Note: this item was provided for review.
I keep trying to sort out in my head how you explain one t-shirt being better than any other. It’s a simple item, with seemingly very little room for differentiation, and yet we all intuitively know there are good t-shirts and then there’s all the others. This Allevol t-shirt is very good and well worth your time and money, so I’ll do my best to explain why.
Materials & Construction
Everything about this is vintage in feel, which means it’ll go from stiffer to your favorite over time. The break in on this should be amazing, here’s what Clutch Cafe notes:
- 100% US cotton
- Yarn spun in Japan
- 14 count thick yarn
- Knit on vintage ‘Taimaru’ knitting machine
- Seamless finish – no side seams
- Bound crew neck collar
- Drop needle stitch
- Triple stitch
- Short, boxy silhouette
- Made in Japan
Effectively, what all that above means: very heavy, very high quality cotton, knit on vintage machines, to make a vintage t-shirt. The fabric is fantastic feeling in hand, and one way you can instantly tell this is really high quality stuff is that there’s no warp after a wash and dry of the t-shirt. Even after several washes, it’s only getting better feeling. The entire t-shirt feels great.
Wear & Style
A white t-shirt and jeans is iconic Americana. However if try to do that with most t-shirts today, it looks off. Maybe your t-shirt is too trim, or too long, too thin, or has (shudders) polyester in it destroying the drape. Yikes. The Allevol T-shirt is none of that crap, it’s the t-shirt from that era to complete the look.
And, as it turns out, it makes an extremely good t-shirt in general. I don’t wear a lot of t-shirts day to day (outside of lounging) as they all seem to not hit the right mark of looking good and being comfortable. This t-shirt flips that for me, as I’ve found that I am wanting to wear it a lot more than I have any t-shirt before.
I sized up one size in this shirt, from my normal large to the XL, and I’ve found the fit to be exactly what I wanted. The only note I have is the neck opening is quite small (but stretches fine, as I have no issues wearing it all day). The collar looks sharp when you have the t-shirt on, but gives the “that can’t be right” feeling whenever you see it come out of the wash. Since it does stretch fine, the benefit really is in how it lays neatly around your neck. It’s the right look by a large margin, and something I didn’t know was impacting my other t-shirts.
That’s the only odd thing about the shirt I can find. It’s not so heavy that you’ll find it overly warm, but it has enough substance to it where you won’t need to worry about opacity or anything of that nature. You can wear it on its own, or layer shirts/jackets over the top. It’s not an undershirt by any means, it looks really good as a stand alone item.
This isn’t the tight fitting t-shirt cut, it’s something meant to move a bit, and flatter most body types. I am very impressed with how the shirt doesn’t warp from being washed and dried like so many others do. And in the half dozen washes I’ve managed, it’s only getting softer and better. I can’t wait for another couple dozen washes.
Overall
If you’ve never had a high quality t-shirt, it might be hard to understand why you’d pay more. What you are paying for is a t-shirt that is made out of fantastic materials — the type of stuff that breaks down very slowly, and gets better with age. All of which is constructed in a way where it still looks great as it does break down over time. You won’t be needing to replace this every year. But you will be wanting to buy more of them, unless you like doing frequent laundry loads — which is my current work around for only having one of these.
Highly recommended.