The 13 Best T-Shirts on the Planet Right Now

Best Sustainable T-Shirt: Everybody.World Trash Tee

The world truly does not need any more clothes, let alone another T-shirt. But if you’re gonna buy a new T-shirt and want to do your best to minimize your carbon footprint, Everybody.World’s Trash Tees are the way to do it. As the name implies, each tee is made from upcycled cotton fibers collected from factory waste. The material that results is a jersey that’s surprisingly lofty with a comfy slightly brushed hand. Each one is knit on tubular knitting machines which means they come without side seams for a vintage fit and better comfort. And each product from its Trash collection is knit, cut, and sewn in Los Angeles for an even lower environmental impact.

Best T-Shirt for Sensitive Skin: CDLP Midweight T-Shirt

Fabric is crucial when it comes to T-shirts and the softer they are, the better. A good amount of that softness will come over time through wears and washes, but you can have a nice head start with a box-fresh tee that’s buttery from the get-go. CDLP’s is probably the silkiest, smoothest tee we’ve encountered and that’s saying a lot because, well, we test so many tees. The secret is its hefty helping of lyocell, a synthetic facsimile of silk made from wood pulp. It’s lightweight, breathable, and naturally anti-microbial, too. Mixed with some extra-long staple cotton and it feels like a regular tee while other similar competitors still feel like a tech-y tee.

Best T-Shirt for Aspiring Movie Stars: Merz B. Schwanen 215 T-Shirt

Yes, this is the shirt from The Bear. No, it will not automatically turn you into Carmy levels of hotness. What it will do is give you an appreciation for ultra-nice T-shirts that you did not think was possible. On all levels, Merz B. Schwanen’s flagship tee caters to vintage fashion nerds and it all starts with the rare machinery behind its luscious fabric. Each tee is made on restored vintage loopwheel knitting machines which produce cotton jersey at an excruciatingly slow pace by modern standards and using the tension of gravity to make a dense yet soft material.

As a bonus, you’ll also get a T-shirt that doesn’t have side seams. While our inner fashion nerd is more than satisfied, our wallets have to make the sacrifice. This tee is a smidge over a hundred bucks and all you get is one tee in a fancy box that you have to throw away.

Best T-Shirt for Repro Fiends: Velva Sheen Pocket Tee

Vintage fiends may recognize Velva Sheen as one of the many sought-after forgotten brands of yesteryear. Thanks to a Japanese conglomerate, it still exists today and produces its goods in Cincinnati, Ohio using US cotton to produce its retro tees on tube-knit machines. They’ve got a great year-round, midweight feel and are cut like a tee you’d see in The Sandlot. That’s to say, a slightly higher sleeve cap, shorter sleeve, and classic straight silhouette. The cotton itself isn’t the softest, but it’s obviously a few notches up from the ultra-value multipacks you’d find at big box stores. They come in regular and pocket tee iterations and are served up in vintage-style packaging.

How Should I Style a T-Shirt?

Back in Brando’s day, of course, the T-shirt was largely considered an undergarment at best, and an emblem of ne’er-do-well rebel style at worst. These days, a good tee can still protect your starchy button-ups from pit stains, but the vast majority of reasonable folks wouldn’t think twice about wearing one on its own. What we’re trying to say is that no matter who you are—a budding menswear enthusiast with an empty closet, an expert-level dresser with too many grails to count—or what you’re doing—lounging around the house, powering through a one-rep max—T-shirts aren’t just basics: they’re essentials. (Einstein had to master his multiplication tables before he could solve for “E”, right?)

The classic and easiest way to style a T-shirt is the classic blue jeans + white tee combo. It’s as timeless as it is stylish. The real fun comes when you play with proportions and layering, like a cropped tee with low-waisted trousers, or a tee layered with a cardigan. When you’re styling a performance T-shirt, lean into its inherent sporty-ness and trot it out with swishy short-shorts and slick runners. But remember: the greatest style icons will think outside the box.

What Types of T-Shirts Do I Need to Know?

There are several kinds of T-shirts within the larger tee umbrella, each one uniquely suited for a particular situation. The styles below are the ones we keep coming back to time and again and are the reason why we determined which T-shirts to cover.

• The Plain White Tee: Do we really need to elaborate?
• The Undershirt: Kind of like a plain white tee, but one that’s long enough to tuck into your pants. This one’s more for keeping your outer shirts safe from sweat.
• The Workout Tee: Some people wear their old college tee to the gym. Others wear a hyper-advances, sweat-wicking, oder-blocking, stretch-giving tee for maximum performance.
• The Heavyweight Tee: They’re beefy, they’re heavy, they’re not suited for summer time. They’ll hang a bit stiffer than your everyday tee, and they’ll last you a hell of a lot longer.
• The Oversized Tee: The oversized look has been en vogue for years, enough to wear it gets its own category on retail websites sometimes.
• The Cropped Tee: For the dudes who are really on menswear TikTok and follow the golden ratio of dressing.

What to Look for in a Great T-Shirt

• Material: For most T-shirts, it’s best to look for 100% cotton with a knit that’s dense enough to be opaque. Supima cotton are among the softest and most durable variety. Heavier T-shirts will last longer but will run hotter. If you’re looking for performance T-shirts, synthetic materials like polyester will help wick away moisture and keep you cool while elastane will help for range of motion.
• Construction: Solid materials won’t get you far if you have shoddy construction. Look for tees with even and straight stitches, nonobtrusive flat seams. Seam tape at the neck will prevent irritation and chafing while extending durability. Some brands will also use tube-knit construction which results in a T-shirt with a smooth, seamless torso. Even more high-end brands will use loopwheel machines which also produce seamelss torsos, but are extremely rare and are impressively dense and soft.
• Fit: Although fit is ultimately subjective, it’s an important factor that determines whether you’ll even wear a T-shirt. Generally, shoulder seams should line up with your shoulder bones and that’s pretty much it. As for sleeve length, roomy versus slim silhouettes, and higher or lower necklines, that’s all up to you. But if you do plan on layering your T-shirt under other garments, you should consider how they may or may not bunch up.
• Length: The length of a T-shirt is also subjective and depends whether or not you want to be able to tuck in your tees. Classic tees will fall around the hip and are great for wearing untucked.

How We Test and Review Products

Style is subjective, we know—that’s the fun of it. But we’re serious about helping our audience get dressed. Whether it’s the best white sneakers, the flyest affordable suits, or the need-to-know menswear drops of the week, GQ Recommends’ perspective is built on years of hands-on experience, an insider awareness of what’s in and what’s next, and a mission to find the best version of everything out there, at every price point.

Our staffers aren’t able to try on every single piece of clothing you read about on GQ.com (fashion moves fast these days), but we have an intimate knowledge of each brand’s strengths and know the hallmarks of quality clothing—from materials and sourcing, to craftsmanship, to sustainability efforts that aren’t just greenwashing. GQ Recommends heavily emphasizes our own editorial experience with those brands, how they make their clothes, and how those clothes have been reviewed by customers. Bottom line: GQ wouldn’t tell you to wear it if we wouldn’t.

How We Make These Picks

We make every effort to cast as wide of a net as possible, with an eye on identifying the best options across three key categories: quality, fit, and price.

To kick off the process, we enlist the GQ Recommends braintrust to vote on our contenders. Some of the folks involved have worked in retail, slinging clothes to the masses; others have toiled for small-batch menswear labels; all spend way too much time thinking about what hangs in their closets.

We lean on that collective experience to guide our search, culling a mix of household names, indie favorites, and the artisanal imprints on the bleeding-edge of the genre. Then we narrow down the assortment to the picks that scored the highest across quality, fit, and price.

Across the majority of our buying guides, our team boasts firsthand experience with the bulk of our selects, but a handful are totally new to us. So after several months of intense debate, we tally the votes, collate the anecdotal evidence, and emerge with a list of what we believe to be the absolute best of the category right now, from the tried-and-true stalwarts to the modern disruptors, the affordable beaters to the wildly expensive (but wildly worth-it) designer riffs.

Whatever your preferences, whatever your style, there’s bound to be a superlative version on this list for you. (Read more about GQ’s testing process here.)

Production Credits
Photographs by Bowen Fernie and Natalie Piserchio
Styled by Tyler Austin
Grooming by Laramie using RéVive and Oribe