Drawcord

Cinch a hood tight around your face and the cord doing the work is the drawcord, threaded through a casing sewn around the hood opening or, less often, a waistband. Most fleece uses a flat cord about a quarter-inch wide, though round cord — cheaper to source but more prone to twisting inside the casing — still shows up on budget blanks. Cord length typically runs 45 to 55 inches, leaving enough hanging on each side to grip, and color is either matched tone-on-tone to the body or run in a contrasting shade as a styling detail.

Swapping drawcord color is one of the cheapest upgrades a print shop can offer a brand client — a flat black cord on a heather-gray hoodie versus a bright contrast cord completely changes how designed the finished garment looks, for close to zero extra cost if the blank supplier already stocks the option. Team orders have been upsold on contrast drawcords alone, more than once, the moment a customer saw a sample sitting next to the plain stock cord.

If a brand's color palette matters, ask the blank supplier what drawcord colors they stock before committing to a run — swapping cord after the fact means unpicking the grommet and casing stitching, which isn't worth it for a detail this small. Flat cords also hold a knot better than round ones, which matters if the buyer plans to tie it rather than just let it hang.

Some buyers think a drawcord is purely decorative; it's structural too, since it's what keeps a scuba or three-panel hood from flopping open in wind. Cutting or removing it — a common request for a cleaner look — changes how the hood actually functions, not just how it looks.