Water a load of madness

A school in Devon has banned pupils from wearing swimming goggles because they get slippery when wet. You think?

They are acting on advice that informs, correctly it must be said, that goggles are often unnecessary but the plastic can slip and injury due to the water making them slippery. Which is true. However, surely the best part of swimming at school was being able to dive around in the water, peering at everyone underwater and so forth. That's why we wear goggles, to see the underneath of water. Something you can't very well do in British waters can you?

Ah well, never mind. The main thing is the children get to have a nice swim. Who knows, perhaps there's a future swimming champion in there.

Summer footwear

Hello all! It's summer! It's Glastonbury! It's...going to rain!

But we don't care. Footwear in summer is an odd conundrum. Flip flops? Trainers? Barefoot? Why not combine them all together and make a weird piece of footwear called the Vibram FiveFingers (no, not a funk guitarist) but a shoe that offers protection and comfort when you're clambering over rocks and the like.

People do, apparently, have a bit of a love/hate reaction to them, and we have to say in the Company Clothing office find them "deeply disturbing". Still, if you've got a pair let us know what they're really like below.

Enjoy the sun!

Wimbledon! Tennis! Ace!

Have you been enjoying the tennis? Dash awful fun we must say. This Murray chaps a bit good what what? The outfits worn by the players are certainly something too - Federer was in some lovely military style jacket and the ladies appear to be taking part in some 'who can wear the shortest dress' competition alongside the main tennis competition.

Right, sorry for updating so late today, still sleeping off yesterday's Pimms.

Cycled clothing

Cycling is going through a bit of a cultural revolution (ha!) as people seek to escape the daily commute and expand their lungs by cycling hither and thither. Unfortunately cycling does mean you can have to don some rather ridiculous clothing - yellow jerseys, lycra and the like.

However, a new clothing range from TfL (Transport for London?!) is proving to be a bit of a hit with some people. The range is called, and you'll like this, Bspoke and the range features names that reference various parts of London - Kensington, Richmond, Holborn for example.

It's great to see clothing being used as part of a promotional push(bike) and if it gets people out on their bikes, then we're all for that.

Spacemen

Did you see James May in Space last night? If not we would urge you to head to the iPlayer when you get a spare hour and enjoy one of the most moving, interesting and brilliant bits of TV from the year so far.

One bit that did catch our attention in particular was all the information about the space suits they have to wear to survive in space. It's all well and good building rockets and having men willing to fly them, but to survive you need clothing that can withstand pressures and forces like nothing anywhere on earth. That NASA did this is a marvel in itself.

Star Trekking

As you will remember for the Awards back in March (can it be that long ago?) we asked companies to design Star Trek uniforms for the Design Innovation Challenge. They were all awesome, and were placed on display as guest entered the champagne reception - if you weren't there you missed out!

Therefore we were pleased to see the trend continued, with the recent story about corsets designed in Star Trek colours and piping. Have a look at a couple of pictures here on the Telegraph website.

Sockaholic

With Father’s Day - the ultimate sock-gifting day just around the corner - results from a survey by Peter Jones confessed that they like receiving socks as a gift – shattering the sock’s reputation as a traditionally boring and un-inspirational gift.

The results from the survey, carried out by Peter Jones, the Sloane Square branch of John Lewis, were revealing:

• 69% of British dads enjoy receiving socks as a gift
• 67% of men never buy socks for themselves
• 76% said that the quality, colour and expense of socks given as a present far exceed their own standard when buying socks for themselves
• 80% of dads also admitted that it was a treat since socks are not something they buy for themselves
• The average British dad owns 22 pairs of socks and receives an average of 9 pairs as gifts annually
• When asked what they look for in a good pair of socks, 50% chose quality, mainly thickness, 36% said colour and 20% thought price was most important –
• The average spend is £5
• Only 34% of men colour co-ordinate their socks to their outfit with ‘black for work, white with trainers and anything at the weekend’ being the overriding rule of thumb

Charitable television

A programme that caught Company Clothing's eye last night was Mary Queen of Charity Shops; in which Mary Portas a 'fashion guru' turned a run of the mill charity shop into a thriving, £2,000 a week business for Save the Children.

She made a big effort to try and get people to donate clothing that was fashionable and looked good, citing the fact most women have a piece of clothing they have never worn; something that would surely be good for a charity shop. She visited magazine publishers Emap, where assembled fashionistas were told to 'Donate, Don't Dump' (D-Day - should have been 3D Day really).

At the end the Save the Children head honchos revealed that with the revamp and the far more enticing product lines, the shop was bringing in the required £2,000 a week and that they would be rolling out the changes in design and product stock to many more stores. So, next time you're passing a charity shop, have a think about the bargains you could snap up!

And of course, if you're company has bundles of good quality clothing that could be given away, think charity shop first, before recycling.

Eco friendly?

A story in today's Daily Mail sheds light on a move by Kirklees Council to insist relatives dress deceased relatives who are to be cremated in 'environmentally friendly' clothing so that chemicals harmful to the environment are not released into the atmosphere during the process.
Unsurprisingly this has led to some complaints: the below is an extract from the article:

One man, who did not want to be named, was shocked to find his relative could not wear the 100 per cent cotton outfit she had chosen before she died.

He said: ‘We knew it had to be natural fibres so she chose a top and slip that was 100 per cent cotton. ‘But when the funeral director came we were told she would have to wear a special shroud. He pulled out a swatch of different colours to choose from.

‘We didn’t know what it looked like and when we went to see her in the chapel of rest, we couldn’t believe it. It was all fluffy and frilly. The deceased would not have wanted to have been seen dead in it - unfortunately she was.’

A drastic move it seems; is it one that can be justified? Does every aspect of life (and death) need to be subject to rigorous environmental controls? Or is this a step too far? What do you think?

Saved by the footwear

Just a quick Friday story; how four-inch high heels helped a woman forgo community service work on a building site.

Have a nice weekend.

Outfoxed

City foxes are becoming more and more populous and so their interactions with humans are bound to increase. In Germany, one such city fox has become a notorious shoe thief, 86 pairs of shoes beings found in the fox's den, and more nearby.

Why would a fox want shoes? Are its own feet not suited enough for city living so it decided some human footwear was necessary? If so, that's a fairly clever piece of work by Fantastic Mr Fox. In fact, perhaps there are tunnels all over the place that old Foxy Loxy's set up to reach the bakers, the butchers and so on to save on the effort of catching his food.

Back to school

Okay, so Company Clothing doesn't cover children's clothing, as they don't work, but news that ASDA is to sell an entire 'back to school' wardrobe for £4.75 is certainly blog worthy.

Yet again, low prices are sure to be met with questions of 'how can they afford to make it so cheap?' But, for cash strapped parents in the middle of a recession, it's likely the sound of the packets hitting the bottom of supermarket trolleys will be taking place up and down the country.

The roaring 40s

Twenty 20 cricket is upon us - with England doing their best / worst to make the start of the tournament more dramatic than it needed to be - but what we particularly like is the kits the teams wear. Ostensibly mere variations on their traditional colours - dark blues, greens, yellows etc - they're adorned with numbers like footballers (many seem to have random ones like 99 or 45 - eh?) and their names emblazoned across the back.

Of course, with such loud, bright colours the potential for kit clashes is high. If Pakistan play India you get sky blue v dark green. Urgh.

Football shirts = money

This time last week fans of Manchester United were rueing a, let's be honest, pretty terrible display from their team in the Champions League final. While their detractors were of course smiling from ear to ear.

Still, no point wasting time dwelling on such defeats, thought the board, and promptly secured a deal worth £80 million over four years for the next shirt sponorship, with financial firm Aon. Isn't that amazing? A brand can make £80 million from selling space on their shirts. Only sport could provide such power to a brand to be able to secure such huge revenue - indeed this is the largest ever football sponsorship deal, vastly eclipsing Bayern Munich's £56.5 million pound deal from a few years ago.

But, whatever the value of the space, it can't help you play any better. As Barcelona proved - they let Unicef use their shirts for free.

Golden Oldies

Another quick link here - these stories really don't need rewriting, just linking you see - to a story on the BBC website about technology used in clothing that could help old folks, the elderly etc, by sending information back to their doctor should it detect anything that could become a problem, or even monitoring the temperature in a room and adjusting the thermostat remotely. You gotta love technology that can do that.

Water talk

More here on the BBC website about the pros, cons and debates over high-tech swim suits - and a nice bit of history on the gradually rise of swim suit technology. Nothing's ever simple is it?

Hat's off

Just a little link - article on hats on today's BBC Magazine section.

Urgh Factor

As you may have seen on Have I Got News For You this weekend, policewomen have been complaining that their trousers make them look like, gulp, Simon Cowell. Ouch.

The story from The Times says, "The British Association of Women in Policing is lobbying the Government and the Association of Chief Police Officers for better-fitting uniforms. Liz Owsley, of the BAWP, said: “Women police officers have constantly brought up the fact they do not have a proper uniform. If you are going out there, protecting the public and being in confrontational circumstances, you need to feel professional and confident. If you are going out there looking like a sack of spuds, you are not feeling confident and you are not going to do your job properly."

Which is all very true. In fact we covered a similar story a while back in which we looked at how Nottinghamshire Police were in constant communication with their female officers to ensure they were happy with the quality of the garments they were issued with.