Everlane T-Shirt Part 3: The Saga Continues

Well, I wore my new Everlane T-shirt a couple of times— this is the replacement one they sent me after the hem unraveled on the first one. I washed it on a cold, gentle cycle and dried it on low, and the seams came out completely twisted up. They look like when you iron seams wrong and you get those ripple-folds in them. Not only did this happen to the bottom hem, but to the sleeves, too. (See below.)

I don’t really understand why it came out like this- I had already washed it before wearing it to try and soften it up (side note: it did not get any softer and is still kind of scratchy). But alas, I am again disappointed by this Everlane Air Tee. I’ve done some reading on how to judge the quality of clothing in my efforts to shop more sustainably and have often heard it said that twisted seams are a sure sign of a poorly-made garment. So in an attempt to shop sustainably and ethically, I bought an item from a supposedly sustainable and ethical brand, only to discover (twice) that the item is poorly made and can’t even sustain two washings, never mind years of wear.

I looked at the hems of all my other T-shirts. Perhaps this was a common problem that my presumably sweatshop-made, Old Navy and Gap Factory T-shirts would share. But no— here are examples of the hems of all the T-shirts I own, all of which have been washed innumerable times, and all of which have perfect, flat seams.

First there’s J. Crew: These T-shirts were pretty expensive. I think I got them on sale for $27 each (comparable to $25 for the Everlane one). As expected, the seams are perfect.

Then there’s ASOS. These came in a 3-pack for $24, so $8 a piece. Perfect seams.

Then there’s Gap Factory- the cheaper Gap brand. These were about $6 a piece. They are cut on the bias in a “slub” cotton and have curved hems, all of which are perfect.

And finally, I have two types of Old Navy T-shirts, both in slub cotton cut on the bias. The blue ones have perfect, straight seams and the grey ones have perfect, curved hems. These were surely no more than $6 a piece.

So what are they doing wrong over at Everlane? Why are all these sweatshop-made T-shirts of such better quality than the ethically-made ones? What is so difficult about making a decent T-shirt? And aside from these seam issues, there’s the problem of the fabric quality on the Everlane tee. It just feels scratchy and cheap, like something you can get at H&M for $1.

Yet somehow, the YouTubers and bloggers I follow are completely on board with Everlane. I can’t count the number of sponsored videos and gifted products these influencers are just lapping up in a seemingly desperate attempt to find cute, ethical and sustainable clothing. If you’re a YouTube junkie like me, I’m sure you’ve seen the reviews of Everlane items, always mentioning the high quality of the clothes, since that’s an obvious element to shopping sustainably.

But the very same week that I discovered the mangled seams on my Everlane T-shirt, I came across on YouTube not one, but two mentions of quality issues with Everlane items. The first was by Lizzy Hadfield, a mainstream style blogger who I imagine is feeling the pressure to go greener in her purchasing. She owns many gifted Everlane items, always speaks well of them, and yet she discovered a hole in her Everlane sweater and showed it in her vlog. It was right at the intersection of seams, not in the body of the fabric, which says to me that it was a manufacturing problem for sure. She tried to cover for it, saying it ”wasn’t like them” to have quality problems, but it definitely made me feel a little better to see a crack in the facade of this ethical/sustainable brand that can seemingly do no wrong. I felt somewhat validated, that is until I saw Lizzy wearing Everlane jeans in a subsequent Instagram post and realized she was still getting paid to support the brand. Go to 27:37 to see the sweater:

A couple days later I watched a video by Madeleine Olivia, a minimalist/vegan/sustainable shopper with a hefty YouTube following. She was decluttering some of her clothing when she “called out” Everlane for making shitty clothing. She had a pair of pants with a hole in them and a sweatshirt with some strange discoloration, both of which she said felt cheap, like something from Primark (a UK fast fashion brand). Go to 22:20 to hear her complaints:

I could not contain my glee. I composed a maniacal email to Everlane Customer Support, not only including my complaint about my replacement T-shirt, but also the photos of all my other T-shirt hems and links to the aforementioned YouTube videos. I’m quite sure they think I’m nutso for doing this, and could only issue a brief apology and thanks for my feedback, but I really thought they should know that there are problems with the quality of their clothes.

I’d been feeling like I was the only person in the world to have any of these problems. I mean, surely a brand so lauded by style bloggers just had to be good. Not so. I suspect these plugs for Everlane are motivated not only by money for paid sponsorships and free clothes, but also by a desperate need to find guilt-free clothing that doesn’t price out viewers/readers. And as for Everlane’s part in all this, I think that in order to keep prices down and still make the “radical transparency” claims that they do, they’re cutting some serious corners and having trouble keeping up with the sweatshops.