Custom Work Woven Shirts, Picked by the Job

Pick custom work woven shirts by what the workday does to them, not by the photo. On a screen, a 4.25 oz poplin uniform shirt and a 7 oz flame-resistant twill look about the same. On a refinery unit they are not even close. So start with the job (heat, grease, flame, traffic, or just a lot of washing), choose the family from that, and then we add your logo and, if your crew wears names, a name on the chest.

This group holds 175 shirts from Red Kap, Dickies, Bulwark, Berne, DRI DUCK, Harriton and Columbia. The bodies are all woven (twill, poplin, ripstop, duck or denim), not knit like a polo. A weave barely gives, so it takes a logo really well and the stitching sits flat.

Which custom work woven shirts fit which job?

Five kinds of workday. Find yours first.

Long hot days: cooling work shirts

The Red Kap TSM2 and the rest of the Red Kap Cooling family use a 5.3 oz twill, 82/14/4 polyester/cotton/elastane, with Coolcore fabric that feels cool to the touch, moisture wicking (it pulls sweat off the skin), UPF 50+ and anti-microbial properties. TSM2 is short sleeve. TSM4 is long sleeve and adds a pocket on the left sleeve. Both come in tall too (TSM2T, TSM4T), and the TSW1 is the women's cut.

If your people want air moving more than fabric tech, look at the mesh styles. The Red Kap SP4A Pro Airflow puts 4.2 oz polyester mesh panels into a 4.25 oz poplin body and closes with six concealed grippers; the women's SP5A has a mesh back and a tailored fit. The Dickies LS51 Worktech Ventilated is a 4.2 oz FLEX poplin with a mesh-lined collar. And the DRI DUCK 4441 is only 2.8 oz polyester, with a vented mesh back, UPF 50+ and sleeves that convert.

A lot of buyers think short sleeves alone will keep a crew cool in a Houston summer. Nope. It depends where they sweat. Out in the sun all day, go with the UPF shirts. Stuck in a hot bay or an attic, the mesh ones.

Grease, oil and the service bay

Mechanics wipe their hands on their shirts. Everybody does, don't pretend. The Red Kap SY42 and SY32 Performance Plus shirts have OilBlok. On the SY42, the listing says it repels the toughest fluids, oil included, and the shirt is a 4.25 oz 65/35 ripstop (a weave with a grid of stronger yarns) with stretch knit panels and six concealed grippers down the front, no neck closure.

The Red Kap SY20 Automotive Crew hides its buttons behind a no-scratch placket, which matters when you lean over a fender all day, and gives you a sleeve pocket for small parts plus a double pencil stall on the left chest. Want more give in the shoulders? The Mimix styles, like the SX20 and the women's SX21, set 3.8 oz polyester mesh panels into a 4.25 oz ripstop body, and the SX46 Mimix Pro adds OilBlok.

Flame and arc flash

Refinery, chemical plant and electrical crews need FR, flame-resistant fabric that self-extinguishes instead of carrying a flame. Every FR style here lists its own rating, so read that line, not the photo:

• Bulwark SLU2: Westex Ultrasoft, 7 oz, 88% cotton / 12% nylon. NFPA 2112 compliant, CAT 2 (the arc-flash PPE category), arc rating ATPV 8.6 cal/cm².
• Bulwark QS40, 6.9 oz Westex G2 ripstop twill, NFPA 2112, CAT 2, ATPV 9.0. Has a gas monitor pocket at the front shoulders.
• Bulwark SND2. Nomex IIIA, 4.5 oz, lighter. CAT 1, ATPV 4.4.
• Berne FRSH10: 7 oz cotton/nylon FR twill, listed as meeting ASTM F1506, NFPA 70E and NFPA 2112.

Welders get their own: the Bulwark SWW2 has sleeves lined with Tuffweld FR fabric and a soapstone stall in the chest pocket. Before you order any of these, confirm the rating or CAT level your site requires. Your safety manager decides that, not the catalog.

On FR shirts we use only approved thread and patches in approved spots, keep the logo compact and keep it off the labels. We never say the decorated shirt keeps its rating unless that's confirmed. More styles are in the FR woven shirts section.

Near traffic and moving equipment

The Red Kap SS14HV is 5 oz polyester poplin with UPF 40+. Its listing shows the single reflective stripe meeting ANSI/ISEA 107 (the US hi-vis standard) Type R, Class 2, and the double stripe Class 3. The Bulwark SLB4H does both jobs: FR at CAT 2, ATPV 8.6, plus ANSI 107-2015 Type R Class 3 on a hi-vis upper half and a grey lower half that hides dirt.

The enhanced visibility styles, like the SS14, SP24E or SC40E, give you bright color for being seen around a yard. When your site calls for an ANSI class, pick a style whose listing shows one. Either way, your logo stays off the reflective tape. Full range: hi-vis woven work shirts.

The everyday uniform: button-front work shirts

This is most of the group, and most of what route drivers, plant operators, maintenance techs and security guards wear. The Dickies 2574 is 5.25 oz 65/35 polyester/cotton twill with flapped hex chest pockets and a square tail that stays tucked in. The Red Kap SP24 Industrial is a lighter 4.3 oz TouchTex poplin.

After 100% cotton? The Red Kap SC40 and Dickies L307 are both 6 oz cotton twill, and the Red Kap SD78 goes up to 10 oz denim. For security teams, the Red Kap SP66 has working epaulets and a badge tab, and the DRI DUCK 4450 is a 4.1 oz stretch ripstop with a drop-behind cell pocket. Same job on paper. Not twins.

Where do the logo and the name go?

Most listings here give the same approved spots: left chest, right chest, the sleeves and the full back. The usual setup is the company logo on one side of the chest and the person's name on the other. Nothing fancy.

Shop tip: most of these shirts have hex pockets with a pencil stall in the left one and bartacks at the corners. We place the logo above the pocket, not on the flap. Stitch through a flap and it goes stiff, and you can end up sewing the pocket shut. Want a clean chest with nothing in the way? The Red Kap SP26 is pocketless. And the Columbia 212332 already wears a Columbia woven patch on its left pocket, so we'd plan your mark for the right side.

For names there are two ways. Embroidered work shirts can carry the name stitched straight on, or you go with work shirts with name patches: each embroidered patch is made in our own patch facility with that person's name and then sewn on. With patches, a new hire just means one more name patch on the same kind of shirt. Your logo gets digitized first, meaning turned into a stitch file the machine follows, and on the light shirts (2.8 to 4.25 oz) we set the right backing, a stabilizer sheet, behind it so the chest doesn't pucker.

The catch on the back: the full back takes a print or an embroidered patch, not direct embroidery. Want a big company name across the shoulders? We'd stitch the chest and do the back as a print or a patch.

Tall, women's and mixed crews

A "T" at the end of a style number is the tall twin: SP24T, 2574T, SY20T and so on. Women's cuts have their own numbers, like Red Kap SP13, SP23, SX21 and TSW1, Dickies FS57 and L5350, Harriton M585LW and M586W, and Bulwark QS51 and SLU3. Before you mix men's and women's styles in one order, check that the color you want shows on both color lists.

Will the embroidery survive industrial laundry?

Embroidery doesn't crack or fade. So the bigger question is the shirt itself. Many listings here show industrial laundry care, like the Red Kap SP4A, Bulwark SLU2 and Dickies 0005, and the Harriton M585 says it's tested to 50 industrial washes. The Dickies 2574 lists home wash. If your shirts go out to a uniform service, pick one whose listing says industrial laundry.

Ordering custom work woven shirts for a crew

Need one shirt to replace a torn sleeve, or a single FR shirt for a contractor? That's an order. There's no minimum.

Send your logo, ideally as a vector file (AI, EPS, PDF or SVG, the kind that resizes without going blurry), and we follow our Artwork Acceptance Policy with every file. You get a mockup of the shirt with your logo in 2–3 working days. Once you approve it, a smaller order takes 7–10 working days in production. A big rollout for every location runs on a longer schedule, so get that date from us early. What moves the price: stitch count, logo size, how many spots you decorate, the shirt you pick and the quantity. FR and hi-vis shirts fall under our Spoilage Policy like every order, so look it over first. How we stitch is on our embroidery services page, and the rest of the crew gear, from work pants to work dress shirts for the office side, sits under workwear clothing.

Tell us the job, the headcount by size and cut, and whether you want names, then send the logo through our quote form. You'll get a picture of the shirt with your logo on it, plus a number for the whole crew.

Rule of thumb: pick the shirt by the job, then the color. Never the other way around.