California Apparel News

Alstyle Apparel & Activewear, the Anaheim, Calif.–based blanks provider, is putting the focus on its custom apparel program with plans to launch a Web application to help Alstyle clientele customize their orders by fabrics, color and style.

“We see that our flexible manufacturing is a benefit to this market and our customers,” said Chris Caldwell, director of marketing and merchandising, who describes the list of options as a “buffet.”

Customers can choose from several men’s and women’s styles, including a pocket tee, ringer tee, raglan or ¾-sleeve baseball tee, v-neck, tank, long-sleeve style, and short-sleeve style.

The T-shirts come in a range of fabrics, including a 60/40 poly/cotton (4.3 ounces), 100 percent combed ringspun cotton (4.3 ounces), a 100 percent carded ringspun cotton (5.5. ounces), a 100 percent Supersoft fabric (5.5 ounces) and a 100 percent open-end cotton (6 ounces). Next year, Alstyle will add two more fabrics to the program, another Supersoft in a 4.3-ounce weight and another carded ringspun cotton in a 5-ounce weight.

Alstyle is still finalizing the minimum orders for the program.

“The minimums are going to vary based on the complexity of the program,” Caldwell said.

For custom orders, Alstyle has 150 standard colors on the books, plus the capability to create custom colors, as well.

Alstyle manufactures its products in its 800,000-square-foot factory in Agua Prieta, Mexico, near the U.S. border.

“That’s the good thing about being so close,” Caldwell said. “We can adapt to changing market trends and quickly get them to market. We have small dye becks where we can do the custom colors. We will test it, get the dye formula and then put it into production. We control the quality all the way through from the purchase of the yarn to the knitting of the product. Since everything is done in one facility we can really monitor the consistency of the product throughout the manufacturing flow.”

Alstyle can re-label product with a customer’s own tag or heat-transfer label in less than three weeks.

“It can actually be much quicker than that,” Caldwell said. “We have multiple relabeling facilities in our distribution centers across the United States, so the typical turnaround is 10 to 14 days, depending on the geographic area of the customer.”

Altsyle recently created custom products for a supplier of NFL merchandise, as well as a youth program at Kohl’s.

“We have a lot of the products and we have all this capability, but we’ve never let the public know what we can do,” Caldwell said. “Now we’ve started to make the public aware that we have all these capabilities and skills. So if there’s something unique that will set them apart from what they could get off the shelf, we’re here to help them make it a reality.”

For more information, contact (800) 225-1364.