Three years ago, Just Hoods by AWDis was a glimmer of an idea, but within three months, the iconic College Hoodie was born. Since then, Just Hoods have revolutionised the printwear market with their colourful and ever expanding range of trendy hoodie styles. We invited them to tell us their story.

The idea came about from regular discussions with three of the UK’s major distributors, PenCarrie, Ralawise and Prestige Leisure who believed the time was right to launch a dedicated single product brand. Hoodies had developed so much street credibility – despite all of the adverse publicity – that to ignore them as a mainstream product in the printwear trade would not have been sensible. It was a case of if you can’t beat them join them and while you are at it, why not lead the field. It took one year from launch to become the market leader.

Initially one well priced, over the head unisex product in 30 colours appeared in January 2008 followed by a kid’s version, by popular demand, six months later.

That policy of growing the colour range and the style offer has continued with additions every six months with the express intention of staying ahead of the field. It is now up to 11 styles and 45 colours – easily the most comprehensive collection available today.

The second phase of development was in zip fronts – the Zoodies, Unisex, Girlie and Kids, plus the Street Hoodie as the top end heavyweight offering. In Summer 2009 the third phase bi-colour Varsity arrived putting Just Hoods firmly into a new area, well suited to team and club use, the Kids version arrived a year later and in between the fourth phase and most quirky addition, Jogpants arrived, strictly by popular demand, in Girlie, Kids and Campus versions.

This oddity has gone down really well with printers because now not only can they kit out every size from age 3 to very big adults but they can also provide matching jogpants in the same fabric, at the same quality from the same source. They don’t have to trawl through innumerable distributor brochures to attempt to find an acceptable match; it’s guaranteed to match and available.

Designs are all solid and functional, not groundbreaking but several have neat features enhancing their street cred while the ever-expanding colour range never ceases to amaze. Just when we think all the gaps have been plugged someone comes up with new style and colour suggestions, and that looks set to continue too.

The popularity of hoodies seems to stem from their sheer practicality and not least, their cool appeal.  They frequently do away with the need to use a coat and they are great for work, casual and sports use. The brand really feel that they have become iconic, just like denims, and there is no sign of them going away! As we have said ‘Hoodies are here to stay’.

Feedback and developments

The distributors’ sales teams keep their ears very close to the ground to understand the demands of the market. That feedback, coupled with the annual survey conducted at the Printwear & Promotion show, plus the daily comments we get on the website keeps us very much aware of what customers want.

Every development has been in response to customer requests and we are very aware that being remote from the end user cannot be allowed to be a barrier to development of the brand. The most recent developments of Kids Varsity and Jogpants are the most obvious developments stemming from customer pressure and next January’s developments will be no different.

The Printwear & Promotion show has proved very interesting in when customers are talking to us they are still not quite sure what to call the brand. Is it A W D or AWDis or Just Hoods? So long as they are talking about it that’s good and the buzz means the momentum continues.

Positive feedback is in the very high nineties and anything negative we take on board and respond to. After a recent working over from an impassioned customer determined to make their point, they rounded off the conversation by saying Just Hoods was still their favourite brand anyway!

Production

AWDis Just Hoods are all made at our dedicated one thousand employee factory in Pakistan which is a vertical operation from spinning through knitting and dyeing to cut and sew. This means that we have absolute control over colour consistency and all the other vital matters connected with quality production. Colourfastness, washability and within tolerance shrinkage along with sewing and reliable delivery are carefully monitored by our own team.

The ideal printing surface

Making Just Hoods in Pakistan has distinct advantages in that the plant has what in other locations might be a prohibitively expensive process, a ring spinning plant. Ring spun poly cotton gives a flat, soft smooth surface that is simply the easiest and best to print on and naturally the designs themselves are made easy to work with. The only limit seems to be the end users’ imagination as we have seen more and more flamboyant uses appear.

The rapid and dramatic growth of the brand to its pre-eminent position far exceeded our initial expectations and has resulted in considerable expansion at the plant in order to keep up with demand. To be fair this did take us by surprise and required very rapid response to ensure that we did not experience too many or long lasting shortages.

Great efforts have been made to minimise outages but with well over 600 colour, size variations inevitably there have been a few, every possible effort continues to be made to prevent reoccurrence with shipments arriving every week.

We appreciate any shortage is a problem to an individual customer and we polish our crystal ball on a regular basis. An additional problem is that what may have been a very slow selling colour suddenly spikes in the next month with ensuing rush re-ordering.

To permanently have stock in three locations in all sizes and all colours is our mission and aim and we do constantly stay very close to that.

Very serious interest now from European distributors is another nice problem to have and we are seeing that grow also now at a very healthy rate.

Given that the market for Hoodies is very definitely youth biased and distinctly edgy, another advantage of our factory is that it is WRAP accredited. The Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production label is much prized and guarantees ethical, ecologically sound and conscientious production from a well looked after workforce, which is much appreciated by our concerned customers and has proved a very positive sales benefit.

The future

When you are number one, it’s a permanent challenge to stay there but we think AWDis is up to it.

The brand will never stand still and for January 2011 there will be a superb new fitted, long line, Girlie Hoodie and naturally five more colours taking the total to 12 great styles and 45 great colours.

Beyond that the sky is the limit. AWDis is a vehicle which has a very long way to run, and the journey has only just started!

The whole collection can be seen at www.justhoods.co.uk