If you had been a T-shirt shopper back in the 90’s your main determinant of quality was the weight of the shirt, and the higher the weight the higher the perception of quality. The average shirt in those days was 6.1 oz per square yard of fabric and if you wanted to get a super high end shirt you opted for 7 or 8 oz. Fast forward to today and we have a completely different understanding of quality as it relates to fabric weight. Somehow in the intervening years we figured out how to make threads narrower and pack more of them in a square inch of fabric. Today a high end retail T-shirt will be in the 4 oz. range, but whereas in the past it was comprised of 18 or 20 singles, which denotes the thickness of the thread, now it is common to see 30 or 40 singles for higher end fabric. This means that you are now buying a finer thread which gives greater drape and softness, especially if the garment is also ringspun cotton.
So, far higher end retail shirts look for the markers of quality – finer threads, densely packed; ringspun cotton as an ingredient; fabric that is lightweight and drapes; double row hem stitches and serged seams. Now, if you still want to have a heavy weight shirt there are many great options in ringspun and garment washed cotton.
To see a comparison of shirts, fabrics and weights, please contact us via email.
We always want our clients to know exactly what they are getting and how various fabrics are suitable for different types of garment decoration.
