We've dedicated over four decades to perfecting the T-shirt - blending materials, craftsmanship, and design to create the best of the best when it comes to that quintessential everyday staple. A little secret: we haven’t changed much since the beginning. The shirts we make today almost entirely resemble the heavyweight cotton tees we made forty years ago.
Heavyweight 8-Ounce 100% Cotton Fabric
At the heart of our shirts lies the fabric - an extra heavyweight 8-ounce knit made from 100% U.S.-grown cotton. This substantial fabric offers several advantages
-
Durability: The dense knit withstands wear and tear, ensuring the T-shirt remains a staple in your wardrobe for years. Much like your favorite pair of high quality denim, our shirts get better with age.
-
Comfort: While certainly heavier than your average tee, this 8-ounce knit isn’t so heavy that it’s stiff, overly hot, or bulky. You just feel the fabric and think, “why haven’t I felt a shirt like this before”?
-
Structure: The weight of the fabric gives the T-shirt a structured drape, offering a flattering fit that doesn't cling or lose shape. Wash after wash, the fit remains the same.
Not only that, but by starting with high-quality yarn, predominantly U.S.-grown cotton, we maintain a domestic supply chain, reduce our carbon footprint, and handpick our materials. This approach allows us to knit our own proprietary fabrics, ensuring consistent quality across our entire product line.
A Tubular Knit Body
Perhaps the most defining feature of our T-shirts is the tubular knit body construction. Conventional T-shirts are sewn together from two separate fabric panels, resulting in side seams that can twist, get scratchy, and blow out over time. Our tubular method eliminates the side seams entirely, providing a more comfortable fit and more comfortable drape. Without seams to pull and stretch, the shirt maintains its shape and structure wash after wash - the added durability is just a perk.
Twin Needle Stitching
More than anywhere on a shirt, the armholes endure the most stress - everytime you move your arms you’re stretching and pulling on those seams. On top of that, your sweat eats away at the thread and fabric of that seam (where that notorious armpit rip comes from on an old shirt).
To prevent that, we use a twin-needle coverstitch technique when attaching the sleeves to the body. This method uses two needles and two threads, essentially sewing the sleeves on twice, to create a more durable connection between the pieces of fabric. The result is a seam that won't stretch and break, seriously. I’ve worn our shirts daily for years, and I have never seen this seam rip.
100% Cotton Rib Collar
Apart from the fit, the collar is the primary feature of any T-shirt, and its quality significantly impacts both aesthetics and comfort. We use 100% cotton thread in a ribbed knit that allows the fabric to stretch naturally, without the use of polyester. For the life of the shirt, the collar will keep its shape and fit comfortably around the neck, and never get scratchy from the polyester. In our Classic Fit, the added height gives a vintage look - which makes sense as it’s been the same since 1983.
A Testament to Quality
We recently received an email from a customer touting his 30+ year old Goodwear shirt. Aside from some inevitable fraying at the collar, the shirt had no holes, no busted seams, and a well-earned patina. That's what we strive for in every single piece we make—something that will one day become your old favorite. We don't want you coming back in a year to buy a new shirt because yours fell apart; we want you to have these for decades. For what it’s worth, I can back this up from my own experience having worn some of these shirts since I was in high school (did you know we’re a family company?)
