This September will see the fourth Fashion’s Night Out extravaganza and it is being celebrated with a stunning range of long and short-sleeved FNO printed t shirts. Originating in New York, FNO is a global initiative with the aim of boosting the fashion industry, restoring consumer confidence and making shopping fun again. Hosted by Vogue, but originally a joint effort between the Council of Fashion Designers of America, NYC & Company, American Vogue and the City of New York, FNO will this year be hosted in every country where Vogue magazine is published. This includes the UK, US, Mexico, Turkey, the Netherlands, India and Japan, with some countries, such as Italy, holding the event in more than one city. In Brazil and Greece, there will be two FNO dates.

Fashion’s Night Out kicks off on 6th September for 25 days, with the UK being one of the first countries taking part. Billed as the world’s largest fashion extravaganza, editors, celebrities, designers, models and a host of eager shoppers will flood cities across the globe for a night of live fashion shows, music performances, celebrity appearances and limited-edition launches. Last year, Justin Bieber signed custom t shirts in New York, while in London’s Bond Street there were street closures and live music.

UK boutiques and designers are urged to host an event in their local area. Details on how to do this are on the website – along with information on those fabulous personalised t shirts.

Rene Lacoste was a popular French tennis player of the 1920s who pioneered the concept of putting an embroidered emblem on otherwise unembellished garments. In fact, his iconic crocodile logo made its first appearance on sports blazers before making the transition to white tennis shirts. Other manufacturers followed suit and before long, embroidered polo shirts were being sold worldwide. Today, the embroidered polo is as popular as ever, being worn as sports, fashion and work wear.

Lacoste shirts are available in a wide range of colours and styles. It was Rene Lacoste’s classic white L.12.12 polo shirt of the late 1920s which was the inspiration for the first ever range of Lacoste men’s fragrances. The Eau de Lacoste L.12.12 collection was launched last year by the House of Lacoste, manufacturer of Lacoste and Izod clothing, with the aim of transforming Lacoste’s iconic personalised polo shirts into a fragrance. Each perfume in the range reflects a particular mood, so men can choose their fragrance depending on how they feel or want to feel. Blanc is pure, Vert is relaxed and Bleu is powerful. New for spring 2012 is Rouge, an energetic and invigorating scent which aims to inject a sense of dynamism and excitement into the wearer.

The collection is proof that, for the modern male, printed hoodies and smelling good go hand in hand.

The Mobile Ark is a family-run petting farm located near Horsham, West Sussex, where the animals come to you. Catering for corporate events and farm shows as well as birthday parties and school visits, their livestock includes ducklings, rabbits, donkeys, Shetland ponies, pigmy hedgehogs and many more breeds – all of which were taken to the Blindley Heath Country Show last weekend. Along with Canine Partners assistance dogs, Jive Ponies equestrian team and other attractions, the Ark added a colourful splash of animal-orientated fun to Osney Lodge Farm where the show was held.

The organisers have gone back to the roots of what country shows are all about at Blindley Heath, so you won’t see any Jacuzzis or conservatories on display. Tractors and Land Rovers are the order of the day, and they were sorely needed on 6th and 7th May, when torrential downpours turned the entire showground into something resembling the Somme. While farmhands worked full-time pushing vehicles out of the mud, an enterprising stall holder made a steady profit selling Wellington boots to people lacking their own.

As the Mobile Ark crew proved, an eye-catching uniform can both promote your business and keep you warm at outdoor events. Rather than shiver in embroidered polo shirts, staff wore bright yellow fleece hoodies personalised with the company logo – keeping them cosy as a new born lamb as they took their party bookings.

Formed from the merger of three other institutions, Glasgow City College is the largest college in Scotland with over 2600 courses, from entry level NCs to BA/BSc hons, in a diverse range of subjects. Recently, a group of Level 5 Technical Support students from the NC computing course raised £407 for CHAS (Children’s Hospice Association Scotland) as part of their enterprise class. They achieved this with a raffle, organised pool tournament and by making their own custom t shirts to promote the charity.

Charities are heavily dependent upon t shirt printing firms when it comes to raising awareness for fundraising, since there’s no better way to get people to donate to a good cause than to advertise it on a banner across your chest. However, the Children’s Hospice Association Scotland’s t shirt printing came courtesy of the students of Glasgow City College, who created an eye-catching red personalised t shirt incorporating the CHAS rocking horse logo and lettering, in bold white ink on the front chest and sleeves. To promote a wedding dress sale held over the May bank holiday, CHAS volunteers were photographed in personalised t shirts of an identical design.

This was not the first time Glasgow’s NC Computing Technical Support students have raised funds for children through customised clothing. In April 2011, they collected almost £400 for Make-a-Wish Foundation largely by selling customised hoodies in a variety of designs. Evidently, their creative skills are a big success.

The Reigate and Redhill YMCA, part of the wider YMCA organisation, has been active in the East Surrey area since 1871. Supporting the entire local community, but with a special emphasis on the elderly, the disadvantaged and the vulnerable, it offers superb sports and fitness facilities to both the able-bodied and the disabled at its health and leisure club. There’s also a young people’s housing scheme, after school clubs, play schemes and the Yippee and Yip4Youth programmes for children and teenagers with disabilities, run from the newly developed YMCA Sovereign Centre.

Of course, all this takes a lot of money and in the last nine years hundreds of thousands of pounds have been raised through challenging fundraising events. These have ranged from long-distance cycling marathons and sky diving challenges to a 3km Christmas Fun Run (in which everyone who took part wore a Santa suit). This year is no exception, with the YMCA Challenge 2012 scheme urging people to “Go … do something amazing in 2012.”

One of these amazing challenges was the annual Fun Run, which on Sunday 6th May attracted more than 1,500 adults and children. Part of the Reigate Festival of Sport, everyone who completed the 1km or 5km route was rewarded with a medal and personalised t shirt.

Third year students Matthew Bristow and Michael Dunn donned personalised t shirts for Macmillan Cancer Support on 18th April, and then slammed their way into the record books, beating the time held for the world’s longest badminton singles marathon – 24 hours 5 ½ minutes – by a full two hours. They were forced to stop at 26 hours 7 ½ minutes due to muscle cramps and exhaustion, but had been aiming to play for 30 hours.

Both students wore custom t shirts provided by Macmillan Support – a cause that’s close to both their hearts. The charity cared for Michael’s uncle and grandfather before they died, while Matthew lost his father to testicular cancer when he was still a baby. Both students are passionate about their sport, with Michael having been made captain and eventually president of the University badminton team within weeks of starting. He is also a seasoned fundraiser, having previously completed the Great North Run in aid of Meningitis Research.

T shirt and hoodie printing play a big part in student life. Gary Richardson, the student activities officer, was interviewed on TV wearing a students’ union custom hoodie in the same green colour as Matthew and Michael’s Macmillan printed t shirts. Despite their marathon effort, both lads looked remarkably cool and sweat-free – testament to their enviable fitness levels and strength of purpose.

Based in Italy, Proel is the name behind some of the world’s most innovative embroidery technology. The creator of the world’s first converting system, marking the transition from 68mm Jacquard cards to electronic tape readers, they have been specialising in software and hardware systems for single and multihead embroidery machines since the 1980s, working with manufacturers like Schiffli and the Happy Industrial Corporation.

In 1999 they released the first Millennium III system, one of the most complete and powerful embroidery packages on the market. Like all their products, it has undergone many transformations, and works seamlessly alongside Proel’s inline laser system technology, which can be used for a wide range of applications within the garment embroidery industry. Available for mounting onto single or multi-head embroidery machines, Proel inline lasers allow integrated cutting, sewing and even etching on a wide range of textiles.

The Millenium III series was designed for both amateurs and professional designers of custom polo shirts in mind. Now BITO, the sole US distributor for Proel, has announced new Proel Millennium III professional level digitising software, taking t-shirt printing companies beyond the basic limits. Equipped with a sophisticated stitch editor and powerful lettering system, it allows automatic digitising of vector images, stitching of vector-defined artwork, complex fills in void areas, and a host of other features of interest to designers of embroidered polo shirts.

Faced with just two candidates, the Great Bridge ward voters at Sandwell Council’s local election might still have trouble choosing where to make their mark at the ballot box. While the sitting councillor is Derek Rowley (Lab), the contending candidate is Derek Rowley (Con). To make matters worse, both men have similar looks, and live just half a mile from each other in the town of Tipton, the West Midlands. Great Bridge has been a Labour ward for 38 years.

The situation has infuriated Labour’s Derek Rowley, who has accused the Tories of underhand tactics to subvert the democratic process, and confuse voters. The Conservatives have reacted by saying that Labour is clutching at straws. While the council has pointed out each party will be made clearly visible on the ballot papers, local residents are still sceptical that they might get flustered at the ballot box.

To minimise confusion and ensure he gets enough votes on 3rd May, the Labour councillor turned to a local t shirt printer for help. He is currently hitting the campaign trail in a boldly personalised t shirt, bearing the Vote Labour message. Beneath this is his smiling image with the words: There’s only one Derek Rowley. Number One.

According to the Daily Mirror, Labour’s Mr Rowley argued that his Conservative contender has failed to hand out leaflets or knock on doors, and has done no canvassing whatsoever.

Recently, ColDesi launched a new website exclusively dedicated to DTG (direct-to-garment) printing. As well as focussing on ColDesi’s own range of DTG printers, the site offers helpful information on direct-to-garment printing in general, with business tips, ‘how to’ demos, product advice and much more. Offering unbiased and open expert advice, it is a valuable resource for both those who already personalise hoodies using DTG technology, as well as those who are thinking of branching into this area of garment decoration. It’s also the ideal way for customers of tshirt printing firms to see what can be achieved with modern DTG technology.

DTG printing is ideal for short runs of custom polo shirts, leaver hoodies and promotional garments and unlike screen printing can handle multiple colours with ease. The ColDesi site suggests many avenues that t shirt printers can explore, such as promotional clothing, birthday parties, birth and wedding announcements, family reunions, charity events, product launches, corporate events and art gifts. The DTG method handles multi-coloured designs and small garment numbers with ease, with customers able to see their photographs, scanned-in images or computer generated artworks transferred to their chosen apparel at low cost.

The ColDesi website is simplicity itself to navigate, with colourful graphics describing such things as the history of DTG printing. The technical advice for printed polo shirts and hoodies is invaluable, covering such subjects as oversized graphics and printing on dark materials.

Some wore officially sanctioned running gear, others came as Sponge Bob Square Pants – there were no hard-and-fast clothing rules for the runners of this year’s London Marathon. However, many got inspiration from the Virgin London Marathon website. The elite runners and wheelchair entrants treated it as a serious athletic event – it’s in the top five of the World Marathon Majors series – and chose equally elite running tops made from technologically advanced fabrics. Meanwhile, the fun runners and spectators had a wide choice of custom t shirts, training tops and other apparel, all featuring the heart-shaped London Marathon logo.

Many of the runners wore printed t shirts bearing a more personal message however, such as 25-year old Jennifer Chilton. She was running with a group raising funds for cancer charities, her mother having recently battled the disease. Many charity fundraising entrants – including those in fancy dress – had fought battles of their own. Sheffield man Mark McKone, who has twice battled testicular cancer, grew a handlebar moustache and ran dressed as Hulk Hogan to raise money for Orchid. In a moving tribute to his 15-year old daughter, a retired policeman ran as children’s TV character Bungle, to raise funds for terminally ill children.

The London Marathon is unique in being both an elite sports event and an important fundraising resource. All runners get a package of goodies, including a personalised t shirt or vest for those preferring not to dress up in costume for the occasion.