Materials

Fabric weight is on every product page, because it is the thing that decides how a garment ages. A 240 gsm tee holds its neck; a 180 gsm one does not. This page explains what those numbers mean and how to keep what you buy looking like what you bought.

1. Why weight is on the page

Weight is given in grams per square metre for most fabrics, and in ounces for denim, because those are the conventions each is bought and sold in.

It is the single most useful number about a garment and the one most often left off. Two tees at the same price can differ by a third in weight, and the lighter one will be transparent at the shoulder within a season while the heavier one is still being worn in five years.

A heavier fabric is not automatically better. It is warmer, slower to dry, and more expensive. It is better at holding a shape, which is why it matters most at a collar, a cuff and a hem.

2. Cotton

Most of what is here is cotton, and the differences between cottons are real.

• Staple length decides how smooth a yarn is and how much it pills. Long staple costs more and stays looking new longer.
• Combed cotton has had the short fibres taken out before spinning. It is smoother and sheds less.
• Ring-spun is softer than open-end and holds colour better.
• Garment-dyed pieces are dyed after making up rather than before. The colour is deeper and slightly uneven, which is the point, and it will settle further over the first few washes.

Where a fibre is worth naming - 14 oz rigid cotton, extra-fine merino, 700 fill down - it is named on the product page along with how to wash it so it lasts.

3. Denim

Rigid denim has no stretch and is the only kind that moulds to the person wearing it. It is stiff for a fortnight and then it is yours.

Stretch denim has elastane in it. It is comfortable immediately, and it will not develop the same way, and the elastane will eventually tire where rigid cotton would not. Both are legitimate; they are different things and the page says which you are looking at.

Selvedge refers to how the fabric was woven, on a narrow shuttle loom, and shows as a clean finished edge inside the outseam. It is slower to make and tends to indicate a mill taking care.

Raw denim will transfer indigo onto light upholstery and onto pale shoes for the first few wears. That is not a fault and it stops.

4. Wool and merino

Merino is fine enough not to itch, regulates temperature better than anything synthetic, and resists smell for days of wear.

• It wants to be washed rarely. Airing overnight does more than a wash does.
• It wants cool water and no agitation. A machine's wool cycle is usually honest.
• It must be dried flat. Hung wet, it stretches and stays stretched.
• Lambswool is softer and warmer for the weight; it pills more at first and then settles.

5. Down and insulation

Fill power - 600, 700, 800 - measures how much loft a given weight of down gives. Higher means more warmth for less weight, not simply more warmth.

Down needs air to work. A down piece compressed in a bag all summer should be shaken out and hung before it is worn, and it will recover.

Synthetic insulation is heavier for the same warmth and keeps insulating when wet, which is why it belongs in a rain shell and down does not.

6. Linen

Linen creases. That is the fabric, not a defect, and anybody selling you linen that does not crease is selling you something else.

It softens substantially over the first ten wears and keeps going. It is the coolest thing to wear in real heat because it holds its shape away from the skin.

7. Care, in general

Almost everything here lasts longer washed cold and hung to dry. The exceptions are on the product page, in the fabric and care panel, in plain words rather than symbols.

• Cold water. Hot water is what shrinks cotton and what sets a stain permanently.
• Wash less. Most garments need airing more than they need washing.
• Turn prints and dark colours inside out.
• Skip the tumble dryer. It is the single thing most responsible for a garment that no longer fits, and for the lint that used to be the garment.
• Wash with similar weights. A zip in with a knit is how a knit gets pulled.
• Close zips and fasten buttons before washing, so nothing catches.

8. On pilling

Pilling is fibre ends working loose and tangling. It happens most where a garment rubs: under the arms, at the sides, across a seatbelt line.

It is not a sign the garment is failing. A comb or a battery shaver takes it off in a few minutes and most fabrics stop doing it once the loose fibre is gone.

9. What we avoid

• Fabric so light it is transparent at the shoulder after one summer.
• Glued hems and fused collars, which fail before the cloth does.
• Finishes that make a fabric feel good in a shop and wash out on the third wash.

10. If something does not last

Tell us. A garment that fails early is something we want to know about, because it is almost always a batch or a construction detail rather than bad luck, and knowing means it gets fixed in the next run.

Write to support@ramkthrift.space with the order number and a photograph.