If you have a staff uniform, what does it say about the organisation? Does it convey any message at all? From the busbys of the Grenadier Guards to the brown coveralls of the UPS delivery staff, uniforms become distinctive and convey messages about the people wearing them, and the company employing those people.

Perhaps one of the most distinctive, and most parodied, British uniforms is the Butlins Redcoat, and it’s just been updated again, by a designer who counts Lady Gaga amongst her adherents.

Hannah Clayton has given the distinctive pillarbox red blazers a new twist, with ‘boyfriend’ styling for female redcoats, allowing the sleeves to be pushed or rolled up, and much sharper navy blue facings, echoing the Savile Row tailoring that is part of the British heritage. There are also platform shoes for the women and long-sleeved T-shirts to create a more formal appearance while allowing for ease of movement in a demanding physical environment.

The designer spent time with Redcoats as they worked, to get an understanding of the need for a balance between the need to look professional and the requirement for Redcoats to be sporty and active.

It’s important, when choosing a uniform, to consider the activities that will be undertaken while wearing it, as well as the appearance of uniform clothing during and after those activities. Garments that ride up or twist around are unsuitable for those in active roles, and clothing that creases easily may not be ideal if people are required to look smart at the end of a long day.

David Cameron is about to announce that unused Government offices will be offered to budding entrepreneurs as launch pads for new businesses across the UK. The idea is to try and kick-start the economy through an entrepreneurship boost.

The huge stock of buildings owned by the government is to be used to match capacity to need by providing more than 300 premises at low rents for a year boosting Treasury finances and giving entrepreneurs a chance to rocket their business ideas into reality.

And like Cinderella, dress is all important. Rick Santorum, a candidate for the American Presidency, has been winning friends and votes through his dress code. While his rivals wear boring suits, he has launched out into what the Americans call a sweater vest – what the British have always called a tank top. However he does in the candidacy race, he’s certainly gained a massive amount of recognition through his appearance, and that’s a lesson for all entrepreneurs. Marketing matters, not just for your business, but for you as the figure who embodies the business. So self marketing means:

Look at what your competition is doing and dare to be different. Think about Richard Branson and the Virgin adverts which subverted the ‘traditional’ adverts of other companies, just as his jeans and shirt wardrobe subverted the ‘suits’ of his rivals.

Entertain people – wear something bright, something relaxed, something that people can talk about. Even if they don’t like it, they will remember you: bright polo shirts with smart casual trousers can look good for men, or for women, a jewel coloured camisole top under a designer jacket can really make you stand out from the crowd.

One London-based charity helping the homeless has found an unusual way to raise funds – it’s auctioning hats on eBay. Not just any hats, but celebrity hats!
Dame Shirley Bassey has donated a purple felt hat, while LeAnn Rimes has presented the charity, St Mungo’s, with a signed baseball cap. Other donators include Stephen Merchant: co-creator of The Office along with Ricky Gervais and Fern Britton, Eric Clapton, Alexei Sayle, Paris Hilton, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Joan Collins, and Richard (Hamster) Hammond. The hats are going on sale on a schedule: currently on offer until 5th November are the Bassey, Rimes and Merchant hats.
Money raised in the auctions goes to fund St Mungo’s work with rough sleepers. On Friday 4th November, the charity is holding a Woolly Hat Day where members of the public are asked to show their support by putting on a hat for homeless people. The day will include activities in schools and companies too, with donations (£3 is the suggested level) per hat worn being made to St Mungo’s.
To bid on a celebrity hat you can visit St Mungo’s and the charity welcomes individuals and companies coming up with their own hat-related fund-raising event on 4 November.

For many of us, the lives of Premier League footballers appear to be adult-rated fantasies of sex, shopping and international travel, but Blackburn Rovers have decided to kick against the trend by giving away a big part of their income generation to raise funds for the Prince’s Trust charity.

In addition to wearing the Trust logo on their shirts, the football team have committed to running fundraising throughout the season and to supporting work with disadvantaged youngsters in their region.

In Ireland a charity called Camara (West African for ‘teacher’) takes unwanted computers from Irish businesses and government offices, refurbishes them, loads them with educational software and ships them to Africa and the West Indies. This month it sent computer number 25,000 to West Africa, where it will help children learn how to use computers and to study other subjects that they may not have physical teachers for (such as sciences and languages) via the specially chosen software.

The charity’s Chief Executive said, ‘We have hit a milestone in Camara’s history in exceeding the 25,000 mark for computers distributed. I want to thank all of those that have given technology, time or donations and contributed in reaching this significant achievement.’

Several organisations now collect and refurbish office equipment for use in charities or as training aids for the homeless or the elderly who may be unfamiliar with new technology. There are also new charity recycling schemes in several UK cities offering people the chance to bring old but good work clothing into a depot where it will be redistributed to homeless people or those with special needs to help them dress appropriately for job interviews.

Hilary Devey is the new female dragon in the Dragons’ Den and she’s launched into fire-breathing already by claiming that ‘Women want children, women crave the family life and you can’t ever have it all. Men can, women can’t’ in an interview she gave to the Telegraph newspaper.

While that’s a personal decision, every business has to ensure that women aren’t sacrificed to business imperatives, because it damages the organisation and may even lead to legal challenges.

Devey says her family may well have suffered through her determination, but both legislation and business logic dictate that making career progression difficult for women is bad business sense.

Adapting the workplace

Women with children or elderly relatives for whom they are primary carers need different work structures. This can actually add depth and value to a business: in Norway many women pool their resources, bringing elderly relatives to each other’s houses and ‘parent-sitting’ as part of job-share arrangements. This means that they become very loyal employees as they don’t wish to give up such mutually satisfying work-life arrangements. In parts of South East Asia, lunch rooms are turned over to women in the afternoons so they can feed babies and help children with homework before returning to their desks to work an extra hour in the evening to make up for their family time. And in Africa, many women who have to leave the formal workplace to care for children set up ancillary businesses to keep in touch with their old workmates. This can range from cleaning the clothing of their former bosses to making snacks that they sell to their former colleagues.

In the UK, the request for flexible working is a right that employers have to treat seriously but perhaps looking at the entrepreneurial instincts of women in the workplace would help us have more female dragons!

Regus, the virtual office people, have conducted some international research that shows we are still highly national when it comes to packing for our business travel.

Nearly half the Australian business travellers who responded packed bathing trunks, a swimsuit or a set of sports clothing, compared to just 27% of the rest of the world.

On the other hand, only 6% of Australians packed hygiene supplies like hand sanitising gel, while, in the rest of the world, 15% of business travellers packed some kind of disinfecting toiletry.

7% of business travellers from the Indian sub-continent packed a musical instrument. A quarter of Chinese travellers tucked a lucky charm into their case but 39% of them packed a computer game. 24% of those Indian travellers took a suit when they travelled, but less than 5% of Australians packed a shirt, let alone a suit. One did take along his snake-catching kit though!

News from Scotland suggests that charities may experience up to a 25% drop in income as a result of a massive decline in clothing collection and it’s happening because firms that sell on donated clothing to make money are cutting into the charities’ income!

The British Heart Foundation says that it could be losing around £3 million annually. Firms are distributing leaflets that meet the law by saying that the bag with which the leaflet is given away is from a limited company, not a charity, but the print is very small and the large print, includes words like ‘kindly donate’ and that the items will ‘reach those who do not have possibility to purchase new footwear and clothing’ along with logos very similar to those of major charities. Some companies are even asking for ‘donations’ of old mobile phones and laptops which they simply trade in or resell.

Charities are asking for householders to be given clearer information from collectors about where the proceeds of their goods are going so they can make an informed choice about where to donate their unwanted clothing and other items.

In happier news, the armed forces charity Help for Heroes is close to achieving £100 million in public donations. The charity builds recovery centres for soldiers injured in recent conflicts and offers a range of opportunities such as retraining in independent living, providing resources for ex-service people to find work, undertake sport and other healthy activities, helping them to live an integrated life with their families and wear stylish clothing. Recently £8 million was spent on building a pool and gym at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court in Headley, Surrey.

The Harris tweed jacket worn by Matt Smith as the current Doctor Who has caused a local storm in the Hebrides – the original tweed design was ‘swapped’ for a similar jacket that is made partly from an acrylic fibre.

The handwoven tweed was apparently not ‘warm enough’ for outdoor filming and the new jacket, which is an exact copy of the 1960s original, is both warmer and lighter.  But the weavers who make Harris tweed are deeply unhappy about this slur to their product and also somewhat confused that the copy is more expensive than the hand-made original! A replica of the replica will be available for fans to buy from October 2011, and to the complete confusion of the Harris tweed industry, it will cost £360. A genuine Harris tweed will cost … £250.

But there’s a wider question about what can be worn in the workplace. Inappropriate clothing causes accidents, which can sometimes be serious, and suitably designed and made clothing doesn’t just prevent problems, it can make the working day easier and more enjoyable.

Acrylic mixes may not be popular with the tweed industry but in school uniforms, for example, they provide a crease-resistant, stain-rejecting fabric that allows parents to spend less time washing and ironing and more time supervising homework and having fun with the kids!

Maurice Harary, a 23 year-old New Yorker spent last Sunday night building a website on which he was ready to sell T-shirts commemorating the death of Osama bin Laden by 4am, New York time, on the Monday morning. In 48 hours he made more than £60,000 in sales. That was more than 10,000 teeshirts selling for around £6 each and featuring slogans such as ‘Obama killed Osama’ and ‘Osama’s back – not!’ Zazzle too has had thousands of orders for merchandise related to Osama Bin Laden’s death. A spokesman for Zazzle said that American feelings had been ‘… boiling up for 10 years and this is the moment where people can finally express this sentiment.’

But while Osama bin Laden T-shirts are popular, they are not universally so. Many religious and cultural leaders across the USA have suggested that the T-shirts may inflame racial hatred and cause reprisal attacks.

In the UK, campaigning Labour leader Ed Miliband walked into a controversy when he was photographed with a Nottingham Labour candidate sporting a T-shirt claiming ‘A generation of trade unionists will dance on Thatcher’s grave’.

The matter was raised in the House of Commons where it was described as being extraordinary and ‘in appallingly bad taste’. However Mr Milliband has said he didn’t read the T-shirt and deplored the message it contained and his apology for any offense has been accepted.

In a recent study published by researchers at Tilburg University in Holland, it emerged that a highly recognisable designer brand like Lacoste or Yves St Laurent has a positive effect on employers, co-workers and friends, while logos for cheap brands don’t have the same positive effect. So far, research hasn’t shown whether cheap brands actually harm one’s prospects.

Behavioural scientists used photographs to examine peoples’ responses to logos. It was discovered that a high end brand logo, prominently displayed, could convince the viewer that the wearer in the photograph was richer or more influential.

And in real life, the same result held true. Two teams were sent out to raise money for charity – one team wore ordinary polo shirts, the other bore the Lacoste brand. By the end of the evening, the Lacoste team had collected slightly more money than the other one. Over a year, the researchers say, they would have raised enough money to pay for 25 heart transplants just by wearing the branded tops. Of course, that doesn’t take into account the cost of providing charity volunteers with top-end clothing!

The research didn’t explore any of the fake logos that mimic the famous brands, but they plan a follow up study which may include that question.