What makes a good Tee-shirt?

I've been putting a lot of thought into what makes a good tee shirt. What makes a tee shirt someones favorite shirt? I've been observing all sorts of different tees people wear to different locations. Everytime I walk into a store with any tees, I look and study all of them. I feel the print for softness and quality. I try and figure out the brand of tee. I look at the label for any and all info. I study the bad
ones, the cheap ones, the low quality ones. I try them on. Then I look for the high quality tees. I can easily spot an organic cotton tee, a tri-blend, a 50/50. I can tell what brands cut corners on and where. I'm no expert but quality has always been something I look for. I love the fit of a tee. I like well executed graphics on a tee, although most of the time I find myself in a blank, comfortable, tee. I remember back when I lived in San Marcos TX, about 5 years ago, I would go to a vintage store called Vagabonds (pictured above) and search for the softest most unique tee I could find. (I gotta remember to do that next time I go down.)

As I have been meeting all these designers here in Dallas, I've noticed one thing most of the brands have in common: Quality. They all take pride in their work, they spend the extra few bucks on quality printing and AA tees. Not ALL of them, but most of them. These guys love what they do and it shows.

I look for the same traits when I do interviews. As much as I can online, I look at the quality of the shirts. A lot of the sites will tell you in the tee description what type of shirt they print on, and give high quality close up pictures of the print. That goes a long way.

Everyone has their own preference. Some like heavier shirts, like Gildans. Some like v-necks, crew necks or tanks. Some people love the illustrations that cover the entire shirt, or special touches like foil print or cut and sew. Funny shirts, R.I.P Pimp C shirts, or old shirts that just have that something that reminds you of you. To each his own.

So for me, its all about the fit. Don't get me wrong, I love the graphics on a tee as well, heck I started a blog about it! But I don't care how cool the graphic is, if the fit isn't right, the shirt isn't for me.