Schools: Ordering Jackets & Outerwear in Bulk

Schools buy outerwear against a fixed date, and that is what shapes the order. A leavers jacket with a name list on the back needs artwork locked earlier than a plain one, because every name has to be checked before production starts. The minimum is fifty per design, and production runs 10–15 working days from approval.

Which outerwear style works for a leavers order?

Varsity is the one most year groups ask for, and it carries a name list and a year number better than anything else. Coach jackets are the cheaper route to a similar silhouette and print large on the back. Softshell suits staff and sports departments rather than leavers. Puffers land well for a winter leaving date but cost more to decorate, because padding moves under a press. All four sit side by side on the wholesale jackets page.

How do name lists change the order?

A name list is artwork, not personalisation, so the whole year group appears on every back and it is printed the same way each time. That makes proofreading the critical path: one misspelt surname is reprinted at the school's cost, and there is no fixing it after the screens are made. Have two members of staff check the list against the register, then a third check anything unusual.

Individual names are a different job. Those are embroidered or printed per garment, each one a separate setup, and they push both the price and the schedule out. Decide which of the two you are buying before you ask for a quote.

When does a school need to place the order?

Count back from the leavers date: transit, then 10–15 working days of production, then the artwork approval round, then the name collection. Name collection is the part schools underestimate, because it depends on pupils returning a form. Six to eight weeks of lead time is comfortable; three is not. Autumn term apparel planning sets out the same arithmetic for the start of the year, and the schools and leavers page covers what else tends to go on the same order.

How do you handle sizes and payment for a year group?

Collect sizes on the same form that collects names, and publish a size chart with chest measurements rather than letters, because a school's idea of a medium and a fifteen-year-old's rarely agree. Sizes mix freely inside the fifty, so an order weighted to small or to XL costs the same. On payment, schools usually take deposits through the office before artwork approval, which is also the last moment the list can change.

If the department is still undecided between shells, the jackets buyer's guide compares them on warmth, decoration and cost.

What else usually goes on the same school order?

Rarely just the jacket. A leavers order tends to carry hoodies for the year group, polos for the sports department and caps for a summer trip, and each of those is its own design with its own fifty. Placing them together does not merge the minimums, but it does merge the admin: one artwork round, one production window, one delivery. Schools that spread the same items across three separate orders through the year pay for setup three times and chase three delivery dates in term time.

Departments should also agree the crest once. A crest redrawn for the jacket and redrawn again for the polo becomes two versions of the same mark, and within a year nobody can say which is correct. Approve it once at garment scale, save the file, and reuse it on everything that follows.

Fixing the decoration method at the same time helps. Embroidery on a polo chest, a screen print on a hoodie back and a printed name list on a varsity back can all come from one approved crest file, provided it was drawn to work in thread as well as in ink.