Pick up a hoodie at a chain store and flip it inside out. You will usually find a thin, loose knit with a brushed inside that pills if you look at it wrong. Now do the same to a 320gsm fleece: tight face, dense loop, seams that sit flat. The grams are where the difference starts.
What gsm actually means
Grams per square metre. A standard chain-store tee sits around 140 to 160gsm. Our house tees run 280 to 320gsm, which is why they hang straight instead of clinging, and why collars do not bacon out after three washes.
Higher gsm means more cotton per shirt, which means more cost. That is the honest reason cheap tees exist: they are literally less shirt.
Where the cheap stuff cuts corners
Weight is only part of it. The bigger cheats are:
- Carded open-end yarn. Scratchy, weak, and it pills. Ring-spun or combed cotton costs more and lasts years longer.
- No pre-shrinking. That medium becomes a small by Christmas. Ours is washed before cutting.
- Singeing skipped. The fuzzy surface that pills comes from stray fibres never being burned off at the mill.
You can feel the difference in two seconds. The problem is the difference only shows at month six, and nobody remembers what the cheap one felt like new.
Does heavier always mean better?
No, and anyone who says so is selling you a number. A 400gsm tee in summer Brisbane is a punishment, not a flex. Weight has to match the job: 280 for year-round tees, 320 for hoodies and crews, heavier still for workwear canvas. We talk through this with every print and embroidery job, because the wrong blank ruins good artwork.
The wash test that matters
Wash a heavyweight tee cold, inside out, line dry, twenty times. It will look basically the same. Do that to a 150gsm fast-fashion tee and you have a rag by wash eight. Cost per wear is the only maths that counts, and the heavy one wins every time we run it.
If you want to feel the difference in person, come touch the blanks on the wall. That is half the reason they are there.
