Necklines & Collars
Cadet collar
A cadet collar is a short, stand-up, zippered collar with no fold, most often found on quarter-zip pullovers and track-style jackets.
The cadet collar takes its name from military academy uniforms, where a short, stiff, stand-up collar with no fold and no lapel became standard issue — the same silhouette now shows up on nearly every quarter-zip pullover on a corporate order form. It's built as a straight band, usually 1.5 to 2 inches tall, closed by a zipper that runs from the chest up into a small garage at the top of the collar.
On a garment like Port Authority's F219 or a North Face quarter-zip, the cadet collar gives the piece its clean, technical look instead of the softer roll of a polo. Because the collar stays upright even with the zipper undone, it photographs well for catalog and e-commerce shots — one reason quarter-zips dominate corporate swag orders over cardigan-style pullovers.
Digitizers spec smaller, denser stitch patterns near a cadet collar because the fabric there is doubled and often interfaced, and a design fine on a flat panel can pucker right at the collar seam if the underlay isn't adjusted. Buyers ordering embroidered quarter-zips should ask whether the logo sits above or below the zipper garage, since the collar limits how high a design can run.
People often assume a cadet collar and a mandarin collar are the same thing because both stand up without folding. The difference is the zipper and garage at the top — this one is built to close, a mandarin collar usually isn't, which changes how a designer plans the neckline artwork.