Ordering Jackets & Outerwear for Leavers Season
By The Velocity Wear Team
A leavers jacket order has to go in during the spring term, not in the last few weeks of it. Production runs 10 to 15 working days from artwork approval, delivery sits on top of that, and collecting names and sizes from a whole year group is slower than anyone expects. Count those three blocks back from the date the jackets are wanted in hand, and the start date is usually around two months earlier.
When does a leavers jacket order have to be placed?
Start at the date the year group wants to wear them and work backwards in three blocks. The build is 10 to 15 working days from the moment artwork is approved. Transit to a UK, US or European address follows that and is not part of the build window. In front of both sits the admin nobody costs in: drawing the design, agreeing the name list, chasing the last size forms out of the last few students. A group that leaves size collection until after the spring break usually ends up cutting something else short. The wholesale jackets range lists the styles we build, and the production window itself is broken down in apparel production lead times explained.
Which style suits a leavers jacket?
We build softshell, puffer, coach and varsity styles, and a leavers group tends to land on one of the last two. Varsity is the one people keep: wool-body or poly-body with contrast sleeves, a ribbed collar and room for a chest badge and a back design. Coach jackets are lighter, cheaper to decorate and easier to size, because the cut is loose enough that a rough size run still fits. Softshell reads as staff kit rather than a keepsake. Puffer is a genuine option if the jackets are meant to be worn the following winter rather than on the last day of term.
How do year-group numbers affect the fifty-piece minimum?
The minimum is 50 pieces per design and sizes inside those 50 can be mixed however the list falls, so a year group of 90 in one design is straightforward. The trap is colourways. If half the group wants navy and half wants burgundy and each needs its own screens, that is two designs and two lots of 50, not one order split down the middle. The same applies if staff want a different back print. Deciding colour before you collect sizes, rather than after, is what keeps a leavers order to a single run.
What can still change after artwork approval?
Very little, and that is deliberate. Approval is the point the screens are made or the embroidery file is digitised, and the 10 to 15 working days start from there. A name list is the one thing that is sometimes still open, because individual names are added at decoration rather than at cutting, but even that has a cut-off. If a year group wants to see the jacket before committing, order a sample first. It is £150 and the fee is credited against the bulk order, so the cost only sits with you if the order never happens.
One more scheduling note: build in a few days at the end for distribution. Sorting 90 jackets into sizes and names in a school office takes an afternoon, and it is much easier to do that a week early than on the morning of an assembly. The full order sequence, from enquiry to delivery, is set out in your first bulk jacket order.
