Preferred t-shirt model/brand under jacket

[torfjord]

It is fascinating how some people prioritize certain items of clothing, but could care less about other clothing, and will spend considerable sums on certain clothing items, but not others. Some here do not flinch at spending $1,000 or more on a leather jacket, but will not spend $40 on a t-shirt (even though a t-shirt gets worn much more often). Some will spend disproportionate amounts on hats, but not jeans. Others fancy shoes, but could care less about ties or dress shirts. Others prioritize watches, but are oblivious to sunglasses. I could continue ad nauseam.

It is undeniable that there are material differences in the quality of t-shirts. If one places a $10 t-shirt next to a $100 t-shirt, the difference in quality is striking. Its night and day.

Yet, many -- likely most -- could care less about high quality t-shirts. I am plainly in the small minority here that cares. For those who are indifferent to all clothing, I get it. If you don't care about clothing in general, the quality of one's t-shirt is particularly irrelevant. On the other hand, if you care enough about your clothing to patronize a clothing related discussion forum, why not care more about the other components of your wardrobe? I am not suggesting that one should care equally about all aspects of their wardrobe. Certain clothing items invariably take on greater importance. That said, IMHO, t-shirts are a reasonably important clothing article.

Excluding work dress, I wear t-shirts more than any other article of clothing. I wear t-shirts with both jeans and shorts -- during the day and at night -- in both the summer and the winter -- inside the house and out. T-shirts are an anchor of my wardrobe, as important as anything else I wear. Therefore, I carefully select my t-shirts and I pay for quality.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that my personal emphasis on t-shirts is correct, nor that anyone who disregards t-shirts is incorrect. As with most of what we discuss here, there are merely personal preferences. That said, I am admittedly a bit surprised that so few here share my interest in high quality t-shirts.

I can only speak for myself, but the reason for my relative lack of emphasis on T-shirt’s is that for me they fall in the same category as underwear. I would never spend any money on underwear or T-shirt’s than I must.

The only thing I look for in a T-shirt is a certain thickness. I also tend to wear a shirt over my T-shirt’s most days. Only exception is two T-shirt’s from the Lee101 line that I try to wear on the rare occasion when I don’t put on a shirt. They are thick and looks nice imo. But too be honest, in terms of durability I’ve had lots cheaper T-shirt’s that held up better.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Dav]

I got into Iron Heart t-shirts a few years back, got three draws full of them, one of which cost £100. A bit silly really as I just don't seem to wear any of them anymore, I just prefer shirts these days, they are nice though.

 

[Bigbenbs]

Any pics of various t-shirt jacket combos?

 

[Downunder G Man]

I like most of us have a MULTITUDE of T shirts collected over the last 30+ years.

I am careful with my stuff and it lasts for "donkeys".

On my Harley I have a few different "easy Rider" Captain America helmet visuals.

I also wear long sleeve preferably , don't get caught up in the jacket sleeves.

Most recently I bought from eBay 6 Gildan brand plain long sleeve in 6 different colours for $60 AUD delivered.

Often not tucked in , sometimes so. Live dangerous me !!

 

[Dav]

Here's a couple of the fore mentioned pricy IH, tucked and untucked, I prefer tucked.

With the obligatory dog hair of course, doh!

 

[navetsea]

I like long sleeve turtle neck raglan under my jacket, lately I just buy poloshirt fabrics by the kilos in heathered dark grey, medium grey, and navy, and have a custom made ones with thumbhole on the sleeve with raw hem and sleeve cuff, they just rolled back automatically after first wash. they last forever, and never change shape since the material is hardly stretchy at all I have one with smaller neck hole it is almost painful to wear since it would scrape my nose and ears everytime.
but they ventilate well, and not easy to get smelly so I can wear them multiple time before washing.

 

[Seb Lucas]

Dav I WAY prefer the untucked look there. But I respect your choice, given it is none of my business. I just find the tucked in look almost always looks repressed to me.

 

[Edward]

I realise, thinking about it, there is one type of shirt I wear untucked: am eloha. Always with an undershirt that's tucked in, though.

I can only speak for myself, but the reason for my relative lack of emphasis on T-shirt’s is that for me they fall in the same category as underwear. I would never spend any money on underwear or T-shirt’s than I must.

The only thing I look for in a T-shirt is a certain thickness. I also tend to wear a shirt over my T-shirt’s most days. Only exception is two T-shirt’s from the Lee101 line that I try to wear on the rare occasion when I don’t put on a shirt. They are thick and looks nice imo. But too be honest, in terms of durability I’ve had lots cheaper T-shirt’s that held up better.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Outerwear is a bit of an outlier on TFL because it tends to attract a lot of folks whose interest in leathers is either the limit of their interest in the vintage look, or they don't care for the vintage look in any way, and it is wholly coincidental that the designs they like are mainly vintage (or, t least, vintage inspired by the time they are altered to suit modern preferences in length, waistband, and such). I think that can distort the impression sometimes if you were never to look elsewhere. Once taken into account that for many folks in these parts t-shirts are a basic item of underwear, I think the general reluctance to spend much on them starts to become clearer. IT's an interesting notion, though, the one that folks are interested in high end x, y or z, but often don't give two hoots about a, b, or c. I've seen it a lot in all sorts of hobbyist communities. Human nature, I guess. It's also, for me anyhow, much easier to spend on the high end, vintage repop stuff if that's all as is available for the look I want; if I can find something at less than half the price that I find acceptable, then I might well go for that. I have a Sainsbury's sweatshirt from a couple of years ago that is a dead ringer for one of the Buzz ones. I paid six quid on sale; I think full price was about £15 - around 10% of the Buzz price. The Buzz ones are undoubtedly better, but not ten times so. Alas, money is not an unlimited resource, so one has to consider the law of diminishing returns when making a purchase. I'd love to have high end everything, have all my suits made in Henry Poole or Huntsman, but in reality I only have so much disposable income, so I tend to prioritise how I spend it on certain higher end pieces that I simply can't get elsewhere, and then fill in the blanks with carefully selected, more affordable items.

Here's a couple of the fore mentioned pricy IH, tucked and untucked, I prefer tucked.
View attachment 142810 View attachment 142811
With the obligatory dog hair of course, doh!

You never escape the animal hair.... I've been owned by various cats since I was six. The current boss likes to shed on everything, and being tabby her multi-coloured hairs will show up on anything she rubs against....

Tempted to try one of those Motolegends T-sweats, though. Could be nice for kicking about in around this time of year.

 

[handymike]

"guess I have a general preferences not to spend more than $100 on any single item where I can and under $20 preferably. The weird thing is the more prosperous I have become the less I am willing to spend"
@Seb Lucas, this is called the "curmudgeon effect" and it happens irregardless of income bracket.

 

[Carlos840]

It is fascinating how some people prioritize certain items of clothing, but could care less about other clothing, and will spend considerable sums on certain clothing items, but not others. Some here do not flinch at spending $1,000 or more on a leather jacket, but will not spend $40 on a t-shirt (even though a t-shirt gets worn much more often). Some will spend disproportionate amounts on hats, but not jeans. Others fancy shoes, but could care less about ties or dress shirts. Others prioritize watches, but are oblivious to sunglasses. I could continue ad nauseam.

It is undeniable that there are material differences in the quality of t-shirts. If one places a $10 t-shirt next to a $100 t-shirt, the difference in quality is striking. Its night and day.

Yet, many -- likely most -- could care less about high quality t-shirts. I am plainly in the small minority here that cares. For those who are indifferent to all clothing, I get it. If you don't care about clothing in general, the quality of one's t-shirt is particularly irrelevant. On the other hand, if you care enough about your clothing to patronize a clothing related discussion forum, why not care more about the other components of your wardrobe? I am not suggesting that one should care equally about all aspects of their wardrobe. Certain clothing items invariably take on greater importance. That said, IMHO, t-shirts are a reasonably important clothing article.

Excluding work dress, I wear t-shirts more than any other article of clothing. I wear t-shirts with both jeans and shorts -- during the day and at night -- in both the summer and the winter -- inside the house and out. T-shirts are an anchor of my wardrobe, as important as anything else I wear. Therefore, I carefully select my t-shirts and I pay for quality.

To be clear, I am not suggesting that my personal emphasis on t-shirts is correct, nor that anyone who disregards t-shirts is incorrect. As with most of what we discuss here, there are merely personal preferences. That said, I am admittedly a bit surprised that so few here share my interest in high quality t-shirts.

I am definitely guilty of that...
I will happily spend far too much money on jackets, jeans, boots, but i wouldn't spend more than $20 on a T-shirt.
I see a point in the increase in quality you get in spending more on a leather jacket or a a pair of IH jeans, i don't see it as worthwhile for a T-shirt.
For me a T-shirt is disposable, i buy a bunch, wear them for 3 years or so and then they get replaced in batch, i don't want to have to worry about what i do to an expensive T-shirt, i don't want to care if i stain it, or make a hole in it, or do manual work in it.
The only things i want from a T-shirt are, 100% cotton, decent fit, decent choice of colour, ages well.

Up until now American Apparel has filled my needs, i actually just ordered a new batch of 15 for the sum of £84, that's £5.60 ($7.24) a T-shirt, can't argue with that, and they should last for the next 3 or 4 years of daily rotational wear.

 

[dannyk]

I realise, thinking about it, there is one type of shirt I wear untucked: am eloha. Always with an undershirt that's tucked in, though.



Outerwear is a bit of an outlier on TFL because it tends to attract a lot of folks whose interest in leathers is either the limit of their interest in the vintage look, or they don't care for the vintage look in any way, and it is wholly coincidental that the designs they like are mainly vintage (or, t least, vintage inspired by the time they are altered to suit modern preferences in length, waistband, and such). I think that can distort the impression sometimes if you were never to look elsewhere. Once taken into account that for many folks in these parts t-shirts are a basic item of underwear, I think the general reluctance to spend much on them starts to become clearer. IT's an interesting notion, though, the one that folks are interested in high end x, y or z, but often don't give two hoots about a, b, or c. I've seen it a lot in all sorts of hobbyist communities. Human nature, I guess. It's also, for me anyhow, much easier to spend on the high end, vintage repop stuff if that's all as is available for the look I want; if I can find something at less than half the price that I find acceptable, then I might well go for that. I have a Sainsbury's sweatshirt from a couple of years ago that is a dead ringer for one of the Buzz ones. I paid six quid on sale; I think full price was about £15 - around 10% of the Buzz price. The Buzz ones are undoubtedly better, but not ten times so. Alas, money is not an unlimited resource, so one has to consider the law of diminishing returns when making a purchase. I'd love to have high end everything, have all my suits made in Henry Poole or Huntsman, but in reality I only have so much disposable income, so I tend to prioritise how I spend it on certain higher end pieces that I simply can't get elsewhere, and then fill in the blanks with carefully selected, more affordable items.



You never escape the animal hair.... I've been owned by various cats since I was six. The current boss likes to shed on everything, and being tabby her multi-coloured hairs will show up on anything she rubs against....

Tempted to try one of those Motolegends T-sweats, though. Could be nice for kicking about in around this time of year.

It’s a combo of all of these things. I don’t have a huge disposable income. If I did I would be more inclined to experiment more with tees and other items. Because of work where I spend most of my clothing expenses where I have to dress in either formal clothing or business casual, my limited free time are spent in hoodies and tees and just thrown together looks a lot of the time. And lastly I don’t have a ton of t shirts because mostly mine are worn as undershirts with said work clothes. The ones I do wear are bought from a friend to support their dog rescue like I was wearing recently in a what jacket are you wearing today thread picture. Or I work in politics/government so the amount of shirts I get from groups, candidates, community groups, etc.. is insane. So if I’m getting 20 shirts a year for free I don’t want to spend money on something I’m getting for free and though I know arguably say an IH shirt is better and will last ages, it just when you add up, limited income, mostly undershirts, and 20 free shirts a year? But I also don’t judge anyone else’s habits. To each their own, absolutely no complaining there from me. And if I have some really nice jeans on, nice boots, nice jacket the part that gets the least attention from me and the general public is going to be what’s that t-shirt your wearing?

 

[scottyrocks]

I don't wear traditional t-shirts. I prefer henleys, especially since my quad bypass almost 3 years ago. T-shirt collars were irritating the healing scar.

I wear a henley (100% cotton) under everything except a closed-collared dress shirt - then it's a plain white T.

My preferred brands of henley are LL Bean and Lands End. Just better quality, in general, than most out there, from what I have seen and handled.

With long pants, always tucked in. One, it looks sloppy untucked, and two, if I need a jacket, an untucked shirt allows a draft that I don't want. With (cargo) shorts, untucked, but I wouldn't be wearing a jacket with shorts, anyway.

So, a tucked in Lands End or LL Bean henley with a jacket is my preference.

 

[Monitor]

It is undeniable that there are material differences in the quality of t-shirts. If one places a $10 t-shirt next to a $100 t-shirt, the difference in quality is striking. Its night and day.

Could you post some examples? I'm genuinely interested. I've seen relatively pricey t-shirts by random mall brands, Levi's and such and couldn't ever figure out why these cost so much more than the cheap no-name ones. To me it's just a cotton tube with a couple of smaller tube stuck to it but maybe I just haven't seen a decent t-shirt.

I didn't know the difference between regular and heavy, proper denim would be this striking, too so...

 

[Carlos840]

Could you post some examples? I'm genuinely interested. I've seen relatively pricey t-shirts by random mall brands, Levi's and such and couldn't ever figure out why these cost so much more than the cheap no-name ones. To me it's just a cotton tube with a couple of smaller tube stuck to it but maybe I just haven't seen a decent t-shirt.

I didn't know the difference between regular and heavy, proper denim would be this striking, too so...

Full disclosure, i have never handled a $100 T-shirt and i doubt i ever will, but i think the most obvious difference in T-shirt quality is how well they age when washed regularly.

I usually buy T-shirts in batch of 15.
I wear T shirts everyday, meaning that each shirt get worn/washed an average of 24 times a year.
American Apparel T-shirts can last 3 to 4 years like that, so that is around 80 to 100 wear/wash. After that they start showing signs of heavy wear, they loose their shape, the collars become slightly loose, random holes appear, colours fade a bit. That's when i get a new batch.

In my experience, poor quality T-shirts will age much faster, a Fruit of the Loom or Benetton shirt for example will look like crap after 10 or 20 wear/wash cycle, don't even get me started on no name mall shirts, you wash them once they turn into a shapeless bag with a floppy shapeless neck...

 

[Mich486]

Some of the expensive t-shirts (loop wheeled) can’t be machine washed at 60 degrees and put in a high-temp dryer cycle or you’ll mess them up badly very quickly. So I’d say they age well but you need some care. Really like raw denim for that matter. It looks better but is that practical? Not sure about it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[ton312]

I buy my t shirts at Target. The mossimo vintage navy blue. They are $9 and I own 10. When one dies I replace it. I wear them under everything. I cook in them, sleep in them, wear them out, work out in them...I can't be bothered to give much thought to an under garment. For white, black, grey t's I look to Hanes and buy as many as they can stuff into a plastic bag...I can't fathom the notion of paying any measurable amount of money for something my armpits are going to chew up in a matter of time.

 

[Superfluous]

This has been very educational. I had no idea that many consider t-shirts a form of underwear. I certainly can see why, if t-shirts are merely underwear, one would be reluctant to spend for high quality underwear.

I suspect this may vary according to climate. In my desert adjacent region, t-shirts are worn as the sole top almost year round, with shorts in the summer, and shorts or jeans in the spring, fall and winter. T-shirts are front and center as a focal component of the clothing ensemble. While I do layer over t-shirts in the winter -- e.g., flannels -- I still prefer high quality t-shirts when layering.

I do have a separate group of cheap t-shirts that I wear to sleep. These are essentially underwear. However, I do not wear these t-shirts outside the house. My comments about quality t-shirts are focused on those that I wear as clothing, rather than as sleeping underwear.

I've seen relatively pricey t-shirts by random mall brands, Levi's and such and couldn't ever figure out why these cost so much more than the cheap no-name ones.

Expensive mall t-shirts are generally crap. You are paying for the brand names. The incremental difference in quality is minimal, if any.

Could you post some examples? I'm genuinely interested.

Sure. As I said, the difference in quality is most apparent in the collar, so I will post a series of higher quality t-shirt collars. That said, there is no substitute for handling the t-shirt and feeling the robustness of the fabric and construction. You cannot see the thickness and quality of the fabric in photos.

 

[ton312]

I love the thick striped t's But $100 for one?!?!?!

 

[Monitor]

This has been very educational. I had no idea that many consider t-shirts a form of underwear. I certainly can see why, if t-shirts are merely underwear, one would be reluctant to spend for high quality underwear.

I suspect this may vary according to climate. In my desert adjacent region, t-shirts are worn as the sole top almost year round, with shorts in the summer, and shorts or jeans in the spring, fall and winter. T-shirts are front and center as a focal component of the clothing ensemble. While I do layer over t-shirts in the winter -- e.g., flannels -- I still prefer high quality t-shirts when layering.



Expensive mall t-shirts are generally crap. You are paying for the brand names. The incremental difference in quality is minimal, if any.



Sure. As I said, the difference in quality is most apparent in the collar, so I will post a series of higher quality t-shirt collars. That said, there is no substitute for handling the t-shirt and feeling the robustness of the fabric and construction. You cannot see the thickness and quality of the fabric in photos.

I actually see what you mean. Thanks for the photos! No doubt these do look a lot nicer than any of my t-shirts but they also look very thick. And warm. I use t-shirts as underwear and I only wear 'em alone during the hottest summer so... Doesn't the weight sorta defeats the purpose? I mean, how warm are these?

 

[Grayland]

Some of the expensive t-shirts (loop wheeled) can’t be machine washed at 60 degrees and put in a high-temp dryer cycle or you’ll mess them up badly very quickly. So I’d say they age well but you need some care. Really like raw denim for that matter. It looks better but is that practical? Not sure about it.

I'm pretty particular about my clothing and am ex-military, so I like it to look very presentable - but I can't bring myself to hand wash and hang dry shirts of any type. My dress shirts go to the dry cleaners and my casual shirts are washed and dried with everything else. I have some pretty nice casual shirts (BR, Sugar Cane, etc), but I treat them like every other shirt and they seem to end up just fine.

Very clearly high quality material - almost jersey-like. Really, all the examples you posted are great. I have some quality tee-shirts and some crap tee-shirts. The crap ones are usually white and worn as an undergarment. The nice ones are usually worn as a shirt. I'm 5'9, so I like them shorter.