Normally it is the case that tie manufacturers do make ties and scarves.

Whether it be custom ties, school ties and corporate ties, it doesn’t really matter and the same goes for custom scarves or corporate scarves.

In South Africa, there are very few tie manufacturers who make fashion ties and scarves and the reason for this is simply that these items, made for retail are generally manufactured offshore, mostly in China and then exported to South Africa to be sold in clothing stores and various specialist shops, so in saying this, the majority of tie manufacturers in South Africa make corporate ties, branded ties and custom ties not for fashion retail.

This does by the way include school ties.

As schools generally don’t have custom scarves or school scarves per say then it would be reare for tie manufacturers to make scarves for schools but they certainly do make scarves as custom scarves or corporate scarves.

Because a scarf only really needs overlocking on the edges, it is a much simpler item to manufacture that custom ties for example which require a level of expertise not required to make custom scarves.

Many factories, especially those doing for example corporate uniform or corporate wear will not send the printed scarf panel to the tie manufacturer to be overlocked as this is a fairly simple process that can be managed within a factory that specialises on the manufacture of general formal wear.

The cost to overlock custom scarves is around one third of the cost to make branded ties so it gives you an idea of the expertise and length of time required to make this item, by this I refer to custom ties.

Although the majority of corporate scarves and custom scarves are made from sublimated panels, there are also many of them that are made from pre printed or dyed fabrics.

Because most custom scarves are made from a polyester fabric called chiffon which by its very nature enables the printed fabric design to be viewed from both sides, this is because chiffon fabric is quite lightweight and see through, so one would understand that because of this, the fabric is also quite flimsy and difficult to work with and so this does require skilled tie manufacturers to ensure a really good end result.

When it comes to scarves being made in a normal clothing factory, these factories are normally extremely skilled at working with flimsy fabrics anyway so edging custom scarves would not be a problem in their lives.

It is not very often that one would find anything other than custom ties, branded ties or corporate ties aswell as custom scarves and corporate scarves being made by tie manufacturers but I have often considered the viability and synergy of having sock manufacturers especially to make school socks and corporate socks sharing premises with the tie manufacturer, they are quite similar in one way in that special skills are required to manufacture either option.

But that is perhaps a topic for another discussion!!