Jackets are the one branded garment people keep for years — and the one order that goes wrong most often, because it’s placed too late and decorated the same way a t-shirt would be. Here’s how to spec a winter program that actually arrives before the cold does.
A branded winter jacket is the highest-leverage piece of apparel a Montreal company buys. A staff tee gets worn at one event. A logo jacket gets worn every day from November to April, on the job site, on the metro, at the kids’ hockey game — in a city where January averages a daily high near −6 °C and an overnight low around −13 °C, and where it snows on roughly 18 days that month. That’s months of impressions per unit, which is why outerwear is worth doing properly.
It’s also the order where mistakes are the most expensive. A jacket costs four to ten times what a tee costs, blanks sell out by mid-fall, and embroidery on an insulated or waterproof shell is a different job than embroidery on a polo. This guide is the conversation we have every August and September with operations managers, crew leads, and HR teams planning a winter rollout.
Most winter programs are one of these five. Pick based on where the garment is worn, not on what looks best in the catalogue photo.
The indoor-to-parking-lot layer. Warm, light, cheap relative to a jacket, and the easiest winter garment to decorate — embroidery on fleece is straightforward with the right backing. This is the workhorse of office and clinic programs, and the piece most people actually wear daily. If your budget only covers one winter item for a large team, make it a fleece.
Bonded fabric that blocks wind, sheds light snow, and stretches. It is the best value in branded outerwear for anyone who moves between a vehicle and a building: warm enough for −5 °C with a layer under it, not warm enough for a full day outdoors in January. Softshells take embroidery beautifully and hold a crisp logo shape better than fleece.
The gift piece. Down or synthetic fill, quilted baffles, premium feel. Employees keep these for years, which makes them the strongest pick for holiday gifting and long-service recognition — but the quilting complicates decoration (see below), so plan the logo placement before you fall in love with a style.
For crews genuinely outside all day: construction, landscaping and snow removal, delivery, event staff. Seam-sealed waterproof shell, often with a zip-out liner so it works in October and January. Highest cost per unit by a wide margin, and the garment where decoration method matters most.
The forgotten add-on that punches above its weight. An embroidered toque costs a fraction of a jacket, fits every body, needs no size run, and gets worn constantly. If you are outfitting a crew, order toques alongside the jackets rather than as a separate order — you’ll pay one setup instead of two.
Pricing below is an illustrative range for a decorated 25–50 unit order, not a quote. Blank cost drives most of it, and blank cost moves with brand, colour and season — ask us for a current number before you build a budget on it.
| Garment | Best for | Decoration | Illustrative range | Order by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fleece full-zip | Indoor staff, mixed teams | Embroidery | $45–$75/unit | Early October |
| Softshell jacket | Sales, service, site visits | Embroidery | $75–$130/unit | Late September |
| Insulated puffer | Gifting, recognition | Embroidery (placement-dependent) | $95–$180/unit | Mid-September |
| Waterproof parka / 3-in-1 | Outdoor crews | Embroidery with sealed backing, or heat transfer | $160–$320/unit | Early September |
| Toque / neck warmer | Everyone, any budget | Embroidery or woven label | $14–$28/unit | Late October |
Embroidery is the default for winter gear and there’s no close second: it survives the whole life of the garment, it reads as premium, and it works on fabrics that reject ink. But three things change once you move from a polo to a jacket.
Stitching through a waterproof membrane punctures it. Those needle perforations are exactly the same kind of pathway that makes an unsealed seam leak, and no amount of good stitching closes them on its own. The fix is a sealing backer applied to the reverse of the embroidery — the trade sells purpose-made products for this (heat-applied waterproofing films and seal-the-back stabilizers) precisely because the problem is universal. If you’re speccing parkas for a crew that works in freezing rain, ask your decorator directly how they seal the back of the stitch. If the answer is vague, the second-best option is a heat-applied transfer, which lays on top of the fabric and doesn’t pierce the membrane, or decorating a zip-out liner or a chest panel that isn’t part of the waterproof layer.
Quilted jackets can’t be hooped flat across a seam, and stitching across a baffle can pull the fill or let it migrate. Practical placements on a puffer are a left-chest logo sized to fit within one baffle panel, a sleeve, or the back yoke above the quilting. Send us the exact style number before you order and we’ll tell you what fits where — this takes two minutes and prevents the most common outerwear reorder we see.
A left-chest logo that reads well on a t-shirt often looks undersized on a jacket. Jackets carry a slightly larger chest mark (roughly 9–10 cm wide instead of 7–8), and they open up placements a tee doesn’t have: sleeve, back yoke, and a name above the chest logo. A back yoke mark is the single most visible branding on any garment in your program — if the jackets are going on a job site, use it.
Two adjustments matter, and both push your size run upward compared to the standard t-shirt size curve.
The reason we publish this in August: winter outerwear is the one apparel category with a genuine seasonal supply cliff. Blank suppliers stock a season’s worth of jackets and don’t restock mid-winter. Popular colours in popular sizes disappear from distributor inventory through October and November, and once a style is out, it’s out until next year. Meanwhile embroidery lead times stretch as every company in the city orders holiday gifts at once.
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| August | Pick garment styles, confirm budget, request blank samples and a fit kit. |
| Early September | Collect outerwear sizes from staff. Send artwork for digitizing. |
| Mid-September | Approve the stitch-out sample on the actual garment — not on a swatch. |
| Late September | Place the order. Blanks are reserved at this point, not before. |
| Mid-October | Production and decoration. Typical outerwear turnaround is 2–3 weeks after approval. |
| Late October / early November | Delivery, ahead of the first real cold and well ahead of holiday gifting. |
Winter gear fails from neglect more than from wear. Three things worth putting in the email you send with the jackets: wash softshells and waterproof shells on their own, with a technical-wash detergent rather than regular detergent, which leaves residue that kills water repellency. Never use fabric softener on any performance shell. And don’t iron over embroidery — a jacket that needs pressing gets pressed inside-out with a cloth, or not at all.
Get those eight right and a winter order is genuinely low-drama. Get the timing wrong and you spend October substituting styles. Browse jackets, fleece and softshells in the catalog, or send us the head count and we’ll come back with two or three garment options at real prices.
Send us your head count, budget per unit, and where the gear gets worn. We’ll spec two or three garment options and quote within the hour during business hours.
Request a quote →