One of those adult things I had to figure out on my own: I need undershirts. It’s just that way. I accept it. But I’m ever on the lookout for the best option given my budget for them which is, as you can imagine, not very much.
I’d been a tried-and-true fan of Lands’ End forever but wanted to change things up a bit. I read a great review of Ribbed Tee’s stuff at Put This On and decided to give them a shot. Once I got them, the biggest apparent benefit was that these tees were long. A lot of my LE shirts had shrunken to the point of not staying tucked in… which wasn’t great, and caused tons of bunching and weirdness. These looked more promising. The fit was also a lot closer than LE, which I liked.
I wore ’em and washed ’em, and soon noticed lots and lots of strings hanging from undone hems. On the waist. On the neck. On the armpit. It was awful. I also noticed that the things shrunk – a lot. Soon, I had the same problems of the LE shirts plus poor construction and a higher price! Awesome!
I wrote to Ribbed Tee and, to be fair, they replaced my shirts free of charge. They suggested that a rare manufacturing defect was to blame and I figured, sure. That makes sense.
Then it happened with the replacements.
But because I care only a little about undershirts, I put up with it. The things got shorter and shorter (even though I wasn’t being obscene with their laundry care), and soon I had giant strings hanging from the shoulders down to the waist. Lots of snipping of strings, and lots of me feeling bad about these crappy shirts I was wearing every day.
I held on to my old LE shirts and brought them back into the rotation and, surprise surprise, all was well. The length was still a problem, but I discovered that the only difference between a size Large and a Large Tall is the length. All other dimensions were the same, so for the first time in my life I’m wearing a Tall shirt.
The moral of the story: while their customer service was fine, I found Ribbed Tee’s shirts to be really, really subpar. I used to wear Hanes or Target’s shirts and never had such problems. Also, I’m fine with being a 34-year-old who writes about undershirts on the internet.
Well… somewhat.
Update from the future: Be sure to see what happened just a few months after this Ping. In short, Ribbed Tee is good stuff.
Posted in Consumer Commentary, Everyday Life, Just Plain Odd