If barmen, waiters, receptionists, chambermaids, chefs, maître d’hôtel, sommeliers, etc wear a uniform, it’s much simpler for guests to recognize them. Moreover, this fact provides the hotel or restaurant a neater, more professional and distinguished aspect.
Nowadays, Ho.Re.Ca. operators can choose among several possibilities. The proposal of work clothes, even coordinated, is particularly varied. The catalogues today consist of 200 pages, while ten years ago they were made of only 20. The producing companies, such as Corbara from Salerno, regularly update these catalogues with new proposals, to comply with the trends of the moment (these garments follow the fashion too), even if the previous models are still available for two/three years.
Customers often ask to customize the models with embroideries, logos, details of several colours, particular buttons or snap fasteners, just to distinguish from the competitors.
Following the request of an easier maintenance of the garments, the natural tissues are leaving space to technical ones, that often contain polyester or other innovative fibres, which are stronger and easier to be ironed, ensuring at the same time an elevated comfort.
Let’s examine the strategies of the uniforms producers we consulted:
ONE TO ONE RATIO
The company Corbara uses no distributors, it’s in direct contact with restaurant and hotel owners and with other operators of the Ho.Re.Ca. world, to which it proposes an offer of about a thousand items, all realized in its factory seated in Salerno. Corbara’s main target are important companies, both little and big, that they try to satisfy customizing the garments and proposing both natural and technical tissues.
“For hotel front office”, Mr. Ciro Corbara, director of the company, explains, “we usually use lightweight wool, a light tissue that can be used all year long. For waiters and barmen polyester is the most chosen tissue, as it’s lasting and strong. It’s less perspiring than other fibres, but if trousers for waiters were made of cotton they would fade after two or three weeks.
For the staff of the kitchen and for chambermaids, the most used tissue is still cotton. We have been proposing for some years, particularly for the kitchen operators, also a technical tissue: Comfort satin. It’s a polyester fibre covered with cotton. Those who wear the garment feel the same comfort of the cotton, with the advantage typical of the polyester, that it its long wear. Besides, its maintenance is simpler: it should be ironed at low temperature and keeps the pleat for long.”
Article by Michela Achilli,published on the magazine "LINEA DIRETTA" in MARCH 2013
