Every Jersey Shrinks

Yes, jerseys suffer from shrinkage, too. Though in this case it's Extreme Heat that does the damage, as opposed to [mild] cold. Since we all like it extreme, here's the quick lo-down on shrinkage in the world of polyester jerseys.

The root of shrinkage lies in screen printing. (If you're unfamiliar with the process, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen-printing). When you print on a jersey, the ink is printed on top of the jersey material, and must be dried to fix it on to the jersey. After every print, the printer will toss the jersey on a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt passes the jersey through a giant oven, in which the ink is dried and permanently attached to the jersey. The giant oven is where the Extreme Heat comes in. When the jersey is exposed to heat, the polyester fibres shrink up. The more times a jersey passes through the oven, the more it shrinks. The margin of shrinkage can reach over 10%, depending on what kind of jersey you have, how many prints you put on it, and how hot the oven is!

So, how does this tie in to Five Ultimate?

When we design the cut of our jersey, we have to take in to account this shrinkage factor. This may seem simple, but in reality there are some tricky nuances that have gotten the best of us in the past. We're trying to make a line of jersey sizes that:
- Accurately match Ultimate players' perceptions of sizes (why is a women's small such a size, and a women's medium such a size? What are the correct proportions by which to increase? What to you make increase in size from S=>M, what do you keep the same?),
- Fit well (how long are the sleeves? How large is the neck?)
- Provide a size option that works for every player (how do you make an XL that fits both the 6'4" lanky-dude AND the 5'11" dude with the huge beer-belly, without making your jerseys too wide for a regular skinny college ultimate player?)
- Last but not least, account for shrinkage. Some of our jerseys get printed in four or five locations, while some are never printed! So throughout all the factors we've listed above, we have to take in to account that some of the dimensions of our jerseys will shrink to varying degrees from customer to customer. With shrinkage ranging from 0%-10%, it's hard finding the perfect cut that will satisfy every customer given this margin of change.

The next time somebody mentions "I got Turbo-Blast jerseys from Hype-Ultimate last year and they seemed to run a little ____", don't take that information at face value. Find out what printing the jersey had on it, find out if the person ordered her "correct" size.

Not every Five Ambient jersey ends up in the customer's hands exactly the same size as it was conceived. Look around you. People are different shapes and sizes!

Imagine trying to fit every Ultimate player out there in to just 8 sizes of jerseys (female, male), with a random 0%-10% change in every jersey size. That, my friends, is a day in the life of Five Ultimate.

Vehro