T-shirt in ring-spun cotton in seaweed

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£220.00 — ex VAT

T-shirt — if only there was a better name — hand-framed and fully-fashioned with ring-spun cotton in the south-west of the British Isles.

Sizing

The t-shirt fits true to size, but is a short, tailored style rather than a long, loose-fitting one. The wooden man here is a 40 chest, is wearing size M, and he couldn't smile wider.

XS S M L XL
To fit chest 36 38 40 42 44
Pit-to-pit 20 21 22 23 24
Shoulder 17 17½ 18 18½ 19
Back length 24 24½ 25 25½ 26½
Sleeve from centre-back 18 18¼ 18½ 18¾ 19
A t-shirt, this, sure — but only if you want to be all technical about it. See, it's a t-shirt from an alternative history of t-shirts, where rather than from about 1950 racing to the bottom — the basic bunking with socks and smalls — it became instead a classic, enduring, and crowning measure for traditional knitting.
The neck is made of two pieces, which lap over each other at the sides, where they are linked by hand — see the faint cabling — onto the body and form a teardrop corner as they join the shoulder seam. It serves to give the neck great structure, a certain convexity, to maintain shape when under other articles.
It's heavy for a t-shirt, being two-ply in weight. Two ends of yarn, that is, of, in this case, cotton. Sturdy enough to be worn by itself without further adornment, then, but still sufficiently fine under, say, a casual shirt. Good under a tailored jacket, too, where it makes not wearing a shirt not an over-casual cop-out.
The t-shirt is entirely hand-linked — meaning that, where the neck joins the body, or the sleeve joins the neck, there is no discernible seam or bump. Just a flat, smooth, every-tiny loop-of-yarn-looped-by-hand-and-knitting-needle-onto-the-next-one link. It's as deliberate and skilful as it sounds.
The yarn is high-grade 16/2 Ne cotton, combed and spun on traditional ring frames (as in, ring-spun) in Lancashire. It is an uncommonly soft yarn, and makes for a t-shirt which has a warmth to it, thus is comforting on cool days, but is also light and springy to come in useful all through the summer, as well.
There are two shades of cotton yarn at play here — a middling green and a dark one. They are evenly distributed throughout the knit, as the strands of yarn are twisted together prior to knitting. You thus get a good, satisfying melange — enough to keep the eye occupied, but not so much as to distract.

As worn

Him, here, has a 38 chest, a 12 stone weight, a 6ft 1in height, and the size S he's wearing here is just about perfect.
Same t-shirt, this, and the same size (S) — just in another colour.

Makers of

The garment is hand-framed by a knitwear maker founded 100 years ago. They work with small, hand-operated machines overseen by one person, rather than automated machines, making them one of the last makers still to do so in Britain. It is slow going, but the results always bear out the work put in.

So they say

I was wondering if I'd like the t-shirt — well, I should you know you better now. It is a fantastic piece, and you're not that wrong that it seems from somewhat alternative reality where t-shirts are fully respected. It is also beautifully ironic as fashion blasts very often how new and never seen it is, but this piece of clothing is for me the most innovative I've seen in a long time. And yes, make more in all colours.

A far from neutral position from a customer in Switzerland, who bought the t-shirt in oatmeal in May of 2022.

The t-shirt is especially good. A knockout. Wish you had more: I'd buy six. Could wear it every day. Keep doing this.

Encouraging words from a gentleman in Canada who purchased the t-shirt in a cotton two-ply in May 2021.