t always fully succeed but they are definitely trying hard and often with great results. Other…

Too Many Hats

No, I’m not talking about too many hats in the literal sense, i.e.: we’ve got 3 days to embroider 10,000 caps with only 12 embroidery heads to work with.  Been there, done that. Here I am talking figuratively about wearing too many hats and if you are anything like me you are in fact wearing too…

Jazz Fest Shirts and More

Every year we look forward to a parade of funny and interesting t-shirts at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. This year that didn’t really happen. We found some but it was rather slim pickings but that’s the way fashion rolla. And just when you think you know what’s in and what’s out, you don’t.…

More About Reflective

Since Rick and I have been talking about reflective printing I thought I’d share a sample printed with a product made by Rutland.  The product is ER0200 Reflective Gray and we have had nothing but solid results specifically with fashion prints where the subtle tone-on-tone look under ambient light was preferred. Of course under direct light you…

3M Reflective Transfers

We’ve seen a sharp increase in demand for reflective printing in the last couple of years.  When it comes to reflective decoration options abound. Certain products have been developed for fashion where the effect is primarily, for lack of a better term, a gimmick to products for function, like safety. We’ve found that when reflectivity is paramount nothing…

Contract Printing: Good or Bad?

Being a contract printer (ASI supplier) for ASI distributors and other promotional product “professionals” is a love/hate relationship if ever there was one. When the relationship goes well it is a great cooperative arrangement and the distributor (in their white hat of course emblazoned with their clever name and logo) is our financier, our great…

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