Bright As A Pylon, Protective As A Shield
by Charmaine Joseph
shell-shaped hats, neon vests, and transparent goggles: this safety wear is hitting catwalks from Milan to Toronto. These items aren’t on the models, but rather on those who are on those assembling the catwalks, directing the traffic, and constructing the venues. Although safety gear may not appeal to the audience of a Fashion Week, it caters to a much larger mass of people and selfpreservation never goes out of style.
Fashion versus function has always been a popular debate in the apparel industry; however, this market of promotional apparel knows that sacrificing too much function for style can literally cost your life. The colours, the designs, and the materials used to construct protective apparel are all based on safety regulations mandated by law to protect workers from harm; changes to these items is less about trends and more on necessity.
Like a highlighter on paper, high visibility work wear must possess a fluorescent quality that quickly catches your eye. According to the Canadian Standards Association, requirements
for occupational apparel must include the capability of signalling the user’s presence visually; and be intended to provide the user with conspicuity in hazardous situations under any light
conditions and under illumination by vehicle headlights.
The most common colours we see in safety gear are fluorescent yellow and orange, however, there is a virtual paint-by-numbers colour formula requirement for safety gear. According to the CSA, background material must be fluorescent yellow-green, fluorescent orange-red or fluorescent red, or bright yellow-green, bright orangered or bright red. Combined-performance retro-reflective
material (i.e., the stripes) should be fluorescent yellowgreen, fluorescent orange-red or fluorescent red — and must contrast to the background material (that is, have a distinct colour difference). These colours are applied to vests, bibs, jackets, gloves, hats, etc.
While there are distributors out there that may think this type of apparel is reserved for the construction workers of the world, Ritchie Belyea of Ash City, a promotional apparel company that specializes in safety gear, shares some other examples in the promotional industry where high-visibility apparel is a necessity. “High-vis polos and T-shirts are ideal for daytime recognition as they cover the entire upper torso. What a great item for warehouse staff in a high traffic area and a great garment for beach patrols or camp staff who also need visibility.” There is a demand in the promotional industry for these items for a wide variety of purposes such as valets and tour guides. “These are all safety uniforms that address accident prevention,” adds Belyea.
The designs for safety apparel in many cases start as a designer’s blueprint and end with government red flags: there are many garments awaiting insurance rated certifications in inspection labs; without the passing grade, the garment won’t see the light of day. The “trends” you will find in safety apparel are not based on a shift in silhouette or a craze for a specific hue, but rather they are about advancements in protection or visibility. The designs for protective apparel vary from basic (T-shirts featuring a hires colour,) to intermediate (reflective taping and non-slip shoes,) to heavy duty requirements (hard hats and steel cap boots). In many cases protective gear will have very little extra details other than
what is mandatory. Any extraneous details, such as a drawstring, can be potentially fatal for workers.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, “from January 1985 through January 1999, CPSC received reports of 22 deaths and 48 non-fatal accidents involving the entanglement of children’s clothing.” To put that into perspective, if a child can be seriously injured or killed due to a drawstring think about what can happen to a worker based in high-risk environments as an occupation? Design regulations are also imperative to “high-visibility safety apparel.”. See below for CSA regulations.
In case you’re wondering what retro-reflective materials are and how they differ from fluorescent material, the difference can be night and day. Fluorescent material gets its power, or light, from the ultraviolet light from sunlight and then sends it back to the viewer as visible light; therefore, fluorescent light is only visible from a natural source of light. “This property offers daytime visibility enhancement not present with other colours. These materials enhance daytime visibility, especially at dawn and dusk,” according to the CSA standards.
Retro-reflective material, however, returns light to the light’s source. “This property will let a driver see the light being reflected from the retro-reflective material on a person’s garment (as long as the person is standing in the light’s beam).” Retro-reflective materials function best under low-light level conditions. While retro-reflective materials can still reflect in the daylight, there isn’t much interference from outside lights. “This makes retro-reflective materials ineffective for enhanced visibility during (sunny) daytime conditions.” So remember: not all retroreflective materials are fluorescent, and not all fluorescent materials are retro-reflective.
“Fabric technology has allowed the safety industry to address comfort and endurance with safety issues. The high-risk businesses such as law enforcement, fire prevention, and extreme emergency care will have better avenues to protect the employees who enforce safety and rescue missions in their daily job functions. The advancement of comfortable clothing at reasonable pricing in safety apparel is the key reason that small companies can no longer avoid the subject of safety. Accident prevention is a level of safety that all companies need to address” concludes Belyea.
To comply with the CSA standard, the high-visibility safety apparel must meet the following criteria:
Stripes/bands are to be in a distinctive, standardized pattern:
• a symmetric “X” on the back extending from the shoulders to the waist
• two vertical stripes on the front passing over the shoulders and down to the waist; and
• a waist-level horizontal stripe extending entirely around the back to the bottom of the vertical stripes on the front
.
This horizontal stripe may continue between the front vertical stripes (optional).
For Class 3 apparel, stripes/ bands encircling both arms and both legs are added.
• The stripes/bands are to be displayed in a way to ensure that some part of them is visible
from all angles around the body (i.e., 360° visibility).
For all classes, the total width of stripes/bands must be at least 50 mm (1.96 ”) throughout.
• Stripes/bands near the bottom edge of a garment, sleeve or pant leg must be at least 50 mm (1.96 ”) away from the edge.
• Stripes/bands may be made up entirely of combined-performance or retro-reflective material.
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