The Apparel Fabric Guide

Two tees can look identical in a photo and feel like different products in hand. GSM is the fastest way to tell them apart: under 160 is a giveaway, 180 to 200 is a retail tee, 220 is ours. The yarn and the knit explain the rest, and the table below puts numbers on all of it.

What GSM measures

GSM stands for grams per square meter, the weight of one square meter of the fabric. It's the most quoted spec because it's the hardest to fake, and these are the reference points.

Two caveats apply. GSM measures weight and says nothing about quality, because a heavy fabric spun from coarse yarn is a heavy, coarse fabric. Fiber also changes the scale. Polyester performance knits reach opacity at weights cotton can't, which is why a light polyester polo from a sportswear supplier can still last, and why our cotton pieces carry the extra weight.

Ring-spun vs open-end cotton

Cotton fiber becomes yarn before it becomes fabric, and there are two ways to spin it.

Open-end (rotor) spinning twists fibers together with air. It's fast and cheap, and the yarn comes out thicker and hairier, with less strength. Fabric knitted from it feels coarse and pills early, and print edges go soft on it.

Ring spinning twists and thins the strand continuously into a fine, tight yarn. It costs more and takes longer, and the fabric comes out with a softer hand, cleaner print edges, less pilling and a longer life. Combed ring-spun goes one step further and combs out the short fibers before spinning, so only the long ones remain and they lie flat. That's the yarn in our tee and in our combed cotton piqué polo, and the reason the polo still looks crisp at hour ten of a shift.

Which fabric goes in which garment?

Jersey, the tee knit

Jersey is a single knit with a smooth face and a little stretch. Quality shows in the yarn and the weight. It takes a DTF print well, and at 220 GSM it also holds a clean left-chest embroidery of up to 12,000 stitches, where dense stitching puckers a lighter jersey.

Piqué for polos

Piqué is the waffle-textured knit that defines a polo. The raised texture holds the shirt's shape and hides a long day. It also reads as more formal than jersey, which is why piqué is the uniform fabric for hospitality and finance teams. Ours is 200 GSM combed cotton, and it takes an embroidered mark or a print.

Fleece for hoodies and sweatshirts

Fleece is knitted with loops on the inside, and brushing those loops gives the napped interior of a hoodie. Weight tells you the most here. Ours is 330 GSM, 80/20 cotton-poly, and a hoodie at half that weight feels thin out of the box and worse after a few washes. Look for ribbed 1x1 cuffs and hem, which keep the shape over years.

Polyester performance knits

Shaped polyester filaments pull moisture to the face of the fabric, where it spreads and dries. The fabric is fast-drying and colorfast, and it's the one that takes sublimation edge to edge. We offer sublimation, but it needs polyester, and our own line is cotton and cotton-blend with no polyester piece in it. Recycled poly is worth knowing when you compare suppliers, and the sustainability guide covers it.

Oxford for button-up shirts

Everything above is knitted. Oxford is a woven cotton, and its basket-weave structure gives a crisp hand and a faint sheen. Our button-up shirt is 140 GSM cotton oxford, light enough for a day at a desk and stable enough to hold an embroidered chest or cuff mark, or a DTF print. The cut is tailored but forgiving, and broad shoulders are the one reason to size up.

Wash cold, hang dry.

A 330 GSM hoodie washed hot ages faster than a thin one washed right, and four rules prevent it.

• Wash cold (30°C / 86°F), inside out. Heat and drum friction break down prints and fibers, and turning the garment inside out keeps the decoration off the drum.
• Hang dry. The dryer does most of the shrinking, most of the print cracking and all of the fleece matting. If you must tumble, use low heat and pull it out damp.
• No softener on performance fabric. Softener coats the polyester channels that move moisture, and the shirt stops wicking while it still feels fine.
• Don't iron over decoration. Iron inside out on low, and never on a print or an embroidered mark.

We put these on the care card in every order because a garment washed this way keeps its shape and its print for years longer. That lowers its cost per wear, which the pricing guide works through.

The 30-second spec check

1. Read the fiber and spinning line. "Combed ring-spun cotton" or a named polyester beats bare "100% cotton."
2. Check the weight. Look for 200 or more for a tee you'd wear on a weekend, 200 for piqué and 300 for fleece.
3. Look at the construction. Ribbed collars, taped shoulders, double-needle hems and a metal zip with a maker's name on it are the good signs.
4. Ask about care. If a "uniform" garment can't take a weekly wash, it isn't a uniform garment.

We annotated a real spec sheet line by line in this blog post. The faster way to calibrate your hands is a sample set, which is a paid extra and arrives in about two weeks. Design it in the Design Studio and feel 220 GSM ring-spun next to whatever your current supplier ships.

Two blends worth knowing

Cotton-poly fleece, 80/20 in our hoodies, is the standard because cotton gives the soft hand and polyester keeps the shape through the dryer accidents that pure cotton fleece doesn't survive. Tri-blends (cotton, poly, rayon) drape well and photograph well, but the rayon makes them fragile in a commercial wash, which suits a fashion event tee and rules them out of a uniform program. To sort any blend, ask which fiber is doing the marketing and which is doing the work.

Questions we get.

What is a good GSM for a t-shirt?

180 to 200 for an everyday retail tee, 200 to 240 for a heavyweight one. Under 160 reads as a giveaway. Our T-Shirt is 220 GSM combed ring-spun cotton, heavy enough to drape and light enough for daily wear.

What is the difference between ring-spun and open-end cotton?

Ring-spun yarn is twisted and thinned continuously into a fine, smooth strand. Open-end yarn is spun by air in a rotor, which is cheaper and gives a coarser, weaker yarn. Ring-spun fabric feels softer and pills less, and a print holds a cleaner edge on it.

Is higher GSM always better?

No. GSM is weight, not quality, and the right weight depends on the job: 330 GSM for a fleece hoodie, 220 GSM for a daily tee, 200 GSM for a piqué polo. Polyester performance knits do their job at lower weights than cotton.

How should custom apparel be washed?

Wash it cold (30°C or 86°F) and inside out, hang it dry, keep softener off performance fabric, and never iron over a print or an embroidered mark, because heat is what kills prints and fabric hand.