From ¥700 Pack Tees to a ¥66,000 THE ROW: A Designer Picks Apart Ten White T-Shirts

Is that white tee of yours actually any good? Precisely because it's the simplest, it runs deep — the world of the eternal staple, the white tee. He who masters the white tee masters fashion. From pattern to material to the details that shape the impression, we'll explain it all thoroughly. Watch this video and you'll know the white tee you should be wearing now.

Hello everyone, I'm fashion designer Shunsuke Ishikawa. — Right, Ishikawa-san, what's today? — Today it's white tees. — White tees. — Even though you're wearing a black shirt. — In a black shirt, let's do white tees. Eddie-san, you've got one on under there now too — you're not picking them carelessly, are you? — Eddie-san's different lately. — Eddie-san's different these days, right? You said you did a lot of laundry yesterday, didn't you? — I got the report that you gave the tees back there a good wash — the Red Label tees, so you've started caring. — Wonderful.

Aren't there a lot of people who pick them carelessly, like underwear? So today, let's thoroughly break down white tees. They all look the same, don't they, white tees, every one of them — but look closely and they're completely different. That's what, with 25 years as a designer, I'll convey through my own eyes.

So first, the check points for choosing a white tee — let's think about what points there are. Even saying "white tee," the fabric varies a lot. The fabric — what does that mean? Yarn count, the thickness of the yarn, and what raw material is used — that's very important too. And the knit — how fine the gauge is — though in most cases it's plain jersey, the most basic knit. Let's look at that too.

And what material the collar uses, how thick it is, how it's attached — that differs too. Usually the body and the collar use different things — different knits — and that's a point of craftsmanship too, so let's look at that.

And color. The white tees are lined up behind us now, and I don't know how the colors are reading on camera, but the colors really do differ. For example, isn't this one super white? Whereas this kind has a color closer to a yellowish ecru. This changes with the bleaching — what kind of treatment is done.

And a big one is silhouette. For example, designer pieces might have waist shaping, or there are straight, boxy ones, wide-bodied ones, all sorts, so the silhouette there, and the shoulders, change quite a bit. Let's look at that.

The thing people worry about most with a white tee is sheerness. True — to wear one on its own, without some thickness it inevitably shows through. But the degree of sheerness varies, so we'll touch on that lightly too. In that way, white tees — I'd like to analyze them in various ways. Or rather explain — not analyze, explain. I'd like to explain them, is what I mean.

So shall we get right to introducing them? How many tees today? — Ten. — One, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, nine, ten — we've got ten ready. First, we go by budget, so the ¥2,000 budget — well, the first two are pack tees. Three to a pack, that's the ¥2,000-budget idea.

Let's start with the very most staple of staples: Men's Short-Sleeve Underwear 3-Pack, Red Label Crew Neck T-shirt — three for a reference price of ¥2,052. — Cheap. — Has watching this channel broken our brains? — When Ishikawa-san holds it, it looks expensive. ¥700 each.

Since long ago, when it comes to white tees, this is the staple of staples. It's a pack tee, the so-called — this has changed quite a bit too. Now it's a print, a stiff feel, a transfer print, with the red print on it. This is what's called Red Label. This is the absolute staple of staples of the American tee. Let's look at what exactly makes it an American tee, too, as we go.

The fabric is plain jersey knit, the most basic knit. The yarn count is probably around 26 or 24. America basically loves odd counts. What do I mean by odd counts? It's not your standard 30 or 20, but in between — for tees, something like "ten-something count" would be thicker, for instance — and this one, around 26 or 24. They love odd counts, so this is probably a single yarn of around 26 or 24, as it's called.

The cotton used in these is basically a blend of various cottons from various growing regions. Denim is the same — fairly thick cotton can be spun even from shorter fibers, so for those, think of it as a mix of cheap raw materials from various regions. But that's not a bad thing — it's common practice. For example, even the denim used by a certain European maison-type high-brand is the same: it includes American, Indian, Turkish, and depending on the time, Brazilian — though Brazil's gone bad lately, so it's not used much — various cottons mixed together. Think of it like that. This is probably the same.

This uses what's called open-end spinning. Generally, finer, cleaner yarns use ring spinning, but this uses open-end spinning, a method that gives a slightly gritty-feeling yarn. This is about three to five times faster than ring spinning, so the spinning time — and thus cost — is lower, and that's why American tees and classic ones use open-end yarn quite a bit, is the point.

It's a single yarn. What happens with a single yarn is, when you knit it into a fabric like this, it torques. So, an easy example — like the way denim twists. That's a woven fabric, but it torques in a similar way, so the side lines tend to curve in the same direction, this way. For this tee, it's a technique — a style — called tubular body, with no side seam. There's no seam here — it's circular knit, knitted in a tube, and used as is. So how do they do sizing? They change it by the dimensions of the knitting machine, is the thing. So since there's no side seam, even if it torques, you don't notice it, think of it that way.

This is "preshrunk" — probably washed at the fabric stage, pre-skewed and pre-shrunk a bit so it doesn't shrink much after you wash it, is the idea. Let me get the sheerness out of the way first — the knit gauge is fairly loose, so assume it shows through when worn. Worn, the nipples show through pretty clearly. But this is, after all, positioned as underwear, so that's how it is.

And as for it being the royal road of American tees, which I mentioned — where does that show through? Let me talk about silhouette a bit first. With tees and clothes, the human shoulder slopes diagonally down from the neck to the shoulder tip, right? Clothing does the same, with this angle called the shoulder slope. But here the shoulder has relatively little of it — think of it as close to horizontal.

And from there, as I've mentioned several times, the sleeve cap — the top peak of the sleeve from the underarm, the outer side of the sleeve — the rise on the upper sleeve. This being low — a low sleeve cap — means the sleeve grows out horizontally. So it's a true "T" shape. A T-shaped tee, where the sleeve doesn't drop down — that's a very classic tee.

The body width is about 49 cm, so 98 cm around — a fairly snug size, an underwear-like silhouette. The shoulder width is 44, so relatively narrow. As for the cuff and hem finish, it's the so-called single-needle type, where you fold it and run a single-needle stitch along, and when you open it, the stitching shows vertically in little flickers — "wanippa," as it's sometimes called — that kind of thing.

And something I think has changed is the collar area, which has a feature. One thing — in the past, I'm pretty sure, here — another tee will come up later — there was a "tako binder," where the back of the collar is bound, and a chain stitch showed on the front all the way to the cuff, I think that was the spec, but now it's changed to a finish where matching jersey fabric is laid over and folded down here, and the biggest change is that the collar is firm.

In the old days, Hanes meant a collar that stretched out — people used to deliberately stretch them out, even. They probably increased the number of yarn ends here, I think, because it's gotten quite firm. So unlike the old Hanes, it feels much more resistant to stretching out now. That's the feature of this tee, and really, think of it as underwear. In the old days, people often wore this on its own, and in the '80s a common move was rolling the sleeves or folding back the cuffs — that kind of thing. The royal road of royal roads of white tees.

Next, let's go to the ¥3,000 budget. This is a pack tee too: Fruit of the Loom 3-Piece Set Crew Neck T-shirt Value Pack, reference price ¥2,750, so about ¥900 each. Fruit of the Loom ranks about alongside Hanes — an American pack tee. One of the representative staple American tees, is the thing.

The biggest difference from the Hanes just now: first, this one has polyester at 65 percent, cotton at 35 percent. In the industry, in Japan, this is generally called TC. The "T" is Tetron — a polyester trademark, I think — blended with cotton. The knit gauge — how tight it is — is, if anything, maybe even a little looser than the Hanes just now, well, roughly the same, so the nipples show through with this too — actually, they show through quite a bit when worn.

I tried it on and tested various things, and it'd been a while since I'd worn a TC tee, with polyester in it — I might not be able to handle it anymore; it's prickly. It was like that before too — old Hanes had one with a blue tag, I think, with polyester in it, and I bought it and couldn't wear it. Maybe I have dry skin — I feel prickliness pretty easily, so it's a bit rough for me.

Other than that, the difference from the Hanes — I'd thought there wasn't much difference between Hanes and Fruit of the Loom, but comparing them, they're quite different. First, the collar — this one is a traditional collar that'll stretch out nice and loose. A nostalgic, saggy, stretchy feel — some people like that, so in that sense choosing this one might be better, I'd say.

And a big difference from before — the shoulder slope, unlike Hanes, is quite pronounced — a tidy shoulder slope — and the sleeve cap is much higher than the Hanes too, so this one has a slightly more fashion-conscious pattern, I'd say. This one isn't tubular — it has side seams — so it'll torque a little, I expect.

Since it has polyester, there's a polyester-like limpness to it, so rather than a saggy, sluggish feel, it leans toward holding its shape, an easy-working fabric, I'd say. Compared to Hanes, if you want to enjoy a slightly saggy feel, this one might be better, I feel. And this one's made in China.

One more difference I forgot — the cuffs. This one finishes the cuffs and hem with twin-needle, two rows of stitching, is the thing. The "tako binder" I said the old Hanes used to have — this is it. Can you see the chain stitch showing here? The chain stitch shows, and the fabric covers all the seam allowance from the back neckline to the shoulder seams, so it doesn't rub against the skin. That was the Fruit of the Loom.

Next, let's go to the ¥5,000 budget. From here it becomes fashion-brand territory. Until now it was three-packs at ¥2,000 or ¥3,000 budgets, but this is one tee at the ¥5,000 budget: COMME des GARÇONS SHIRT Plain Cotton Jersey FOREVER, ¥6,600. — How many times the price did it jump? — Compared to one of those earlier tees. But Garçons at this price — right, Garçons at this price is unusually cheap, I'd argue. Maybe it's the cheapest garment with the Garçons name on it — I don't know — but at this price, it's probably something Garçons puts out as an undergarment, though it's a tee you can perfectly well wear on its own, is the thing.

The color is what's called optical-brightened. Cotton is naturally yellowish, so to make it white, they add a slightly bluish optical brightener, and adding that makes the white pop crisply. "Optical brightener" might sound like a bad thing, but clothes with optical brightener are actually a bit convenient. Why? For example, in laundry, many people use Utamaro soap for stains, right? That has optical brightener in it — that's why it's blue — and you can use that to wash it, and bleach it hard, and use detergents with optical brighteners too, so in that sense it's surprisingly convenient and helps keep it white, so in terms of keeping it clean, optical brightener isn't a bad thing, I think.

Why this Garçons tee achieves this price — I'd like to explain that in various ways, but the first thing you notice at a glance — look closely and the fabric is different. Earlier I talked about plain jersey; this is jersey too, but this is what's called SZ jersey. In the clothing world, what are S and Z? They're the direction of the yarn's twist. Normal yarn is Z-twist, called right-twist, the twist direction you'd naturally make. S-twist is twisted the opposite way.

A circular knitting machine like this feeds in over thirty yarns at once and knits about thirty courses in one go as the machine makes a full rotation, so it feeds S and Z yarns alternately. Why do they do that? As I mentioned with the Hanes, ordinary single-yarn jersey torques — it skews. Why? Because the yarn's twist wants to spring back, the twisting tries to unwind, so it torques. But if you insert the opposite-direction twist alongside it, it doesn't torque — you can make a non-torquing jersey even with single yarn. Single yarn is thicker, so you can use cheaper material, which makes it cheaper cost-wise. So they make it SZ jersey to keep it from torquing, is the thing.

Wouldn't doing something that special make it expensive? You'd have to specially prepare S-twist yarn — but this is probably around 30-count. For example, in the knit world there's the super-staple sweat fabric, French terry, the so-called "30 mawari" count. And French terry uses Z-twist on the face yarn, S-twist on the middle yarn, so quite a few yarn makers prepare both S and Z at around 30-count, so it's relatively easy to source. So it's probably a jersey made by making around 30-count yarn into SZ.

And glancing at it, one more thing you'd notice — hey, doesn't it resemble Sunspel? With this narrow binder, and made in Portugal, so it's probably the same factory as Sunspel — there's even a rumor it's manufactured by Sunspel under contract, apparently, so maybe that's actually true. Including the basic silhouette, it's a Sunspel-like thing.

But the Sunspel Classic, was it — it's much cheaper than that, and that's due to the material. The Sunspel one, I think, uses around 80-count two-ply, so theirs uses extra-long staple cotton — they originally started from Sea Island cotton — so it's a jersey using extra-long staple spun to a fine count, so it costs more. This one has that part cost-reduced, is the idea.

The collar is a so-called narrow binder, a 1-cm-wide binder finish, where a taped collar part clamps around the body fabric's edge as it's sewn. The body is 55 cm in width, so compared to the underwear feel of Hanes, you can wear it a bit more relaxed. The shoulder width is 47.5 cm too, so it's a bit wider, and the sleeve cap is relatively low, is the thing. So with this silhouette, you could wear it on its own, I'd say. That was the Comme des Garçons tee you can buy for ¥6,600.

Now, can I talk about sheerness a bit? Assume it pretty much shows through. The tees I'm introducing today basically all show through, you can assume. To get a white tee that doesn't show through, count-wise you'd need at least around 20-count, knitted nice and tight, or it'll show through. So men who want to wear a white tee often wear a tank top underneath, or these days even nipple covers would do, and wearing just one, cool and breezy, is nice too, I think, is the idea. There are plenty made for men too — nipple covers. — I don't really mind it; I just wear it without worrying, but it might make the other person uncomfortable, so that kind of consideration might be nice, I'd say.

Yes, next, item one — another pack tee, but this time not a three-pack, a two-pack pack tee: KANEMASA PHIL. 46G Cotton Thin Pack Tee, ¥9,900 for two. This surprised me a bit, it's cheap. As the name just said, it's 46-gauge jersey — think of it as about the highest-gauge knitting machine you can knit natural fibers on.

It makes a fine knit. The hand feel is excellent and it's a good fabric, so I thought it was quite a good tee. But may I offer a small criticism? The collar — I may have said something similar in the previous tee episode. This collar is self-fabric. What does self-fabric mean? It's not jersey. Up to now, all the tees used a collar of rib — a double-knit structure that stretches sideways, a horizontally stretchy knit. First, at this collar width, pulling it over your head really catches.

Plus — I've said this several times in tee episodes — the collar stands up, doesn't stretch well, so it doesn't settle nicely. Even pressed, you can see these wrinkles along the top of the collar, right? A specialist maker like Kanemasa, a specialist in cut-and-sewn and knit products, should be able to pay proper attention here, I'd say. Especially this 46-gauge thin fabric — thin yet tightly knit, so it's very hard to handle. This is exactly where real skill shows, and where how much care you put in becomes apparent. Knitting it as a separate fabric rather than knitting it specially, just using it as is and making a collar that stands up with a binder — for me, that's a "no, no, no," I feel. Having offered that small criticism, let me convey the good points.

The 46-gauge feels incredibly good against the skin, and the box silhouette — the body width is decent, about 58 cm I think — a box silhouette that's very easy to wear. The shoulder width is about 50 cm, slightly dropped, and the sleeve cap is set a bit high for this body width, so it's relatively wearable on its own, and I think it's a good thing. It got really hard to explain after that criticism I just made,

but — our cash&barba Sea Island 46-Gauge Jersey Regular Fit T, ¥16,500. So this is our 46-gauge tee. This one uses genuine, 100% Sea Island cotton. In exchange, it costs three times the Kanemasa tee from just now, is the thing. Use seriously good cotton and the price ends up like this. It's the same 46-gauge, and this is 60-count, single yarn on this one. The hand feel and the softness after washing are insane, and this sheen is clearly there, I think. It's a 60-count single yarn — normally that's a count at which a tee wouldn't hold up. You'd want about 30-count, roughly double this thickness — but knitting it at a tight 46-gauge is how it becomes this low in sheerness, is the thing. This is single yarn, so expect some skewing — the sides torque. However, at 46-gauge it's very tightly knit, so the torque is minimal — you'd be surprised single yarn torques this little. And even if it torques a bit, you can correct it by ironing. That's the kind of tee it is, but I'd like you to see that the collar is properly made.

Why I offered that criticism earlier is because we want to make a proper tee. How much time we spent making this collar is something I'd like to convey. First, the rib's proper count — we searched again and again; how many times did we make the rib alone? We benchmarked it. Against this body fabric's thinness, how thin can we go while still having no over-stretch — where's that balance? We researched that and knitted the rib properly. This is a serged-on collar. It's been pressed now, so it's clean, but puckering does tend to happen a bit on this side. Why? Because this fabric is knitted tightly to begin with, so it's a fabric prone to puckering. How cleanly can you tame that with this nicely curved collar — how many times did we test this? Our production team's Sakurada-kun and I, the two of us — "still no good, still no good" — doing it over and over.

For example, the back of the collar — the binder, the folded-down part at the back — with this thin fabric, unless you put twin-needle stitching here, it won't sit cleanly, so although I don't usually add stitching, here I added it to hold it down neatly, is the thing. However, we don't put this R&D cost into the retail price — we apply it only at cost, at cost ratio of course, so rest assured on that. And for this width, we do each color, of course, knitting the fabric and dyeing the colors for all of them, so we do that properly, and of course this is Sea Island cotton here too.

The body width is 54 cm, so you can wear it with a moderate amount of ease. The shoulder slope and such are made with a lot of calculation, so it's designed to look clean worn on its own.

Our original purpose in making it — cash&barba is a cashmere brand, so what tee is best to wear under cashmere? Especially since we do thin, thin cashmere, we wanted a thinness that doesn't disturb the outer layer, so we chose 46/1. Oh, right, I have to plug this — releasing Friday, June 12 this year. The colors are white, brown, navy, and black — four colors. Is it here? The color range is whitish somewhere — it's the white-tee world, yet here's a plug. — This channel runs on these plugs, you know. — Right. — Mustn't forget that. — Yes.

Our revenue is nothing much; the money we spend is overwhelmingly higher. — Wow. — Anyway, the brown, nice, right? We recently did a brown knit, a short-sleeve knit — pairing it as an inner with that kind of thing is nice too. The navy — a beautiful navy, right? A navy with a slightly eggplant-navy, reddish cast — I love this color, though it's on the bright side — and black, the staple. True, what tee to wear under cashmere is something I'd long agonized over. — Right. — You'd never want to wear a chunky 20-class tee under it, right? Then do you wear it on bare skin? Some people do, but on bare skin — cashmere is still pure wool, so some feel a bit of prickle, and above all soiling it is the worst, which I hate, so — it's expensive, but if you're wearing it under cashmere, you're better off wearing a tee around this level. Let's go to the third in the ¥10,000 budget.

In the old days, this thin tee was a pretty representative brand, but I don't hear about it much lately — James Perse's Basic Crew Neck T-shirt, MMJ3311, ¥13,200. It's truly the absolute staple of thin tees, a brand that's been around since about the '90s, and one of the representative tees of the white-tee world other than Hanes, I'd say — on the designer side. The count is about 30, I think — think of it as a slightly thin jersey. Material-wise it uses good material, I think. It has a distinctive soft, airy feel, which is probably because the yarn is slightly low-twist, giving it a soft feel that puffs up airily, with a nice drape, and that's what made it very popular.

Let me talk about the collar first — this is the one I dislike: it's self-fabric. It uses the same jersey as the body, but it's low-twist and loose. With just this press applied, up around here there's some width from the inner/outer circumference difference. Compared to the 46/1 tee from before, at the press stage it wrinkles a bit up top, but it settles when worn — the body fills it out — so this one doesn't stand up much; it settles nicely. In the old days, some brands deliberately used self-fabric to get this collar mood, so it's that kind of collar. I don't dislike it, and it settles down when worn, so for that reason it's probably stayed popular for a long time, I'd say.

As for the collar pattern, the front is tipped slightly forward — the curve is brought a little forward — so it's the type that sits cleanly around the neck. Body width 52 cm — if anything, by today's silhouette standards, think of it as quite slim and close-fitting. Shoulder width 47, so the shoulder sits right at the edges of your shoulders. The sleeve cap is high, so if anything it's worn cleanly. And another big point — fewer brands do this lately, but it has waist shaping. The waist is about 2 cm narrower than the bust, and then widens out again by about 2 cm toward the hem, so it's comfortable and good. It does have slight sheerness, though, and since it's single yarn it skews a lot. From the start the fabric is already angled — I'm not sure you can see it — but the grain is at about a 15-degree angle, already skewed, so if you look closely there's a single-yarn-like unevenness, a soft, airy quality.

Next, let's go to the ¥20,000 budget. The ¥20,000 budget — let me slip in a little plug here again. The thing is, I looked for a good ¥20,000-budget tee, but nothing quite clicked. Surprisingly. — Surprisingly. — There seem like there'd be tons, but surprisingly there aren't, so I ended up thinking our tee is the good one after all, the MARKAWARE Organic Giza 80/3 Jersey Survival Cloth Regular Fit T, ¥18,700. From ¥20,000 you get ¥1,300 in change — let's grab ramen on the way home, that kind of thing.

This has one big feature. It's a thin tee, but I think it's the strongest of thin tees. By "strongest" I mean truly strong. Organic Egyptian cotton — we buy directly in Egypt, using what's called Giza 92. What's Giza 92? Among Egyptian extra-long staple cottons it's one with relatively high production. Extra-long staple is the strongest. I'd heard ELS was the strongest, but the data was hard to gather and I wasn't sure it really was the strongest, so I couldn't say much, but recently the empirical data has largely come together, so I can declare it the strongest — the highest tensile strength, overwhelmingly strong. Giza 92, as a yarn, becomes durable even spun to a very fine count — that's the first point. Another feature: this twists three yarns together. I said "80/3" — it twists three strands of 80-count yarn, and three-ply is stronger than two-ply. Why does a tee need strength? Because a tee is something you wash every time, right? The number of washes is high, so the more durable the better, which is why we make it, is the fabric.

It has a decent amount of body — firm — yet the surface is incredibly clean, which is one of its features. On top of that, it's been gassed, so isn't the sheen insane? This sheen — to begin with it's a compact yarn, compact-spun yarn, a spinning method that tucks the fuzz inside as it's made, a type of ring spinning — already low in fuzz, and then gassing burns off the fuzz further, so even with washing the fuzz doesn't come out and the sheen isn't easily lost, keeping a luxurious feel — it's a tee that's been very well received for that. As for silhouette, it's the one we call regular fit, so the body isn't that wide — about 52 or 53 cm, I think — and the shoulder width is about 47 cm, so it's a tee you can wear just right, I think. Also, the sleeve cap is set a bit low, and lowering the sleeve a bit makes this part flick out a little, which with this firm fabric I find cute, so we made it that way. The collar has a nice curve, so it follows the neck cleanly, is the kind of tee it is.

Does regular fit look more grown-up, after all? — It looks grown-up. — For about the last ten years, wearing fairly wide tees big on top was the mainstream, I think, but it's about time to slim that down a bit. Pants can be wide, but it's nice to tuck the top in a bit — that's the mood now — so it's a tee you can wear in a just-right way, I think.

So let's go to the ¥30,000 budget. The ¥30,000 budget. — Yes. — At this point, it's about where overseas brands' basic tees fall, price-wise, I'd say. It's Jil Sander. Cotton Crew Neck T-shirt, ¥27,500. It's gotten quite expensive, in the ¥30,000 budget. The body width is about 55 cm, maybe a little more relaxed in size than before, with a shoulder width of 45.5 cm — that's snug. The shoulder, around here, is very Jil-Sander-like. And the sleeve cap is dramatically high — over 10 cm of sleeve-cap height, so it's the type of tee where the sleeve grows straight down. The wider the sleeve and the higher the cap, the more — in short — when you raise your arm, the hem rides up with it. That said, the sleeve isn't that wide here, so the more you raise the underarm point, the easier it is to raise your arm even with a high cap — there's a lot to it — but this isn't a garment for raising your arm to grab a train strap. In other words, not for grabbing a strap, but more for gripping, say, the pole near the door with a refined sort of poise — that's the kind of garment, the kind of tee, it is.

The biggest feature is that it has a proper shoulder slope — think of it as a designer-type tee. The collar width is 2.8 cm, a serged-on collar. The label stands up, so this area is a bit scratchy and prickly, I'd say, but a big feature of Jil Sander tees — this is a bit more restrained than before, I think — the collar, this curve, can you see it? The curve tips forward — firmly tipped forward so the neck, the neckline, looks clean — that's a feature of Jil Sander tees, and the chest is a bit bigger than the older ones, so while it doesn't go as far as a mock neck, it holds the neck snugly, is the kind of neckline it has. Usually, with designer tees like this, when you make the collar width thicker, to match they want to take the cuff and hem twin-needle finish — the rolled finish — to about 2.5 or 3 cm wide, but this is surprisingly narrow, finished at 2 cm, so I did wonder what the intent was there.

The Jil Sander tee, the cleanness of its neckline — were the old ones cleaner still, I wonder. The thing I just can't stand most about Jil Sander tees — sorry, sorry. — Go easy, please. — No, no. They run this shoulder seam around to the back — even brands like Tela do this — and what's it for? Normally, when folded, the topmost part becomes the seam allowance, and then the seam allowance shows here and the shoulder tip can separate a little, and to avoid that they run it to the back — that's common, and it's fine, but I wish they'd handle it well in the sewing so that doesn't happen, even with it on top — and the reason is that it's a pain when ironing. With thin tees like this, everyone, please iron them, you know — and just having this means it leaves an impression mark here, so you inevitably have to use a pressing cloth and it becomes quite a hassle, which is why I dislike it. Considering care, I really think it's better to not have it here, done the normal way, so for my tees I always design it so the seam comes on top here, is the gist. Lately this has changed in design again, I feel, but I own the Jil Sander tee and wear it, is the thing.

Just that it has no logo makes me happy. — Right, no logo. — The no-logo ones often aren't in stock, so — I liked the previous shape of the Jil Sander tee and went to buy it, but by the later part there were none — only logo ones. — Right. — They're not that kind of brand, you'd think. A Jil Sander tee — you can tell by the shape, right? It looks like Jil Sander, and that you're wearing something proper comes through, so just that alone is enough of an impression to give others, I think — but slapping a big logo on there suddenly ramps up the embarrassment, right? You don't need that extra push. — You don't, really. — I think so. — Yes, I agree. — Yes.

So, a tee with no such loudness at all, yet expensive — let's go to the ¥50,000 budget. — What's the pitch to start with? — Yes. Sunspel Silk Cotton Cashmere T-shirt, ¥41,250. Tax included, it's over ¥40,000. — Is there any justice in that? — You can assume there's no justice, none, but — I introduced this in a tee episode too — it blends silk and cashmere. Even saying it blends silk and cashmere, it doesn't blend in silk and cashmere as good as garments made of silk alone or cashmere alone, is the thing. Sorry — I'm saying harsh things, but I'll praise it properly later, okay?

It's 78% cotton, 14% silk, 8% cashmere. And the cashmere blended into cotton — they don't blend in beautiful cashmere, such beautiful cashmere, so material-wise they don't use anything all that great, and the silk too is basically spun-silk material — that is, the part left after pulling out the filament yarn, cut into staple and blended in. But right now, something quite serious is happening in the silk world. Silk — raw silk, the single thread first drawn out, where one cocoon yields about a kilometer in length, a natural-fiber filament. And the leftover "silk noil" is spun, cut short, and the leftover part is made into yarn — but now, rather than raw silk, the silk waste is more expensive, a reversal has happened,

which is absurd. Spun yarn and various things have gone up, and it's made by blending in that kind of material, is the thing. True, the hand is really nice — I'll grant that. However, if you ask whether this is worth ¥40,000, that is a bit much, I'd say. Think of the silhouette as the usual Sunspel shape.

As for small differences — they may have considered wearing it on its own — the cuffs and hem are about 2.5-cm-wide slim four-needle. Think of the regular Sunspel Classic tee as having a narrower width here, and the hem has a slit, which — like a polo shirt — suggests they had wearing it on its own in mind.

The biggest difference is that the collar is a serged-on, attached rib collar. Sunspel's binder tees are made very cleanly, but their attached collars have always, always been baggy and lifted up and looked unsightly — something I'd pointed out a number of times. However, either the better recovery than regular jersey worked well, or — is this made in Portugal? Where is it? Portugal — the factory's gotten much better, and for the first time I've seen a clean serged, attached-collar Sunspel tee, is how it feels.

I'm saying all kinds of things, but I own tons of Sunspel and love it. — Ishikawa-san wears it a lot. — It's out of love that I'm going on about it, take it that way, is the thing. In terms of how many Sunspel tees I've bought, even within Japan I'm probably among the higher buyers. That's how many I have. — Want to line them up? Shall we? Sunspel tees. — Yes.

But it's ¥40,000. Sunspel, after all, is a luxury underwear maker, right? ¥40,000 — at this point it's not as underwear; it's become a tee for people who like Hermès and such to wear underneath as an undergarment, washing it hard, as underwear, I'd say.

So, the tenth, the second in the ¥50,000 budget. For the finale, fitting this channel, shall we close with this brand? — Fitting this channel — THE ROW. — (laughter) — THE ROW Luke Cotton T-shirt, ¥66,000.

It's a brand that originally started from T-shirts, starting around 2006, apparently. Something close to the tees of that era — this "Luke," announced in 2011 for men, is the most staple tee that they've kept making continuously, is the thing.

The name THE ROW comes from the "Row" of Savile Row, so then, where's the Savile Row in a tee? There isn't much, but one feature is a center-back seam down the back, with no side seams. This is something many Japanese brands did from the '90s into the 2000s — they made tees like this — but the difference is that here it's done as a flat-felled lockstitch seam. In short, it's done with the kind of stitching you'd use to sew a regular shirt's side seam, which I suppose counts as tailoring technique, if you want to call it that.

And the fine sewing — this should be made in Italy — is, as expected, relatively clean and properly done, which is nice, I'd say, but it's ¥66,000 for this material, is the thing.

The body width is about 52 cm — relatively, well, by today's tee standards think of it as relatively tight. Not as much as Jil Sander, but the sleeve cap is quite high — about this much sleeve-cap height — and the collar width is very narrow, 2 cm maybe, or about 1.5 cm — about a 1.5-cm collar width. It's a serged-on collar. The back of the collar is folded down, with top-and-bottom stitching on the fold, and the shoulders are held with twin-needle, holding the seam allowance down so it doesn't stand up.

The material is officially called Supima, and the fabric is Italian-made I believe, but Supima — at ¥60,000. Among extra-long staples, Supima is a bit pricier than ordinary Pima — the quality certified by the Supima Association has its standards, so it's pricier in that sense, while still relatively easy to source and on the cheaper side. Why? Because American cotton is basically machine-harvested. With America's high labor costs, hand-picking cotton is impossible, right? Another thing: America has solid agricultural support, and this is a big issue, but cotton cultivation also gets subsidies of a comparable amount, so American cotton is cheap, and Supima can be bought relatively cheaply.

So compared to other good extra-long staples, there can be a price gap of about six times — you can buy it for about a sixth, so I can't help feeling, do you really need to use that in a ¥60,000 tee? That's my frank impression. As for the material feel, it doesn't have the smooth, supple goodness of the good cottons we saw earlier. They probably use this material because they like it, and they have tees using somewhat better material too, but then the price climbs to like ¥100,000, I'd say.

So, if we made this tee, how cheaply could we do it? Let me touch on that lightly — hmm, we could probably put it out for ten-something thousand yen, I'd say. The center-back lockstitch is a bit special, so we'd have to pay a little extra labor cost here, I'd say, but — sorry — the fabric we use is overwhelmingly more expensive, so considering that, we could put it out for ten-something thousand yen, I'd say.

The rest is how you regard the difference. So the remaining 80 percent, as for that — it's faith at this point. You might be better off thinking of it as alms (ofuse), but — I buy quite a lot of it, I've spent a fair amount, I own quite a few — so on that front, taking such simple clothing this far is genuinely impressive, I think, and I want to know that secret, so a big part of why I buy it is that — take it that way. The fantasy they build — where and how they hold it up — wanting to know that is part of it too, so I duly pay my alms, is the gist.

So, so — ten in a rush — was it not? — we've introduced. Rather thoroughly? We've introduced them, is the idea. White tees. Everyone, has your white tee for this summer been decided? What to buy. — Wait, do you think you just wrapped up the summary just now? — With that, it felt like you did today's summary just now. — Right. So from here is today's summary? — How many times have I done this, really? — About 170 times. — 170 — I've completely blanked on the summary every time. — Let's do it impromptu, like just now. — Oh — so, today's summary, please.

— Yes. White tees are the basics of fashion; choose seriously. — The sloppiness of the second half... — Talk it through properly. The bottom-of-the-bottom sloppiness — sorry about that. — Sorry. I can't think of anything; it just feels totally wrapped up, having come this far.

— But which do you do more these days, Ishikawa-san — wearing it on its own or as an inner layer? — In summer I wear it on its own, and I go to hot countries a lot for manufacturing, and then I just lounge around in a single tee, kind of slovenly. — Mm-hmm. — Though I wear black a lot. — Lounging around all slovenly, I suppose. I get sloppy because it's so hot I can't think. Even this, one garment — it was so hot, right in the hottest period, sweltering. At a time like that, nothing but a tee works, right? — Yeah.

— But actually, no — I was wearing long sleeves and it was even hotter. I just remembered — before that I'd stopped by Korea, and since I was in Korea I figured I'd get the spots on my arms removed, got the arm spot-removal done, and was told absolutely don't get sunburned, so I wore that black Pertex hoodie and a deconstructed shirt — ugh, Pertex was hot. I just remembered. It was that hot — made it way worse.

We're getting close to 100,000 (subscribers). I want to get there faster. 100,000 — I still call myself a YouTube apprentice, I call myself a YouTuber apprentice, and I figure I can't call myself a YouTuber until we hit 100,000, so — true — with all of your help, please somehow let me become a YouTuber, I ask.

So everyone, please subscribe, like, comment, and the bell and Hype. — Hype, right. — Right, but don't forget the bell either — apparently our bell registrations are low. — Oh my. — When we analyzed it — everyone, you're forgetting it now, right? — You probably are. — The bell — I don't even know where it is, but give it a little "ding" tap so you get new notifications, please do. I'm sure everyone's fashion life will be richer for it, so please do. Thank you.