Personalised apron: what we mark, and how to ask for it 🎯
A personalised apron, here, is a work apron carrying your logo, your first name or the name of your place. At La Salopette® the request goes through the live chat bubble or a note on your order. Four pieces are ready for it: the BBQ King Apron and the gardener aprons in camel, green and black.
This is not promotional kit. We mark denim cotton from 280 to 320 GSM, with pockets built to carry tools. If you want three hundred printed pieces to hand out at a trade show, this is not the collection.
Embroidery, vinyl or screen printing 🧵
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Embroidery: the thread sits inside the weave. Below 4 mm of letter height it turns to mush, the counters of the « a » and the « e » fill in.
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Heat-pressed vinyl: cut, then pressed on hot. Crisp, quick, unbeatable for a first name. It is a layer sitting on the fabric, so it ages from the edges.
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Screen printing: ink pushed through a screen, one screen per colour. Soft and hard-wearing, but nobody sets up three screens for two aprons.
Where we stand on heavy denim: embroidery. It takes the rubbing against the worktop, which is exactly where vinyl gives up first.
What survives the wash, what cracks 🌀
Embroidery cannot peel, there is nothing to peel. What moves is the fabric around it, and our cotton shrinks under 2 %. On a 10 cm motif that is 2 mm nobody notices. Vinyl hates two things: the 60 °C laundry tunnel and the tumble dryer. Fine cracks first, then a corner lifts. Screen printing lasts longer, though a fold always in the same spot eventually splits the ink.
Hence the care we recommend: 30 °C inside out, no tumble dryer, and never put the iron straight onto the marking. If your aprons go to an industrial laundry every night, tell us before we start.
Chest, pocket or back: where the marking goes 📍
The BBQ King measures 74 x 68 cm, one pocket on the bib and two at the waist. Three positions actually work:
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High on the bib, 8 to 10 cm below the strap seam, slightly to the left. That is what reads standing up, at three metres.
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On the pocket, 5 to 7 cm wide. Never straddling the opening: embroidery crossing the edge sews the pocket shut for good.
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Low or on the back, for a team name: readable when you are cooking with your back to the room.
The classic mistake is centring the design on an apron lying flat. Worn, the bib rides up and the logo lands on your stomach: aim higher than your eye tells you. And watch the obstacles, nobody embroiders over the zip on a bib.
Thread colour against background colour 🎨
On black, pure white shouts too loudly: off-white, sand and old gold age better. On the camel of the gardener apron, midnight blue and dark brown come forward while ecru drowns. On raw denim, white and burnt orange are still the safe bets.
Tone on tone, black thread on black fabric, looks superb in the shop and is invisible at three metres. Two thread colours cover the vast majority of logos. Past three, the fabric ripples around the design.
The file, and how long it takes ⏳
The time does not go into the machine, it goes into the file. Embroidery needs digitising: your logo is redrawn as stitch paths, with a stitch direction and a density for every area. A clean vector file (SVG, AI, EPS) moves fast. A JPEG lifted off a business card has to be redrawn first, and that is where the days go.
Send us three things: the cleanest file you have, the width you want in centimetres, and the position. The unmarked catalogue leaves our stock in Miramas, within France in 2 to 3 working days on Express Delivery.
Apron sizing is really about length 📏
An apron is not chosen like a pair of trousers: length is what counts. 74 x 68 cm covers from the breastbone to the knee on most builds, and the crossed straps pick up the rest. Leave two fingers between strap and shoulder, otherwise it digs in after two hours.
Our aprons are unisex, one size. Numbered sizes, XS to 8XL, live on the dungarees side: the size guide has a height and weight calculator, and our work dungarees use the same fabrics. For the stove, look at the kitchen apron and the professional apron.
Delivery, exchange and care 🚚
We ship from our stock in Miramas, in the south of France, and we pack every order ourselves. If the piece is wrong, the exchange is free within 14 days: check the size and the background colour before any marking starts.
One last point, and it always disappoints somebody: nothing here is waterproof. Cotton drinks. It protects against stains and abrasion, not against rain. The rest of the kit is handled by our accessories.
