I had a great tour of Los Angeles Apparel in Downtown Los Angeles. With barely any notice they gave me the run of the place and let me talk to anyone. Their claims of making all their shirts and treating their workers with respect are ABSOLUTELY true. Even after many years in a somewhat volatile…
Don’t worry if you missed some of the Shop Talks at the recent Impressions Expo in Long Beach. We’ll have every talk up on our YouTube channel in the coming weeks. First up is Rick’s talk with Dov Charney. Unfiltered as always, Dov talked to us about garment trends, imprintable t-shirt history, how to get…
A Utah company specializing in right wing apparel was fined $211,000 for bogus (the government actually used the word “bogus”) claims about their shirts being made in the usa. They were fined by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for ripping out Made in China labels from shirts and sewing Made in USA labels into the…
Seems like trade shows are back on track. Impressions AC was pretty good, FESPA raises the bar, and lots of people at FESPA were all gung-ho talking about the Impressions show in Long Beach as things move in fits and starts back to some sort of normalcy. FESPA is an international printing show, once held…
Dov Charney, the man who brought us the original, iconic American Apparel brand, tells us what he sees coming next in garment trends in this Shop Talk from Impressions Expo in Long Beach. Get rid of those flimsy tri-blends. According to Dov, heavy-weight cotton in a wider cut, that’s to say “schleppy”, is going to be…
Apparel is said to make up 6-7% of household waste in the US. That’s a lot. There are many steps to the recycling process. The post-consumer apparel needs to be collected, sorted according to its fiber content, stripped of non-fabric elements like buttons or zippers, and then treated chemically or mechanically to separate the fibers.…
Allmade, a formerly self distributed brand started by screenprinters, has officially partnered with Sanmar. The partnership will allow for better distribution and inventory for the brand. Four years ago a group of ten screen printers and Ryonet’s Ryan Moor set out on a mission to make a better t-shirt. It all started with job creation…
As the nation’s hospitals face shortages of personal protection equipment due to the coronavirus, garment manufacturers are stepping up to help resolve the shortage of face masks for hospital personnel. At the request of the federal government, Hanes has recently started to switch over from the manufacture of apparel to the production of cotton masks.…
In my approach to t-shirt design, the first consideration is the blank or base-product as this informs so many of my decisions (color, techniques, ink selection, print placement, etc.) throughout the design process. I’ve done it this way for so long that I’m virtually incapable of working on a t-shirt design without this critical piece…
Hey, the Mets, Royals, Blue Jays, Cubs and Dodgers all win in the baseball play-offs and your shirt distributors run out of Royal Blue t-shirts for a month. Maybe Taylor Swift is seen in a video that goes viral and she is wearing a pink Dickies work shirt and you then can’t get one for…
