2023 Customization Trends

  • Oct 27, 2023

As the year draws to an end, this is the perfect opportunity to reflect back on the accomplishments, challenges, and lessons learned in the last 12 months within the promo world. As a distributor, it’s important to analyze the trends in the industry and have an understanding of how these can affect the market moving forward. As you build offers and expand product lineups for the new year, it will be beneficial to look at what was popular the previous year, and use that knowledge to generate interest among your clients in 2024!

 

Part of being a distributor entails bringing your customers more of the products that they want. Sounds simple enough but with fads coming and going faster than they were introduced, it can be a challenge to stay on top of the public’s rapidly changing preferences. A surprising clothing trend that made its way back into the limelight this year was the punk/goth aesthetic revived by Netflix’s comedy-horror series Wednesday. What this tells us for the future is that nostalgia is currently in with many styles of the 90s and early 2000s making a comeback. 

 

2023 was a big year, to say the least. From pants to hoodies and even super-sized accessories like tote bags and fanny packs - everything oversized flew off the shelves. This is an effect of the 2022 comfort trend spilling over into this year’s apparel lineup.  Be prepared for orders of comfortable t-shirts, oversized hats, cozy pants, and more. With winter around the corner, at least for the part of the new year, we can expect comfortable apparel to be a staple of all wardrobes. 

 

2023 was also the year of thinking outside the box when it came to decorating apparel. While large single-colour imprints on the front and back of shirts will always be in style, we saw a number of instances where clients got creative with their logo placement. This has to do with the high value placed on uniquely designed apparel that speaks to the recipient and makes them want to wear the garment. An emphasis on differentiation and customization has led brands to break customers’ expectations of where the logo should be placed. Brands experimented with adding full-colour elements on the back of the neck and sleeves of shirts. For the upcoming year, encourage your customers to try something different and offer a variety of imprint methods such as Direct-to-Garment, perfect for full-colour imprints.

 

Adding a logo to a product is one of the best ways to get noticed. With virtually an endless amount of options that can be customized, clients will be turning to you to lead them in the right direction. Staying ahead of trends, negotiating with suppliers, and ordering samples are some of the steps you can take to ensure your clients are getting the most popular products available. By looking at which trends dominated this year, you can get a head start on prepping your lineup for 2024.