Issue #6 | Wardrobe Workhorses

Five wardrobe workhorses—including my favorite white T-shirt

Nov 17, 2023

Ah, the perfect white T-shirt. Few things are more foundational to a good wardrobe, few things more elusive. How much should you pay? How should it fit? What will you wear it for?

I’ve read countless guides to the perfect white T trying to find answers those questions. I’ve tried cheap, I’ve tried expensive, I’ve tried everything in between.

This week I’m taking a look at a few wardrobe essentials I’ve come to love over the years, including my favorite white T-shirt. This search is ongoing and forever will be, so please feel free to send me your favorites as well.

1. White T-Shirts

Over the years, I’ve migrated from cheap drug store brands like Hanes and Fruit of the Loom, to slightly-less-cheap options from Uniqlo and J. Crew, to mid-rangers including Buck Mason, Jungmaven, and Lady White Co.

But the white T I’ve turned to again and again and again is the rolled white T-shirt from Velva Sheen. It’s buttery soft, fits snug around the chest with a tight neck hole, and it gets even more comfortable with age. Made from 100% cotton slub—a fabric with a slightly uneven texture—the rolled T-shirts have a vintage feel and no side seams, since they’re made in a circular machine. I can’t recommend them enough.

A quick side note: Avoid Velva Sheen’s two-pack pocket Ts. For whatever reason, they fit smaller and the cotton is stiff and uncomfortable.

Runners-up: Lady White Co. Lite Jersey T-Shirt and Buck Mason’s Yuma Hemp Cotton Classic Tee.

ladywhite_co

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2. The Best Socks Money Can Buy

Once a year or so I buy a 12-pack of Hanes cushioned crew socks. They’re soft and comfortable and cost just $30 for the pack. I wear them with sneakers and to the gym—they’re a perfect go-to, everyday, everywhere sock.

For simple colored socks, it’s Uniqlo all the way. They’re cheap, fairly comfortable, and with plenty of options.

But for a thicker, more robust sock, I love the Japanese brand Rototo. These socks are very durable, cozy, and versatile, with a ton of stylish designs. Great with boots and sneakers alike.

3. Undershirts & Underwear

Ribbed tank and a suit? Yes, Father John!

I’m a fan of letting a ribbed tank top peak out from under a shirt, or when I’m feeling bold, opening my button-down entirely and letting the tank top sing, like our guy Jeremy Allen White, the Tank Top King. Calvin Klein’s Cotton Classics 3-Pack Tank Tops are perfect, the platonic tank top. Don’t bother looking elsewhere.

For years I was a boxer briefs devotee when it came to underwear, but in recent years, probably because I started wearing my pants a little more relaxed, I’ve switched CK’s classic boxer shorts. They get softer with every wash and I prefer the extra room. This is a personal choice, obviously. If you prefer boxer briefs, Mack Weldon and Nice Laundry make good ones.

4. Sleep Shorts

I can’t sleep without some kind of short, and while I love boxers during the day, I need something more stretchy at night. I’ve bought probably a half dozen of these Nice Laundry mesh sleep shorts. I swear by them. Try them out and tell me I’m wrong.

5. Drawstring Easy Pants

saccadeclothing

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Sure, you can wear sweats around the house. I’m not here to tell you otherwise. But it’s nice to have a few decent pairs of soft drawstring easy pants that you can wear both out of the house and at home as well.

I have a pair of navy cotton-with-a-dash-of cashmere easy pants from a British startup called Saccade (pic above). Made in India, they’re unfathomably soft with a cool pattern on the fabric if you look close. I also recommend Save Khaki United and James Perse for similar pants, although they can be $$$.

The Feature Well

The Feature Well is a magazine term for the section at the back of the publication where all the longer, juicy stories go. It’s the part of the magazine that excited me most when I picked up copies of GQ or Esquire when I was younger, and the section I aimed for when I started writing.

For our purposes, the Feature Well is where I’m going to recommend good stories, films, podcasts, etc. I’ve come across recently, and occasionally plug my own longform writing.

This week, I listened to a new narrative podcast from The Ringer called The Wedding Scammer. It’s been ages since I found to a solid narrative podcast—the form seems to have peaked five or so years ago. So it was a refreshing to get hooked on this one, about an elusive fraudster in California. The pod has a charismatic host who is a character in his own story, a baffling, infuriating mystery at its core, and top-notch production value.

I also enjoyed The New Yorker profile of the legendary director Ridley Scott. At 86, Scott seems to still be in his prime, with Napoleon opening this month and Gladiator II on the horizon. His resume is mind-boggling: Blade Runner, Alien, Thelma and Louise, The Martian, on and on. He didn’t make his first movie until he was 40 and Gladiator came out when he was 62. His determination to create and succeed at every stage of life is inspiring and makes me want to sit down and get to work.

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Lastly, a plug for a story I wrote a few years ago. HBO recently released a documentary series called Last Stop Larrimah: Murder Down Under, about a mind-boggling mystery in the Australian Outback. In 2021, I wrote a story about the same subject, with the much better title (if I may humbly suggest), Knives Outback. Read more about the bizarre disappearance of Paddy Moriarty—was he fed to a croc? Cooked in a meat pie?—and let me know who you think did it.

mitchmoxley