We yap a lot about T-shirts. They’re the foundation of any well-balanced fashion diet, after all. And if you like your tees with a bit more protein, the best heavyweight T-shirts are more like ribeye steaks than a salad bowl—they’re beefy, luxurious, and the kind of meal that could make seriously consider going fully carnivore.
Heavyweight T-shirts aren’t just, well, heavier. That extra meat means the fabric has more structure, so it hangs more rigidly and less billowy. They’re also less of a year-round affair since they retain heat more than their midweight counterparts—so if you can’t take the heat, you might want to avoid these heifers in the summertime. You also may have to pay a tad extra for a heavier tee, but you’ll also get more mileage with it since there’s more material.
For something so foundational, the wrong tee, heavy or otherwise, can really mess with your entire wardrobe, let alone a single fit. But the good news is that the right tee can make everything go oh so right. So to lead you toward the path of infinite drip, we put together only the best heavyweight T-shirts on the market right now.
The Best Men’s Heayweight T-Shirts, According to GQ
Best Heavyweight Tee Overall: Buck Mason Field Spec Heavy-Cotton Tee
Remember James and the Giant Peach? Buck Mason’s Field-Spec tee is a lot like the titular stone fruit—thick, airy, and ludicrously soft. But unlike that cinematic peach, the shirt is perfectly sized and not cartoonishly large; the silhouette leans just a touch relaxed and slightly shorter than others on this list, which makes it perfect for wearing untucked (and ideal for all you short kings).
Best Budget Heavyweight Tee: Kirkland Signature Crew Neck Tee
If this were the Grammys, Kirkland Signature would be Beyoncé. No, really. While its signature crewneck is our pick for the best budget heavyweight tee, we could’ve anointed it our best value option. We could’ve even given it the crown for best heavyweight T-shirt overall, if not a Lifetime Achievement Award for its ongoing contributions to the genre.
For a tee that costs less than $10 per unit, it has some surprisingly stellar specs. It’s made from 205GSM combed cotton (a notch lighter than the beloved 3sixteen option further down the list), comes with taped neck seams and a classic cut, and is best bought exactly as it’s sold: A six-pack you can scoop with express shipping any time you need to re-up.
Best Upgrade Heavyweight Tee: Lady White Co. Rugby Tee
Lady White Co. has served certified T-shirt obsessives since its inception, and its Rugby crewneck is the heaviest in its arsenal, clocking in at a whopping 10 ounces of premium jersey. It’s cut, sewn, and knit entirely in Los Angeles—an anomaly in the T-shirt world—and the boxy fit and tight neckline reference Hanes’ legendary Beefy T, taken to a sublime extreme. There are plenty of artisanal tees on this list that aficionados will love, but like your homie who insists on bantering with the sommelier, some people just get excited seeing a California label.
Best Heavyweight Pocket Tee: Flint and Tinder American Heavyweight Pocket T-Shirt
You didn’t think the heavyweight gods forsake the pocket-tee-devotees among us, did you? Weighing in at a properly hefty 8.5 ounces, Huckberry’s American-made heavyweight tee is built to last a long, long time. We’re fairly sure that chest pocket is specifically built to hold a handful of gold coins to take with you into the afterlife. It’s so heavy that it’ll out-beef your densest T-shirt and even go toe to toe with your most weighty flannel shirts. So if you’re in desperate need of a pocket tee for the long haul, consider your needs met.
Best Multipack Heavyweight Tee: 3sixteen Heavyweight T-Shirt
If you’re the kind of guy who knows a good tee is hard to come by, you’ll want to stock up when you find the right one. Most multipack tees are where you’d expect them to be—in a big box store full of low-quality goods. But 3sixteen’s heavyweight T-shirt is not messing around. The fabric (knit in Canada exclusively for the brand) weighs in at a chunky 260GSM, and it has a silky hand and a dense, structured feel. On top of that, it’s built with a sturdy triple-needle coverstitched collar, so while the fabric will get softer with age, the collar will retain its shape over time. Oh, and it’s entirely resistant to shrinkage, too.
Best Cropped Heavyweight Tee: Abercrombie & Fitch Premium Heavyweight Cropped Tee
These days, fashion’s most stylish men operate on the golden ratio, whereby your top equals about one third of the total length of your outfit and your pants take up the remaining two thirds. It’s a simple and nearly infallible rule, but finding the right T-shirt to pull it off is easier said than done, especially when you narrow down your parameters to heavyweight tees. This Abercrombie tee is the answer. It’s boxy and cropped to sit right at the hips, and the hefty all-cotton fabric weighs in at 275gsm (out-beefing many options on this list). It comes in a ton of colors, each with a lived-in vintage-inspired wash that’s begging for some thrashed baggy jeans and beat-up sneakers.
Best Oversized Heavyweight Tee: Uniqlo U Crew Neck T-Shirt
If you wandered into the GQ office on any given day of the week, there’s a good chance you’d spot a handful of folks wearing this exact tee. The Christophe Lemaire-designed sub-label is a reliable source of thoughtful menswear at prices that belie the quality involved, and its tee consistently tops our list. It’s made from a substantial all-cotton jersey with a dry hand and a boxy fit, along with a thick, vintage-inspired bound collar. At just $20, it ain’t the cheapest option out there, but it’s probably one of the best values. If our word isn’t enough to convince you, maybe the fact that Tyler, the Creator swears by ’em will.
Best Streetwear-Favorite Heavyweight Tee: AIStyle Apparel AAA Plain Blank Short Sleeve T-Shirt
Graphic tees are the backbone of every budding streetwear brand, and the biggest names in the game have built their lore on AIStyle Apparel’s AAA blanks. They’re as beefy as the old-school Hanes Beefy Tees, clocking in at a respectable 6 ounces—and like many sought-after vintage labels, they’re built with seamless, tubular knit construction. Ask any streetwear obsessive and they’ll tell you that, way back when, streetwear royalty used the AAA blanks to churn out countless box logos. So whether you’re looking to start up your own empire or just need a solid tee for a low price, these are some of the most reputable on the market.
Best Under-the-Radar Heavyweight Tee: Pro Club Heavyweight Cotton Long Sleeve Crew Neck T-Shirt
You might not be familiar with Pro Club’s tees, but their chunky 6-ounce fabric—in tandem with their old-school, no-frills design—says you care about your style, but not in an obsessive kind of way. Think of of its long-sleeve T-shirt as a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that doesn’t bother catering to the cool kids, but inevitably ends up attracting them anyway.
More Heavyweight T-Shirts We Love
CDLP Heavyweight T-Shirt
Merz B. Schwanen 2-Thread Heavyweight T-Shirt
Whitesville Crew Neck T-Shirt
Camber 302 Max-weight Pocket T-Shirt
Comfort Colors Adult Short Sleeve Tee Style 1717
Everlane The Premium-Weight Relaxed Crew
Carhartt Loose Fit Heavyweight Short-Sleeve Pocket T-Shirt
What makes a T-shirt “heavyweight”?
So you’re that guy—you want the hard numbers. Well, this is where things get a little hazy. Fabric weight is measured in ounces per square yard. (For reference, the average pair of jeans is made from denim that weighs around 12-13 ounces; a standard T-shirt usually weighs somewhere around 4-5 ounces.) The confusing thing is weight classes are sort of left up to interpretation and vary from brand to brand. Some brands classify 6-ounce tees as heavyweight, while others might bill them as merely midweight.
To make matters worse, other labels measure their fabrics in grams per meter (regardless of their country’s system of measurement). Unfortunately, simply converting metric to imperial won’t quite do the trick. So the not-so-short answer is that most heavyweight T-shirts start at around 6 ounces and can go up to around 9 ounces. (If we’re talking GSM, that’s about 200GSM to 290GSM). Some truly wild options damn near break the scales at 14 ounces, but that’s really more like heavyweight sweatshirt territory.
While numbers are objective (at least in theory), they can still translate to a subjective experience. This is why we handled each and every one of the options below ourselves; what we lack in fancy laboratory-grade measuring equipment we make up for in good ol’ hands-on experience. And besides, who would you rather take your styling cues from—a scientist or a menswear expert? We thought so.
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