I’ve been chasing The Perfect White T-shirt for as long as I can remember. Open up my bedroom dresser and you won’t see a rainbow of haphazard socks and undies—you’ll see a rolodex of white tees, folded neatly and propped upright like a filing cabinet, à la Marie Kondo.
Sadly, my folding methodology is just about the only thing I’ve retained from Kondo’s teachings. I own more plain white T-shirts than should be legal: 22 in that dresser alone, and God knows how many more scattered throughout my apartment, each one from a different brand (and different from the others in ways only I can appreciate). My obsession isn’t quite My Strange Addiction-level dangerous, but even for a GQ staffer, it borders on outlandish.
My hunt to find the perfect white tee began years ago, but it’s only now that I’ve arrived at—and made my peace with—a simple conclusion: no such thing exists. The journey has sent me tumbling down countless rabbit holes, like a selvedge-wearing Alice in Reddit wonderland, leaving me alternatively frustrated, exhausted, and entertaining some very intrusive thoughts (starting my own T-shirt brand).
The worst I’ve tried have been relegated to ‘sleep shirt’ status; others are just fine, good enough to tuck in and hide beneath a jacket. A rare few are actually good, earning their way into my starting lineup through sheer consistency, if not preternatural ability. Even then, though, they tend to work best with certain outfits, and fall apart like Embiid in the playoffs when they’re out of their comfort zone. But then there’s Lady White Co.’s Our T-Shirt, the white tee I wear the most and my favorite of the dozens I’ve tried. It’s not exactly perfect, but in my experience, it’s as close as it gets—and might end my search for good.
If you haven’t heard of Lady White Co., we probably spend time on very different parts of the internet. In menswear circles, LWC is one of LA’s worst-kept secrets, a small, independent label founded in 2015 with an admirably specific focus: crafting the perfect T-shirt. In the near-decade since, the Great T-shirt Boom has inspired countless brands to heed the same call, often in the name of “optimizing” your closet to bland, uniform oblivion. LWC is not one of them.
With the help of local factories, the brand makes its tees (along with reliably excellent sweats, pants, and button-ups) using a signature tubular knitting technique, a rarified method of construction that is, quite literally, seamless—and catnip for guys like me.
I bought my first Our T-Shirt in 2016 and have since worn it to smithereens. It’s crafted from noticeably denser cotton than what you’ll find at the big-box stores, but somehow stayed silky to the touch, getting softer with each wear. The bound ribbed collar has kept its shape after close to a decade of washes; its Goldilocks silhouette—not slim or too baggy, not too long or too short—looks just as good tucked in as it does hem out for the world to admire.
These days, I wear that original LWC tee even more than when I first bought it. The collar is slightly shredded and the fabric is softer and more sheer, visible patina prized by the type of vintage fanatics who make my idiosyncrasies look quaint. It’s shrunk a bit after so many spins in the washing machine, and fits all the better for it. I’d stock my entire dresser with them if I had the money, but honestly, the one I own lasted so long that I don’t really need more than a couple at a time.
And yet, there I was a few weeks ago, dutifully inputting my credit card information while my dresser glowered at me from across the room. For the first time ever, I was prepared to buy a white T-shirt—twice. Perfection very well might be the enemy of progress, but the status quo of my tee rotation no longer looks so glum.
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