Customizing Softshell coats and textiles

Softshell is both a technical and a concept garment. It is really appreciated in the sports world (hiking, ski, etc.) because of its many qualities (for more information about Softshell technology,  please, click here).

For sports clubs or companies, there are many reasons to customize Softshell coats for their partners. However, these clothes are fragile and quite expensive (from around 50 to 200 euros), they need to be particularly cared for during their customization.

Why would you customize a softshell coat ? How customizing a softshell coat for a perfect result ? Screen-printed transfer or embroidery ? What is the most appropriate printing technique for a softshell customization ?

Why would you customize a softshell coat ? 

Softshell coats (and more globally all the softshell textiles) can be customized with your imagery to use them as excellent communication tools ! Here are some examples of Softshell customization : 

• Sport softshell coats : for training or before matches, you can customize sport softshell coats with the name of the club, the players’ names or numbers. This way, they will be easily identified during the events and the notions of team and cohesion will be pointed out. 
• Working softshell coats : for professionals from building and public works, logistics,... who often have to work in the outdoor, the working softshell coats are a real solution to gather comfort and liberty of movement !  
• Advertising softshell : You’re going to an outdoor or a sports event ? That’s the perfect moment for making advertising softshells ! Bet on attractive artworks just like your company/club, to be noticed by everyone from anywhere. Indeed, a group of 30 people, gathered in a same event, with the same advertising softshell coat for the same products, are obviously noticeable !
• Company softshell coats : You can also customize softshell coats with your company colors ! For example, if you’re looking for a gift to your employees or customers, you can offer softshell coats with your company logo and/or slogan.   

How do you customize a softshell coat ? 

There are several printing techniques for customizing a Softshell coat : embroidery, screen-printed transfer, digital transfer... ( See the comparative article about the different printing techniques 

But softshell is not every garment... We cannot use any technique to customize it ! Indeed, softshell technology is a fragile and quite expensive material. You need to choose the adapted technique to avoid any frequent problem that may occur.   

Softshell customizing - frequent problems

The main problem that may occur when customizing softshell coats is the color bleeding during heating. In other words, when a printing is pressed on textile, heat cause the bleeding of the textile pigments to the printing which degrades the color. Honestly, as you can see on these photos, the result is not exactly great and the garments get unusable. 

Softshell customization - What printing technique should you choose ? 

To avoid these previous problems, you need to choose the appropriate printing technique, depending on the specific features of softshell. 

The two main recommended printing techniques are : 

• The  Sublistop screen-printed transfers  : to avoid the problems caused by heat, special screen-printed transfers were made for softshell. 
• Embroidery : because of color bleeding, the cost of garments, embroidery is commonly used for customizing softshell.

For questions of costs, flexibility and possibilities, the technique of screen-printed transfer adapted to softshell is more appreciated than embroidery. 

Screen-printed transfers for customizing softshell coats

You can use screen-printed transfers for customizing softshell coats but not all of them ! You need to choose transfers that were specifically made and adapted to this type of clothes.

At PrintMyTransfer, we use a special transfer to avoid the sublimation raisings : the SUBLISTOP transfer.

This sort of transfer has several advantages :  

• Great flexibility for the visual 
• Possibility to print an unlimited number of colors
• Possible realization of photo printing
• Less expensive costs 

With the screen-printed transfer technique, the possibilities of customizing softshell are huge ! We can realize whatever artwork or logo thanks to softshell screen-printed, monocolor or 4-colors transfers. 

For more informations about sublistop and softshell customizing, contact .