How can I tell the quality of a hoodie?

Buying good quality, affordable hoodies

It’s 2025 and no-one knows what the world will look like in two weeks, let alone next year. Everything feels like it might be going pear shaped but kids, and young adults are still ‘leaving school’ and want to celebrate that fact. Leavers Hoodies are one way for them to mark their move to the next phase of life.

This article was written in 2021 and updated during May 2025.

Buying the Hoodies

You’ve have been asked to buy ‘good quality leavers hoodies’ for the school, but told: “don’t let them cost too much, else the parents won’t buy them”.

Your likely reaction could have been to regret saying yes to organising the Leavers Hoodies for this school year group. Suddenly, “I’m too busy!” sounds better than “I’d love to!”.

Don’t sweat it.

Buying quality, affordable hoodies is made easier than many bulk purchase decisions by three simple facts:

1. By and large, like most other garments – except haute couture, you get what you pay for
2. The leavers hoodie market is highly competitive keeping prices down
3. Comparison between garments is made easy by leavers hoodies companies – they provide all the information you might need

Price factors

The factors which dictate the price of the finished decorated hoodies for your year group can be attributed to a mix of:

• Quantity being ordered
• Quality/material of the hoodie itself
• Quality of the Service provided
• Hoodie brand name
• Manufacturing processes used

Hoodies at the lower end of the price scale will be of less good quality than those at the higher end.

Quality factors

Factors affecting the quality of a hoodie

• Materials used
• Weight, GSM (grams per square metre) of the materials
• Features included in the hoodie
• Manufacturing processes used

Hoodie Materials may be more a personal preference than a quality factor

Materials used for garments ‘can be’ an accurate reflection of the quality of the garment. But they may not be – ‘material quality’ may be more a matter of personal preference and/or manufacturing process.

Many people, possibly most, would assume that a higher percentage of cotton in a cotton/polyester mix is better quality than a higher percentage of polyester. However, some of the more expensive hoodies available actually have a higher polyester content than some of the less expensive ones.

Most hoodies that are available/feasible to buy in quantities suitable for a year group leaving school, are made using a mix of cotton and polyester. Over the years, this has been proven to be the nicest feeling, most robust and hardest wearing combination at a price point that the majority of leavers’ parents feel they can afford.

The range of mix in hoodies is generally between 80% cotton / 20% polyester  and 50/50. For example:

• College Hoodie is 80% cotton / 20% polyester
• Premium Hoodie is 70% ringspun cotton / 30% polyester
• Ultra Premium Hoodie is 65% cotton / 35% polyester (Cotton and polyester in melange colours may be a 50/50 mix)

Is all Cotton the same?

The specific details of the cotton can make a difference to the price too. So, 80% cotton is not necessarily the same as 80% Ringspun cotton or 80% Organic Ringspun Combed cotton.

Don’t forget that you can find hoodies with recycled polyester vs just plain polyester too.

Green / Organic Factors

If you want to buy organic for the leavers at your school, or go for recycled materials go for it. But, be aware that while you as the organiser may be willing to pay that little extra not everybody will want to or will be able to afford to.

Hoodies manufactured from other materials are also available. For example, they can be made from Bamboo. But it is safe to say that there aren’t too many parents who are going to be happy coughing up the necessaries for one of those for little Jacob or Lois.

Weight of a hoodie

When you look at the product listings for Hoodies most show a weight e.g. 280gsm. This is not the weight of the hoodie itself but the weight in grams for a square metre of the hoodie’s material. This weight enables direct comparison between the materials used in different garments. A 280gsm (also shown as GSM or g/m2) hoodie in size extra-large (XL) might actually weigh more than an extra-small (XS) hoodie made from a 350gsm material.

Is heavier better? That depends on the planned use. If the Leavers are going to be using the hoodies for a post leaving dose of après ski then maybe thicker / heavier is better. But if it is just for wearing around during the following British summer and autumn then probably less so.

The most common heavyweight hoodies come in at around 330-400gsm. That is a significantly heavier material than the most popular ranges of leavers hoodies sold which are 280gsm.

In most cases the heavier material hoodies will cost more to buy than a lighter material hoodie with the same features.

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Features

Hoodies come with a fairly limited range of possible features. For some, one of the features is an absolute must-have while the same feature can be of no interest to other wearers. The two simplest categories which the features can be broken into are Design Features and Functional Features. Some features cross the boundary between these two arbitrary categories and, for simplicity, we have just listed them in one in the lists below.

Design Features

These are really just the way the hoodie is made turned into features for marketing purposes. The average hoodie wearer cares very little whether their hoodie uses “Twin-needle stitching detailing” and would be hard-pressed to recognise it if they saw it. But since you will be faced with a choice between the design features we will list the most common ones here.

• Twin-needle stitching detailing
• Double fabric hood
• Self coloured cords
• Ribbed cuffs
• Ribbed hem
• Contrasting colours
• Flat laced drawcords
• Brushed inner fleece
• Set-in sleeves
• Three-panel hood
• Cross-over neck
• Raglan sleeves
• Necktape

Functional Features

These are the ones that make a difference to what the wearer can do with the hoodie. Although, as said above, having a hole for a cable to pass through will be vital to one wearer but a matter of complete indifference to another.

• Kangaroo pouch
• Full-zip
• Half-zip
• Thumb-holes
• Mobile phone pocket (inside kangaroo pouch)
• Small opening for ear-phone cord feed
• Hanging loop
• Sporty fit
• Girlie fit

Manufacturing processes used

While this is a factor that affects the quality of hoodies, it isn’t something that is going to influence your choice much for this purpose.

Why? Because pretty much all suppliers of hoodies bought for school leavers are using the same manufacturers. These manufacturers make the hoodies in bulk. The different styles of hoodies and weights of material are turned into hoodies in the same way.

Don’t care about price?

If you are fortunate enough to be buying leavers hoodies for a group that don’t care about price then it is likely that you will start with the purchase of premium brand name hoodies at £75, £150, or maybe £250 each.

Indeed, the quality of the materials of these types of hoodies will generally be better than mass-produced hoodies and there will likely be some hand finishing during the manufacturing process too. But for most people, they are out of reach.

You get these delivered to a printing / embroidery shop for decoration at an additional cost. 

Our decoration processes are as good as they come. So if you want to buy your luxury quality hoodies and send them to us we will decorate them for you. Please call us to discuss your requirements and get a quote before heading down this route.

For normal people

Leavers Hoodies Company doesn’t operate at that luxury/expensive end of the market. We work with suppliers of good quality mass-produced garments suitable for the normal person’s budget. We decorate the garments in-house to keep costs down and ensure the quality of decoration is high.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

Drowning in data yet?

Ok – that about covers the basics of what your hoodies could or could not have. Remember we said ‘don’t sweat it’ a few paragraphs ago! Well what we meant is…

If you try to compare the features of every hoodie out there with every other one, across the websites or catalogues of multiple suppliers you may well drown in useless data.

suggested approach to buying a quality hoodie

Our suggested approach is to keep it simple!

Decide what the minimum features required are and then find a couple, or three, well-regarded suppliers and get quotes from them for a hoodie that meets those requirements. You may well find that the garment or garments you are being quoted for are the same across your supplier shortlist.

The quality of the hoodies used by most school leavers is similar. If you can get the parents of your leavers to spend a little more for each hoodie you can move up the range a little. But don’t sweat it. The reason people buy leavers hoodies is that they are hard-wearing, they look good, they are relatively easy to decorate and personalise, and, most importantly, the kids love them.

Next Steps

Picking your 2 or 3 well regarded suppliers could start here. The Leavers Hoodies Company has been serving schools and colleges for many years. Each year we receive orders from some of the schools we have dealt with right from the beginning.

Contact us (during office hours) to discuss your requirements if you can’t find exactly what you want on our website.