I tend to buy T-shirts in bunches. Anytime I find a shirt I really like, I acquire at least a week’s worth. In the era retroactively known as “indie sleaze,” I was outfitted exclusively in American Apparel 50/25/25 tees. In the early Instagram era, I saw an ad for Buck Mason and bought a bunch of those. Then I decided I liked V-necks and switched to The Gap’s tagless Jersey shirts, which had a nice soft feel and just the right depth of dip.
Last summer, I found my new fave at a chintzy tourist shop in Maine. It had the name of the town, Bar Harbor, printed on a butter-hued blank from a company called Comfort Colors. After a few wearings, I liked it so much I looked at the label to see what it was. I bought a second and have since been slowly replacing every T-shirt in my closet with shirts in the brand’s various comforting colors.
Photograph: Martin Cizmar
Comfort Colors isn’t an emerging brand—it’s owned by Gilden, which is about as interesting and sexy as being owned by Country Crock margarine. I am not the first person from a prominent review site to notice that Comfort Colors is the best in the biz, though I believe I am the first to do so without funding Maureen Dowd and Ross Douthat for a website still approvingly dubbing new products the “Tesla of …” in 2025.
In any case, the Comfort Colors T-shirt—specifically the standard-issue 100 percent cotton model no. 1717—checks every box for me.
They’re boxy but not too boxy. I have a few vintage Hanes Beefy T’s, and Comfort Colors are far more fitted, with sleeves that stop an inch or so above the elbow instead of drooping down the forearm. They look a little boxier than they are because of the triple-stitched shoulders and double-stiched hemline and sleeves, which give the shirt an overbuilt look and feel. For a middle-aged person, this is a cut that says you know three Billie Eilish songs, but you’re not trying to dress like her.
Comfort Colors tees are made with cotton from American farms, though it’s spun up in Honduras. It’s ring-spun, which gives it both softness and strength. These shirts are far more breathable than any blend, even though they’re made from relatively hefty 6.1-ounce fabric. That means that one square yard of that fabric weighs 6.1 ounces, making it just a tad beefier (0.1 ounces per square yard) than either a Hanes Beefy T or a Uniqlo Supima cotton tee. Best of all, the American cotton ages beautifully. None of my half-dozen Comfort Colors shirts have shrunk, and they’ve all softened and faded just a touch with each whirl around the washing machine.
