If you got a cotton polo for Christmas, you might be one of the lucky ones. In India, suppliers of T-shirts and polos are struggling to meet the rising cost of their industry – cotton has increased in price by up to 60% drivi ng up production costs.

This means that cotton clothing is becoming more expensive and premium cotton is worth taking care of.

Wash your cotton or poly-cotton polo shirts in a cold water wash (either by hand or in the machine) and then use a cold rinse cycle (or the delicate setting if your rinse programme has one). Above all, don’t tumble-dry then, as this will cause them both to shrink and warp and can cause that horrible curling collar syndrome that can ruin an otherwise perfect shirt. Dry them on the washing line instead to keep them looking good for as long as possible.

If you’ve ever tried to make a Christmas spending budget and stick to it, you’ll know how tough it can be. Here are some tips to help:

Have budgeting goals

One reason we don’t stick to a budget is that there’s no incentive. Saving money is not enough of a reason to keep to our agreed limits. Try to envisage what the money you save will be spent on – do you want a new netbook or the down-payment for a car? If so, keeping the big goal in mind can help you stick to your budget of only spending a certain amount on party clothing over the Christmas season, for example

Don’t apply across the board cuts

Many novice budgeters think that you have to ‘cut all expenses’ but that’s not the case. There are places to cut expenditure: overdrafts, eating out, entertainment, then the  places that you shouldn’t skimp: good shoes, well-fitting clothes, heating etc and finally the places you can make judgements for yourself: posh food or designer clothes? 4 star hotel or budget one?

Be accountable

One reason budgets fail is that you don’t keep track of them. You can do this either with envelopes containing the money you can spend in each category each month. Once an envelope is empty, no more spending in that category until next month. Or by using a simple spreadsheet that connects to your bank account to keep track of what you’re doing.

Have fun

Think about ways you can enjoy your expenditure. Go shopping with friends – even online shopping can be done with friends: order in a pizza and get together to browse an online retailer, placing a bulk order so that you save money on delivery costs by buying in bulk together!

At this month’s International Apparel Federation World Convention in Hong Kong a session on the future of Fast Fashion looked at how designing, creating, selling and wearing clothing has changed as a result of fast fashion: and may be about to change again.

Stores like Zara offer new lines in their shops twice a week, ‘refreshing’ the shop so that customers always find something new in the store, encouraging them to come back more often and buy more often because each fashion item is only available for a limited time.  This ‘attention deficit’ shopping approach works best for items that are bright or even brash, as timeless garments such as plain black T-shirts or classic white shirts are difficult to re-style in this way.

But the fast fashion love affair may be ending. Cotton prices have doubled in 2010 and that’s unlikely to drop. Along with the increased cost of raw materials there’s the rising cost of labour in the countries where cheap fashion is produced such as China and Bangladesh. There’s a belief that designers are being forced out of the process because they don’t have time to be truly creative any more: fast fashion needs them to play with details rather than working from first principles to create new designs that are innovative.
And in China, the fast fashion revolution is being overturned by the massive demand there for quality-conscious upmarket brands that marry classic clothing with quirky details such as reversible sweatshirts.

In September many little ones will enter school for the first time – and their parents are likely to be counting the pennies more than any year of school-age parents for a generation. Here are some tips that can make the first day easier, and less expensive, than you might be expecting:

•    Stationery – being able to reveal a fantastic set of kit: pens and paper, post-its and erasers from the bowels of a good bag can make the difference, on day one between top of the class popularity-wise and not even achieving mini-geek status. Make sure your kids like what you’re providing and that you can tell what’s fashionable – last year’s Harry Potter is not as good as this year’s Hunger Games!
•    Snacking – today many schools are tough about food – find out what high protein snacks you can include in their bag so they can boost their blood sugar if they start to feel a bit exhausted.
•    Clothing – while there is usually a clothing list, try to see what other kids are wearing on the first day: many items can be incredibly expensive if you buy through the school shop, but identical items are often available online. In addition, looking at what’s being worn by more senior years can help you invest in items that your child will need in future. If you can make a guess at what size your little one will be next year, you can often get clothing like socks and underwear, or even shirts, at an excellent price, especially in online sales.

Beijing artist Li Xiaofeng makes ‘porcelain clothing’ by sewing together shards of pottery recovered from China’s thousands of archaeological digs and fixing them onto leather garments. The fragments date from the song, ming, yuan and qing dynasties and are stored in dustbins in the artist’s studio. Li had his first exhibition outside China in 2009 and has become one of the many Chinese artists working with major fashion designers on ‘artfusion’ or ‘artketing’ – a blend of art and marketing.

Li has been working with Lacoste, where he constructed a porcelain polo shirt with the classic Lacoste logo, and went on to design a limited edition polo shirt with a signature image of blue and white porcelain pieces scattered on the garment.

Li is not the only Chinese artist to get into the casual clothing world: Comme des Garçons invited Ai Weiwei, to design a special-edition T shirt to commemorate their new store in Hong Kong – the T-shirt couldn’t be sold in China because Ai Weiwei is so controversial there.

If you want to get into the Chinese fashion vibe, but can’t afford the small fortune required for one of the limited edition pieces, focus on the colours blue, white and terracotta for your casual clothing and combine casual polo-shirts or T-shirts with jade medallions worn on a leather thong: a very traditional Beijing look!

The ‘back to school’ aisles of the supermarkets are bulging already – in fact the very day that schools break up, the shops seem to put up posters reminding their parents that the next term is less than two months away! With cuts being made in school budgets, it’s likely that parents are going to be asked to find more money and that probably means buying more school kit and equipment, more funds for school trips and events, and less free services. Save money by using the opportunities on offer now to buy well in advance. Students can also save big money by focusing their attention on what’s available now.

Buying school uniform can be expensive, and ensuring your child is always properly dressed can be stressful but you can improve your chances of making school days easier by investing in some ‘substitute clothing’ such as plain polo shirts or cotton shirts in the same colour as the ones with the school logo so that if none are put out to wash, you can shove the delinquent into a similar enough piece of clothing to probably get away with it for one day.

Sportswear isn’t just a tick box on a list. Getting enough T-shirts, polos, vests, shorts and track trousers can really make the difference between children taking part in healthy activity and sitting on the sidelines. Whatever the suggested amount of sports clothing, buy double, that means there’s never any ‘my PE kit is in the wash’ excuse for your kids! It may seem harsh, but getting the exercise habit may be one of the best investments you can make for your children.

If your child is entering university, treat them to a formal shirt and jacket for open days and careers fairs. We’re told that there are fewer jobs for graduates and that there will be ever more competition for them, so giving your student offspring a chance to dress their best for the days that they might meet and impress a potential employer could save you many years of having them lounging around at home on Job Seekers Allowance!

Even the most gormless person can manage to fold a T-shirt, although the fashion-conscious have leaned the triple fold rather than the half fold, to make a T-shirt look better when you take it out and wear it. But packing a polo-shirt can present a little more difficult because of the collar. Here’s a simple guide to the triple fold and the polo pack too.

Triple fold

•    Lay your T-shirt with the front down, on a flat surface
•    Fold one shoulder in until it reaches one third across the shirt, turn the sleeve back so it lays across the fold – your shirt should now be two thirds as wide as it was before and the sleeve should have its open end facing out, not facing into the body of the T-shirt. This is especially important for long-sleeved T-shirts
•    Fold the other shoulder and sleeve the same way. Your shirt should now be one third as wide as when laid out flat
•    Lift the bottom of the T-shirt until it reaches the neck, persevering the two folds you’ve already made.
•    Pick up and turn over. Perfect triple fold achieved!

Polo fold

•    Button the collar of your polo and pull the collar so it’s folded down neatly before putting the polo-shirt face down on a flat surface
•    Grip the shoulder seam in one hand and with the other take the corresponding sleeve and fold it into the middle of the shirt so that the fold makes a perpendicular line from the shoulder seam to the bottom of the shirt. Fold the shirt sleeve in half
•    Repeat with the other side of the polo shirt. Smooth out wrinkles as you fold
•    Take hold of the bottom right and left sides of the folded shirt. Bring the bottom edge of the shirt up to the bottom of the sleeves. This divides the shirt into thirds.
•    Bring the folded edge to the top edge of the collar. Turn the shirt over and put in your suitcase
•    To preserve polo-shirt collar shape, you can tuck other items such as clean socks, underwear or swimming togs into the neckline to hold the neck it its rounded shape.

The recent case of a badly sunburnt baby whose parents had kept it on Brighton beach all day in inappropriate clothing just goes to show how dangerous the sun can be.  But we all want to enjoy the good weather and children in particular love to be outside when the sun shines. So how do we keep them safe?

Sunshine and clothing

People of any age, with any skin colour, can develop skin cancers but children are five times more likely to suffer sunburn and it’s sunburn that is often linked to development of melanoma skin cancer in later life. The areas where melanoma is most often seen are the face, head and shoulders: areas that can easily be protected by hats and short or long-sleeved T-shirts.

Prevention is better than cure

Try to keep children out of direct sun between eleven and three – let them sit in the shade or even, although it feels wrong, indoors watching cartoons on TV!

A good UV screening T-shirt is thick enough so that when you put your hand inside, you can’t see your skin through the fabric. Anything thinner than that doesn’t offer adequate protection. Clothing choices for children should work with a good waterproof sunscreen to offer maximum safeguard.

Hats help most

In Australia they’ve run a national campaign to encourage parents to put hats on their children. It’s claimed that a child wearing a baseball cap is 78% less likely to suffer sunstroke.

Babies belong in the shade

The latest government advice is that babies under 6 months should be kept completely out of the sun, and should not have sunscreen applied to their skin. This means that your baby should be indoors, under a parasol or – if you have to expose them to the sun – choose baby clothing that covers the entire body such as a long sleeved T-shirt and leggings with a wide-brimmed hat.

Don’t take the route followed by a crowd of around 2,000 in Brick Lane, London, this spring! Ten police officers were injured during scuffles between the crowd and the police at the American Apparel casual clothing ‘rummage’, during which three people were arrested. To get a bargain without a criminal record:

Explore the online offerings of your favourite shops – you’ll often find links saying  ‘sale’ or ‘special offer‘ or ‘clearance’ all of which can reveal wonderful clothing at anything up to 75% reduced prices.

While you’re there, seek out any additional discounts on offer for online buyers – these will often be headed ‘promotional code’ or ‘discount code’ or ‘coupon’ and will appear at the checkout stage. If you spot such a box, open a new tab and conduct an internet search for the retailer’s name and the phrase used on the retailer’s site – you might get lucky and find a code that reduces the cost even further.

Double up and more by checking the relationship between order number, order cost and delivery cost. You may find that bulk order T-shirts cost only a few pennies more than one alone did, or that by increasing the size of your order until it reaches a few more pounds, you could get free postage – in other words, you might score an entire hoodie or pair of shorts for the same cost as you would have paid for postage.

Use seasonal searches. There are specific times of the year (September for summer wear, for example) that are ideal to seek out bargains. If you’re looking for a winter weight coat, then March or April are great times to be shopping online, while lightweight shirts are often marked down in the autumn and can be bought at bargain prices.

Everybody wears cotton clothing – babies are popped into it from birth because of its softness, its breathability and the way that it can take heavy laundering (therefore its absolute cleanliness can be guaranteed). Baby clothing is, quintessentially, cotton clothing.

Once we grow up we move into the kind of rugged cotton clothes that our mothers can wash and wash and wash – whether it’s sports gear for the budding footballer or gymnast, or short-sleeved T-shirts for the incipient artist or junior trainspotter. This cotton wear is wash-and-wear style, in bright colours and is often the kind of garment that a child will fall in love with and insist on wearing all the time. It’s a good thing it’s tough!

And as we become adults, we moving into our own fashion preferences: brilliant white shirts worn for interviews, brand new black T-shirts to impress the opposite sex at the weekend, comfy hoodies for weekend meet ups.

Caring for Cotton

While cotton is robust, you can do quite a lot to keep it looking better for longer. Deep colours benefit from being washed inside out – especially if they have transfer designs on them. Light colours take almost any amount of laundering, but be careful not to wash them with anything dark, or they are likely to pick up a tint of the darker colour.

Cotton or Poly-cotton?

The choice isn’t as simple as you might think. Pure cotton has advantages – it becomes more comfortable the more it’s worn, and you can iron it on a very high heat without destroying it. It holds its dye colour well too. On the down side, it does crease quite badly.

Poly-cotton doesn’t crease nearly so badly, but it does have a tendency to pill, which is where the fabric makes tiny bobbles over time. Also it can’t be washed on as high a temperature as 100% cotton can.