Jackets & Outerwear for Societies, Ordered Properly
By The Velocity Wear Team
Society outerwear is bought by a committee that changes every year, on money that has to be approved before it is spent. That makes the order a paperwork problem as much as a clothing one. Jackets are quoted per job, the fifty-piece minimum applies per design, and production runs 10–15 working days from artwork approval.
What does a society need before freshers week?
Kit in hand on the first day of the fair, which means the order goes in over the summer. Count back: transit, 10–15 working days of production, artwork approval, and a committee vote before any of it. A society that starts the process in September is buying for the spring term whether it means to or not.
Varsity is the style societies ask for most, because it carries a society name across the back and a crest on the chest. Coach jackets do much the same job for less. The shells are on the wholesale jackets page.
Who pays for a society jacket?
Usually the member, through a pre-order, with the committee fronting the order from its budget and recovering it on delivery. That makes the pre-order list the real document: collect names, sizes and payment on one form, close it on a stated date, and order to the list plus a small buffer in the sizes that always come up short. Fifty is the minimum per design, so that buffer is free until the list exceeds it.
Societies ordering leavers or graduation kit alongside the jacket will find the same term-dated arithmetic on the schools and leavers page.
How does a committee hand the order over?
Write down the things next year's committee cannot guess: the artwork file as supplied, the colour references, the print positions, the size split that sold, and the dates the order went in and arrived. A handover of one page saves the next committee most of a term. Societies that also run tracksuit kit tend to keep both specs in one place, and sampling a society tracksuit covers the checks that belong in it.
Which shell should a society choose?
Varsity for identity, coach for cost, softshell for sports societies who want something to train in, puffer for a winter-heavy calendar. Put the choice to the committee with a price attached to each option rather than as an open question, because an open question costs a month. If the debate is genuinely close, the jackets buyer's guide compares the four on warmth, decoration and cost, and a £150 sample credited against the bulk order settles the rest.
What usually goes wrong with a society order?
Three things, in order of frequency. The pre-order list is left open too long, so the order goes in late and arrives after the fair. The artwork turns up as a low-resolution image taken from a poster, so it has to be redrawn and re-approved. And the committee votes on a design without a price attached, so the vote has to be taken twice.
All three are avoidable with dates. Put the list close, the artwork deadline and the order date into the committee minutes at the start of the process, and give one person responsibility for each. A society that does this once tends to keep doing it, because the following year's order takes a fraction of the effort.
The fourth trap is a design that names the academic year. It looks good in September and is unsellable the following one, which leaves the surplus useless instead of carrying it forward.
