Uniforms are common for any professional or educational setting to foster a sense of unity and belonging. Military forces around the world make use of uniforms, both for the battlefield and for ceremonies and parades. Combat uniforms may include camouflage and thick layers to protect from trauma, while dress uniforms are showy and may include polished shoes, white gloves, a hat, and even a saber. Different branches of a given military may have different uniforms for the field and ceremonies, for example. And that’s not all. Most workplaces have their own uniforms to offer, sometimes embroidered uniforms such as polo shirts or just a T-shirt with the brand name on it. Customized polo shirts such as embroidered uniforms can be ordered and designed wholesale by a company’s managers, and these embroidered uniforms may look crisp and professional to inspire trust in customers and clients. These embroidered uniforms may make a store associate easy for customers to identify and approach, and good uniform embroidery may also make the employees easier to trust as professionals. A uniform may send the message “I know what I’m doing. Let me help.” Uniforms for schools are common, too.
On Uniforms
In some parts of the world, nearly all students wear uniforms, and while the United States is not entirely consistent about that nation-wide, many states, regions, and school districts in the United States make use of them. Today in the United States, a total of 21 states and the District of Columbia make use of formal school uniforms in their schools, with written policies to enforce this. All together, around 30% of all public schools in the United States make use of uniform guidelines for their students, and this is even more common in private schools, such as high schools. It is believed that around 54% of private schools have uniform guidelines in place for their students. Meanwhile, about 21% of all public American schools required uniforms for their students in the 2015-2016 school year, a sharp rise from the 8% in the 2003-2004 school year.
Medical facilities such as hospitals also make good use of uniforms. Doctors may wear their own, formal clothing first, and then wear distinctive white coats over them as a sort of partial uniform. Men may wear slacks and formal shoes, along with dress shirts and optionally a tie, and their white coat over that in place of a suit coat. Women may wear pant suits in a similar fashion, or a knee-length dress skirt instead and safe footwear. Meanwhile, nurses are known for wearing uniforms called scrubs, which have been in use for decades. In times past, such as the early 1900s, nurses often wore petticoats or skirts, but these have been phased out for modern scrubs, which are unisex and always feature pants (trousers in the UK). By the 1980s and 1990s, scrubs had become fully uniform in the United States for nurses and similar medical personnel.
How and Why to Order Uniforms
Why are uniforms so important? As mentioned above, store employees and associates tend to wear embroidered uniforms and other outfits so that they are easier for customers to recognized and approach, and this can be very convenient for a customer. Many stores, large and small, may have distinct color codes and outfit styles for their employees, such as the blue vests or the red shirts and beige khakis, or some other color and material combination. Studies show that 75% of American shoppers and consumers in a store like it when employees have uniforms, as those uniforms make them easy to spot and approach and also give the employees an air of confidence and qualification to help out. A uniform may involve both a shirt and pants, but often, employers will offer only the shirt and employees may be told what sort and color of pants should or should not be worn. The uniform top may be a polo shirt with the brand name embroidered in it, or it may be a T-shirt with the brand name on it. More casual settings such as fast food chains may use those shirts, such as sub sandwich shops and the like. Those shirts will have the same distinctive color, though, and store-issues aprons may be worn over them.
