Custom performance shirts

The difference is what the fabric does with sweat. Cotton fibres absorb it and hold it, so the shirt gets heavy, stays wet, and cools you uncomfortably once you stop moving. Polyester does not absorb: it wicks moisture along the fibre to the outer surface where it evaporates, so the shirt stays lighter and dries in a fraction of the time.

That is a genuine functional advantage for anyone moving, and a genuine disadvantage everywhere else. Polyester does not feel like cotton, it holds odour more readily, and it reads as sportswear rather than casual wear. If your shirt is going to be worn to a barbecue rather than a 10K, cotton is the better garment and our custom t-shirts page is the right page.

Blends split the difference: a poly-cotton or tri-blend keeps some of the wicking and most of the hand-feel, and it is often the right answer for a team shirt that gets worn both on and off the field. Tell us how the shirt will actually be used and we will recommend the fabric rather than the fashion.

DTF is our default. It lays full-colour artwork onto polyester with no per-colour setup, handles the fabric's smooth face well, and stays flexible rather than forming a stiff patch. For a race tee with a sponsor block or an event graphic it is usually both the best-looking and the most economical choice.

Sublimation is the premium option and the right one when you want edge-to-edge colour, panels, or a design that runs off the hem. Because it bonds into the fibre, there is nothing on the surface at all, so breathability is completely unaffected. It only works on polyester and it cannot print white, which are the two constraints to design around.

Standard plastisol screen printing is available but we will usually talk you out of it on a technical shirt. A large plastisol print is a sheet of non-breathable film across the chest of a garment bought specifically to breathe. If screen printing is right for your budget and quantity, a small chest mark is the sensible compromise rather than a full front.

Performance shirts sit slightly above cotton tees per piece, and the gap narrows at volume. The blank costs more than a basic cotton tee but less than a heavyweight one, and the decoration methods that suit the fabric, DTF and sublimation, carry no per-colour screen setup, which changes the shape of the cost curve.

That has a useful consequence for race and event orders: a full-colour design with sponsor logos costs no more than a one-colour design, so there is no reason to strip a race tee back to a single ink. Budget instead on quantity, which is the lever that actually moves the number.

For races, the participant shirt is part of the entry fee and people judge the event by it. The two decisions that matter are fabric, because runners notice immediately, and sizing, because a race field skews differently from a team roster and you cannot re-order mid-event. Our races and marathons page covers how those orders are usually timed and sized.

For athletic programmes, performance shirts are the training layer under the competition jersey, and ordering them together on one run is worth doing: the same fabric and dye lot across both makes a programme look coherent in a way that separate orders rarely do.

For outdoor work crews, a wicking shirt is a genuine summer upgrade over a cotton tee and is usually worth the small premium. Keep the decoration small and light-coloured, because a large dark print on a shirt worn in direct sun holds heat exactly where you do not want it. Our custom work shirts page covers the wider crew lineup.

Performance shirts pair with team jerseys as the training layer under competition kit, and with joggers and hoodies as the warm-up layer over it.

For a shirt worn as much off the field as on it, custom t-shirts in cotton or a blend are usually the better call, and caps complete an outdoor crew or race lineup.