The construction

A garment is its seams. The cloth is the headline. The construction is the reason the garment is still in your wardrobe in 2031.

There are four places where clothing dies. The neck stretches out. The shoulder pulls. The hem unravels. The cuff curls. Get all four right and the garment outlives the trend cycle that produced it. Get any of them wrong and the cloth is irrelevant.

The neck

Crew necks die at the rib. A cheap rib stretches out within a season, sits loose on the collarbone, and never recovers its shape. We use a dense rib knit, sewn on with a coverstitch, then taped across the inside back from shoulder to shoulder with a tonal twill tape. The tape stops the neck from stretching out under the weight of the body during washing. It also stops it from showing the wear pattern that ageing necks always show.

You do not see the tape. You feel its absence in every cheap tee you have ever owned.

The shoulder

The shoulder seam is where most garments betray their construction. A cheap garment has a single straight stitch along the shoulder, sometimes with a serge to stop fraying. Our shoulder seams are coverstitched, with a flat-felled finish on the inside, so the seam lies flat against the skin without rolling.

We also tape the shoulder seam — same tonal twill — for the same reason as the neck. It stops the seam from stretching out under load.

The hem

A double-needle hem. Two parallel rows of stitching, with a coverstitch chain on the inside, so the hem stays flat and does not roll up after washing. The hem is finished at a length we picked deliberately: just below the hip-bone for the tee and the hoodie alike, so the garment falls properly when you stand and does not ride up when you sit.

A bad hem is the first thing that goes. Ours is built to be the last.

The cuff

The hoodie cuff and the tee sleeve are constructed entirely differently, but both are taken seriously. The hoodie cuff is a separate piece of rib knit, knitted under tension on a different machine from the body, and sewn on after the body is complete. This gives it a tighter recovery than a body-fabric cuff and means it does not stretch out at the wrist over time.

The tee sleeve is hemmed with the same double-needle finish as the body hem.

What this all costs us

About two pounds extra per garment, in cotton tape and machine time. We made the decision to absorb that cost rather than find ways to skip it. A garment that lasts ten years is the brand's primary marketing tool. Returning customers do not return for the photography.

Where a garment comes apart is where it was never properly built. We are trying not to give you that experience.