With its popularity as a form of garment decoration gaining more and more ground, designs using diamante is now seen as both a fashionable statement as well as practical and efficient form of promoting a message or logo.

Until now, the technology has been purely used in a single format. Designs have only utilised diamante, and often single shaped stones in a single design. Newly launched company Blue Promotions have begun to set the trend for greater and more imaginative designs with the use of other decoration forms within the decorations, and a variety of stone shapes and colours.

Promotional Resources Manager Stephanie Blue said, ‘We are able to digitise and transform almost any design into hot-fix motifs once we have been provided with the artwork. We can do this in conjunction with embroidery, screen printing or other mediums - a client simply needs to email us with an idea of what they would like to see.’

As a result of this creativity, Blue Promotions has already seen its designs sell well into various markets, such as renowned nightclubs and entertainment industry in the UK. Designs have also sold well into department stores, where merchandisers are looking to source new and interesting ideas.

A major selling point of Blue Promotion’s designs is the quality of the stones that it uses, a comparison test was undertaken against competitors’ stones where the stones were magnified to display the rough and unsymmetrical cut of the competitors stones, while the stones that Blue Promotions uses are finely cut and have faceted edges. The company also carried out a ‘smash test’, where both stones were destroyed. The competitors were broken into fine powdered pieces, showing it is likely to be made from acrylic. Blue Promotions’ stones broke into chips, showing that it is made from higher quality glass.

This higher quality stone is much more beneficial to the end user, as it will reflect light better and have a much stronger effect on the garment. The resiliency will also be more practical for decorators too.

The quality has already made an impact on BTC activewear Director Glenn Hyams, who said, ‘We used Blue Promotions to supply us with uniforms for our female members of staff for the 2006 Printwear and Promotion Show. We found the quality of the decoration to be first class and all of our female staff commented how good they felt wearing the shirts. It certainly made our staff noticeable on the stand, which was exceptionally busy throughout the three days of the show.

‘The service we received from Blue Promotions was excellent as we only gave them 24 hours to produce the garments, which they achieved to our great satisfaction.’

So with the higher quality stones and use of alternate colours and shapes, surely the cost is going to escalate to buy from Blue Promotions? You would think that, as diamante decoration has been an expensive market to break into due to high cost.

But with extensive research, clever product sourcing and tight control over its operating overheads, the company offers quality materials at a much reduced price. The company charges primarily for digitising the design, and proving the sample back to the customer. If the order is then placed and providing the cost is higher than that of the digitising, then the company will refund 50% of the digitising fee. Stephanie explained that people are often trying hard to get volume business, with a view to selling more and more to get more business – the company would prefer decorators to sell quality designs to end users at a higher price, ensuring repeat business due to satisfaction rather than low prices.

Another facet of its quality is in the production of designs, all are made to specification and copyrighted logos are not continued, so when you buy a design from Blue Promotions you own it and it will not be sold to a competitor to create.

When it comes to the creation of the sample, the company does not use the standard grid format, it arranges the stones with regard to the design's size, the fonts that have been selected, and the style of any images being used. Doing it in this way maximises the impact of the design and creates a unique, three-dimensional rendering of the original artwork.

To use Blue Promotions' creative services, customers simply e-mail the logo, or promotional design, in EPS or TIFF format you want creating into a design, and the team will then digitise the artwork using an arrangement of rhinestones.

If you have ever enquired about rhinestone decoration, and made it past the problem of high costs, it is likely you will have been disappointed by the quoted delivery times – with anything from days to weeks generally quoted. Blue Promotions works to a 48-hour turnaround on visuals from receipt of an enquiry.

Blue Promotions also supply loose rhinestones on request in six sizes (ranging from 1.9 mm diameter to 5 mm diameter) in a variety of colours, with rose and peach recently added to the collection. The bags usually contain between 40 and 120 pieces, depending on the size of the stones. Rhinestuds are also available in various colours and sizes to cater for customers demand. Wholesale prices are available for bulk quantity orders, contact Blue Promotions for more information.

Diamante decoration is not only limited to garment embellishment, Blue Promotions suggest using it as a way of revitalising old stock that is not selling. If you have boxes of garments or headwear that you want to sell, adding a creative decoration gives it a new life and should see customers wanting it. An alternative fabric surface is denim, with diamantes working extremely well on the tougher surface and giving a stylish option to a tired pair of jeans.

T: 0870 068 8186

E: sales@blue-promotions.com

W: www.blue-promotions.com

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