Calculating Shrinkage

We've all been there before...

You find a great fitting shirt at the store, you buy it, take it home, tear off the tags, and are filled with excitement to wear your shirt out for a night on the town. All of your friends compliment you on your outfit. The night ends and your shirt gets thrown in your hamper to get washed with your load of laundry the next morning. Low and behold, you come to find your garment is now one size too small after the wash.

First, you aren't crazy. Shrinkage is to be expected in any fabric. After all, we are dealing with fibers here that will grow, shrink, torque, change color, pill, and many other things.

The problem is most companies design and manufacture clothing with the end goal being to have a presentable product on the rack in the store. As long as they get the customer to make a purchase, their job is done at that point. Isn't that convenient how things aren't returnable after you've washed them?

Not all hope is lost though. Some brands do take the extra step in calculating what kind of shrinkage can be expected in fabric and apply it to a garment pattern before cutting. We're one of them.

 

Now, shrinkage is a tricky thing. It's always going to happen, but we believe it's the responsibility of the brand to do the best in their power to minimize the amount of shrink as well as many other things to create a product that will last consumer years to come.

With our tee's we go through three different processes to work out shrinkage:

1. As fabric rolls at a launderer, the fabric is either re-framed, heat-set, or compacted.

2. As an individual garment is dyed at the garment dye house, color is added and shrinkage is accounted for.

3. After garment finishing is completed, we do a home launder test to simulate real-world use cases.

We just recently submitted our signature t-shirt to a third party lab Bureau Veritas. One of the leading industry labs that specialize in soft lines. You can review the report yourself here.

Essentially, BV saw a 1-3% shrink after home laundering according to our advised care instructions.

We execute with precision and accuracy every time we create. Every piece of clothing we make, we take every step to always having a minimal amount of shrink in our garments, if at all, for years to come.