Many of us have worn or even loved polo shirts, but few may know that the popularity of polo shirts is still thanks to the founder of Lacoste crocodile shirts, 7-time Grand Slam French tennis champion René Lacoste.
As early as the 19th century to the early 20th century, the standard tennis attire was a button-down shirt, long-sleeved, of course the sleeves could be rolled up, and flannel pants at the bottom. You can imagine what it’s like to play tennis in the summer. So Mr. René Lacoste designed this short-sleeved tennis shirt in 1926.
After retiring in 1933, he set up a company with a friend who was in the clothing business and began selling this type of short-sleeved shirt to Europe and North America. Polo was the first to accept and wear this kind of short-sleeved shirt. By the 1950s, at least in American polo sports, it had become a consensus to use this kind of short-sleeved shirt, so this kind of tennis shirt that was born because of tennis was often used in the future. It’s called a Polo shirt. It is also called polo shirt because of the sport of polo. In the early years, polo was a British royal sport.
Due to its popularity in the upper class, Polo shirts have continued to be positioned as “attire for informal social occasions”. Since the 1950s, from the perspective of dress etiquette, Polo shirts can be used as “replacing shirts and ties.” Informal dress.”
There is a saying that women before the age of 30 like to wear suspenders, and after the age of 30, they like to wear shirts; while men like to wear T-shirts before the age of 30, and after the age of 30, they like to wear polo shirts. The reason is that image positioning is constantly changing, and men after the age of 30 need to show composure and temperament.
So how to choose a polo shirt?
First, let’s introduce what types of polo shirts there are. Generally, our common polo shirt fabrics include pique fabrics, mercerized cotton, chemical fibers, woven shirt fabrics, knitted milk silk, worsted cashmere, etc.
As shown in the picture above, it is pique fabric. This fabric is also the most commonly used fabric for polo shirts on the market. The price ranges from tens of dollars to tens of thousands. Cut and then make with.
The polo shirt pictured above is made of mercerized cotton. Its advantages are that it has good luster, comfortable touch, and excellent breathability. Its disadvantage is that it is not stiff enough and will look shapeless.
We won’t introduce chemical fibers separately. Most of the polo shirts that cost tens of dollars on the market are made of this type of material.
In recent years, many customized men’s clothing brands have begun to use woven shirt fabrics to make polo-style shirts. Its advantage is that it is stiffer and more stylish, but its disadvantage is that woven fabrics have no elasticity. A pullover made in a polo style is very inconvenient to put on and take off, especially when you are sweating. It is very difficult to take off, and it can be easily torn if you are not careful.
Milk silk and worsted cashmere are flat knitted polo shirts. As shown in the picture above, what Commander Gao is wearing is knitted on a flat knitting machine.
The advantage of flat knitting lies in the flexibility of styles. If you want something thick, stiff and textured, choose double knitting; if you want something light, soft and comfortable, choose plain knitting. The cuffs and hem can also be closed or open. You can choose raglan sleeves or shoulder line sleeves for the shoulders.
The picture above is a double knitted raglan sleeve
Flat knitting type is to first use a flat knitting machine to knit the yarn into pieces according to the size, which is equivalent to cutting pieces, and then The pieces are sewn together using a circular machine, supplemented by manual labor.
The picture above is the flat knitting method
Today we focus on flat knitted polo shirts. This kind of flat knitted polo shirt has not become popular in recent years. In fact, it has been around in the 1960s and 1970s.
It has already appeared in Sean Connery’s early 007 series, and it is often seen in later 007 series.
It also appeared in the 1991 “The Legend of Inspector Lei Luo” starring Andy Lau.
In the early days, because its price was relatively high, it was not common on the market. However, in recent years, due to its good wearing experience and reduced production and manufacturing costs, it has appeared more and more on the market.
So what should you pay attention to when choosing a flat knitted polo shirt?
As people who are deeply involved in the customization industry, we have always recommended that the most important point for customers to choose is the material. The quality of the material determines the texture and quality of the entire garment.
Generally, flat knitted polo shirts on the market contain chemical fibers, and the general chemical fibers are disguised with a nice name, such as fiber imported from Japan, or ice silk cotton, etc. Their essence is still low cost. of chemical fibers.
Its advantage is that the price is relatively cheap, but its disadvantages are that the touch feel is slightly poor and the product performance is not stable. In addition, the manufacturer’s post-processing process differences can easily lead to problems. Last year, one of our colleagues spent several hundred yuan to buy a perfectly fitting ice silk cotton flat knitted polo shirt, but after washing, it turned into a skirt like the picture above.
In addition to chemical fibers, there is also cotton, which is the Sea Island cotton that people often mention to me. Its advantages are excellent breathability, comfortable touch, and beautiful color. Its disadvantages are color, durability, and sweat resistance. Worse.
In addition, there is also milk silk yarn to choose from. It is a man-made fiber obtained by copolymerizing milk with acrylic polymer after skimming it using a chemical process. the purpose for which it was originally producedIt is to obtain performance close to that of silk.
Its advantages are 1. Gorgeous appearance: Milk silk fabric has a silk-like luster. Fabrics woven with high-count yarns have fine, clear textures and excellent drape.
2. Comfortable to wear: Milk silk fabric feels soft, smooth, and light in texture. It has the quality of a blend of silk and cashmere. Its hygroscopicity is equivalent to that of cotton, and its moisture conductivity and breathability are far better than cotton.
3. Good dyeing performance: the natural color of milk silk is light yellow, like the color of tussah silkworms. It can be dyed with acid dyes, reactive, true dyes and cationic dyes. Especially when dyed with reactive dyes, it has a bright luster and good fastness to sunlight and perspiration. Compared with silk products, it solves the contradiction between bright dyeing and dye fastness.
4. Good physical properties: The single-filament breaking strength of milk silk is above 3.0cN/dtex, which is higher than wool, cotton, and silk, and second only to high-strength fibers such as polyester. It has good spinnability. The elongation at break of milk silk is greater than cotton and close to wool. Textiles produced from milk protein fibers have good dimensional stability, are easy to wash, and are quick-drying.
The disadvantage is that it is expensive. Because milk silk yarn is very expensive, there are a lot of fake milk silk on the market, most of which are polyester or elastic spandex. Most people can only You can identify real and fake milk silk by burning it. Because real milk silk contains high amino acid content, it will smell like burning hair after burning, while fake milk silk has a bad smell.
In addition to milk silk, there are also yarns such as superfine wool and worsted cashmere. Although superfine wool is called superfine, it still feels like it sticks to the skin when worn close to the body. Therefore, superfine wool is generally not recommended. Of course, real superfine wool is still very expensive.
There is no need to introduce the advantages of worsted cashmere yarn in detail. It has all the advantages of cashmere. You will definitely fall in love with it after wearing it. Its only disadvantage is that it is expensive. It is very expensive.
At present, some domestic high-end stores can provide flat knitting polo custom-knitting services. They can be knitted according to the customer’s size. Of course, because it is knitted, there will be an error of about 1-3cm. . Friends who have the conditions or likes it can try it. Of course, three types of yarns are generally recommended for custom weaving: milk silk, superfine wool, and worsted cashmere. However, cotton or chemical fiber custom weaving is not very cost-effective.
