As a professional teacher, my wardrobe consists mainly of business or semi-formal attire. A necessary element of this attire from a man’s perspective is a plain white undershirt. While I am still on the quest for the perfect plain white undershirt and have tried several different brands, I notice that most of the affordable white T-shirts available suffer from the same problem: the collar becomes irreparably stretched out after far too few uses. Two varieties of shirts that are currently in my wardrobe are Hanes brand classic T-shirts and Structure brand classic T-shirts. While both Hanes and Structure do the job of buffering my skin from my outer garments, I have found that the traditional Hanes classic white T-shirt is preferable over the Structure brand for several reasons.
The first factor for me in choosing a desirable white undershirt, as mentioned above, is the ability of the T-shirt’s collar to retain its cohesion without becoming prematurely stretched out. While I have never encountered a perfect T-shirt that could avoid this problem entirely, the Hanes shirt clearly outperforms the Structure shirt in this respect. I have several instances of each of these two brands of shirts, and the collars of the Structure brand shirts are consistently more stretched out than those of the Hanes T-shirts. This may have something to do with the shape of the neck cut of the Hanes shirts versus that of the Structure shirts. I myself prefer a shirt with a collar that is tighter around my neck rather than looser. Hanes shirts seem to fit better around my neck to begin with than the Structure shirts, which could account for the pronounced looseness of the Structure shirts as compared to Hanes after some stretching has occurred in the collars. In other words, it could be that both shirts stretch to an equal degree but that the Hanes shirts are more form-fitting to begin with than the Structure shirts. This would account for the difference in stretch level while simultaneously giving Structure shirts the benefit of the doubt regarding the craftsmanship involved in the manufacture of the Structure brand products.
A second factor to be considered when choosing a T-shirt is the ability of the shirt to resist stains and to remain a brilliant white color. Again, Hanes seems be the clear winner over Structure regarding the stain resistance ability of the two brands of T-shirts. I have had my Hanes shirts and my Structure shirts for approximately the same length of time. While I could probably stand to replace all of my shirts, the first shirts to be tossed out will definitely be the Structure shirts, which have become duller and are now less brilliantly white than their Hanes T-shirt counterparts. The Hanes shirts are by no means perfect in this regard, but their whiteness has held up better than that of the Structure undershirts. While I have not tried bleaching these shirts, it would be an interesting comparison to see which shirt returns to its former brilliance after a good dose of Clorox bleach in the washing machine.
A third factor I regard highly when choosing a shirt is the overall cut of the T-shirt. Being in academics, I find myself sitting at a desk a good portion of the day. The end result of this is that I have put on a few extra pounds around the middle than I would like. An important factor in choosing a T-shirt then is how well the shirt accommodates those few extra pounds and whether I still appear youthful and slim in the shirt. After staring at myself each morning in the mirror in both Hanes and Structure shirts, I must say that I prefer the way I look in a Hanes T-shirt over the way I appear in a Structure T-shirt. The Structure shirt is slightly bigger and fits more like a night shirt on me than an undergarment to be hidden under my work clothes. The Hanes shirt has a more appropriate cut than the Structure shirt and just plain looks better on me than the Structure shirt (It probably doesn’t help that the over-stretched collar on the Structure shirt looks just plain stupid.).
So while I am still on the quest to find the world’s most perfect T-shirt, I have several reasons for preferring the Hanes brand of classic white undershirt to that of the Structure brand. On a side note, I am also thoroughly impressed by the trendier and higher quality white T-shirts offered by Gap, Inc. Those shirts tend to retain their form much better than either the Hanes or the Structure brand shirts, but they are nearly double the cost which is prohibitively expensive for most people who just need a basic white undershirt for work. In this respect, Hanes also has a clear advantage being significantly more affordable than more designer brands. Even the Structure shirts, while not designer, are still slightly more expensive than the Hanes brand T-shirts. So again, I would say that Hanes shirts outshine the competition in almost every respect. On that note, I am off to replace my worn out shirts. You can bet that I will return from the mall with a new stack of Hanes classic white T-shirts.
