The Simple Beanie



Sporty Beanie

Neutral Gray Beanie

       



            In the past year the classic beanie has made its way back into the fashion world, especially during the rise of the hipster trend. You can literally get beanies in any design or style imaginable. Obviously, with me being a huge sports fanatic, I love to get beanies that are in my favorite team’s colors. But it’s always nice to have a few beanies in neutral colors like cream, tan, and grey to go with everyday outfits. Another nice aspect about beanies, especially for girls is on bad hair days or just lazy days. We all know those days as girls when we just don’t feel like messing with the heap on hair on your head, so it’s always nice to be able to throw on a beanie and still be able to pull a cute outfit together. I would definitely recommend everybody to have their go to beanie as they are a must in anybody’s wardrobe.

Images source: www.amazon.com

March Madness not just about Competition, but also Business for Sports Brands

             For every college sports fan across the nation, this can be considered to be the best time of the year. Sixty-eight teams go to battle to win the NCAA Basketball Championship, and no team is a given, even unbeaten Kentucky. But along with one of the greatest sports atmospheres found anywhere in the world, the topic of sportswear and fashion trends are a main part of the talk.
            Turn on any game over the next few weeks, and I can guarantee that by the end you will know what brand each team was wearing and even possibly the specific shoes a certain player may be wearing. Top sports brand companies don’t need to create a contract with the NCAA to promote their products because the schools they sponsor are doing it for them each time they step foot on the basketball court.

For the 2015 NCAA Basketball Tournament, Adidas revealed
these specially designed uniforms for sponsored schools.

             Some sports brands use that to their advantage . In past years, companies have come out with special jerseys just for tournament time. That is a great advertisement opportunity, because sports brands can come out with eye catching gear that will attract the average basketball fan that they might not see if its shown in a commercial, because if you are like me, commercials are the best times to check your phone for other scores. I think this is ingenious of sportswear companies to use a tournament that they have no partnerships with as a way to sell their product, because in the end, they aren't losing money they wasted on an advertisement, they are creating more buzz for their product that players are unknowingly promoting.  
            Most of the big name schools in college basketball, like Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Duke are easily recognizable because they are the face of college basketball and their fan gear is always in high demand throughout the season. But, what happens when smaller schools like Georgia State and University of Alabama Birmingham make some noise by getting upsets over top seeds on their path to being this years’ Cinderella story? They cause a huge surge in the sportswear world. When a smaller school upsets a big name, they gain followers as most love to support the David when battling a Goliath. When they win, people want to show their support for this newly rising star and go out and buy a jersey or fan shirt to support their team. Think back to when Florida Gulf Coast made a run in the tournament a few years ago and how many people you saw wearing a snapback or jerseys to show their support for a school they had not previously had affiliation with.
           That right there shows the power of the sports and their influence on the sportswear world. This is about big events like March Madness, the Super bowl, the College Football Playoffs, and the World Series. After a champion is crowed, what is the first commercial you see following the game? Yep, that’s right, it’s a commercial influencing the consumers to buy a shirt that supports the winning team, and who wouldn’t want to do that? Sports brands have found a way to use big events that they may not be necessarily partnered with, to create profit by showing support for the winning teams. It’s all calculated decisions when it comes to the business world and when combined with sports, it’s not too hard to figure out as most people tend to support the underdog and the hard-nosed winners.

Image Source: www.bleacherreport.com

Customization: the future of fashion?

                In my past blog posts I have talked about how many sports brands offer the opportunity to customize shoes. The option to customize numerous different articles of clothing seems to be the big thing lately, and I think that is because people feel the need to express themselves more and stand out from the cookie-cutter mold. People want to be different, and to provide that, sports companies use customization. In a post I wrote back in November, The Beauty of Customization, I told of how I customized my basketball shoes for the then upcoming season. Now that my high school basketball season has come to an end, I am once again relying on the customization options to design new jerseys for our season next year.
                To start the process, we met as a team with a sales rep for Adidas and Under Armour, where he showed us the different styles of jerseys available. Most of them were not in my school’s colors so it was hard to in vision how cool the jerseys would actually look, so that was where the “beauty of customization” came into play. The sales rep, showed us how to access Adidas customization tool, mi adidas, and from there we could access the numerous styles sitting in front of us, but this time we could view how they would look in green and gold. Not only is the customization tools offered by these sports companies fun to mess around with to try crazy combinations, but they also give the buyer the option to assess all their creations side by side so they can see exactly what they are buying, exactly how they want it, and exactly how much each creation would cost. It makes the buying process much easier, because there isn’t any doubt on what you are purchasing.
                Obviously within the customization site, you could easily change the colors of the jerseys to match what we wanted, but there were also many other variables that the buyer has the option to change. You could decide where you want the team name placed on the front, where the numbers would be, what the size and font the numbers and letters would be, where you wanted to place your team logo, and so on. Just on one jersey style there are millions of options on how to make your team’s own unique jersey so you can stand out from the rest. Now realistically with all these choices there is also a price to it, which can get pretty high the more options you add. But it is nice because as you are creating your jerseys and you add more options, you can see the price adding up off to the side, so you know that if you got with option 1 over option 2 you could save $10, which adds up when you are buying a team set of jerseys.

                Customization is the future of not only the sports fashion world, but the fashion world in general. People want to be different. People want to stand out from the crowd. People want to be noticed in that one-of-a-kind clothing and know that they won’t show up to a party wearing the same thing as the next guy. Being different is just what we are as people and the ability to customize clothing to fit our wants and needs, satisfies us. Every time I’ve used a customization site, whether it be for personal items or as a team, the process has been an easy one because you get to dictate exactly want you want and how you want it.