Polos, tees and tunics in women's sizes.

Polo for anything customer-facing: it reads as uniform rather than casual and it holds a logo well. T-shirt for workshop, warehouse and summer wear, where it is cheap enough to treat as consumable. Tunic for care, beauty, cleaning and clinical work, where the length and the pockets are the point.

For a team wearing it daily, around 200 gsm upwards in a polycotton piqué is the sensible floor — lighter than that and the collar goes soft and the shoulder seams pull inside a few months. For light or occasional wear a lighter weight is fine and costs less.

A cheap flat polyester does. A moisture-wicking knit does the opposite — it moves sweat off the skin, which is why performance polos suit active trades better than cotton. The trade-off is that polyester holds odour more than cotton does, so it needs washing more often, not less.

Three is the practical number for daily wear: one on, one in the wash, one clean in the drawer. Two works if laundry happens every other day and nothing gets badly dirty. Trades that get genuinely filthy run five, because a top that cannot be rescued is binned rather than washed.

All of them fade; the question is how fast. Black and navy show it first, and the usual culprit is washing too hot and tumble drying. Wash cool, dry on a line where you can, and expect a team's black polos bought in one batch to stay matched longer than ones bought in three.

Genuinely cut differently in the ranges worth buying: shaped through the waist, a different shoulder width and a different sleeve length, and in polos usually a different placket and collar. If a 'ladies' version is identical to the men's but for the label, it is a label exercise — and the fit complaints will tell you within a month.