What is the best fabric for a t-shirt?

For most retail collections, combed ring-spun cotton between 160 and 190 GSM. It gives the hand feel customers expect, prints cleanly, and sits at a price a growing brand can carry. Move to a cotton-rich blend such as CVC when durability and shape retention matter more than the last few per cent of softness, and to polyester or a performance blend when the garment is made to be trained in.

Is a cotton-polyester blend better than 100% cotton?

Better at different things. A blend shrinks less, holds its shape longer, dries faster and costs less; pure cotton breathes better and feels better against the skin. If the tee will be washed hot and often — uniforms, workwear, anything institutional — the blend is the more sensible choice. If it is a fashion piece judged on feel, cotton wins.

What GSM should I choose for a t-shirt?

120 to 150 GSM is lightweight and suits summer and promotional work. 160 to 190 GSM is the everyday range most retail tees use. 200 to 240 GSM is heavyweight, holds a boxy or oversized shape, and is what streetwear brands generally specify. Weight is felt immediately, so approve a physical sample rather than choosing a number on paper.

Which fabrics are best for hoodies rather than t-shirts?

French terry for lighter, more breathable hoodies at roughly 240 to 380 GSM, and brushed fleece for warmth from about 320 to 500 GSM. Both are usually cotton-rich blends. The knit is the difference: the loops on the inside face are left uncut in terry and brushed open in fleece.

Does organic cotton feel different from regular cotton?

Not inherently. The certification covers how the fibre is grown and processed, not how it feels — an organic tee and a conventional one in the same yarn type and weight feel much the same. What changes the feel is combing, ring-spinning and staple length. Choose organic for the supply chain, and specify the yarn separately for the hand.

FabricsJuly 18, 2026Updated September 9, 202610 min read

The Best Fabrics for Custom T-Shirts: Combed Cotton, Blends & Knits

Fabric is the single biggest decision behind how a t-shirt feels, wears, and prints — and it is where most of the cost sits. Weight (GSM) is one half of the story; fiber and knit are the other. Here is a practical guide to the main t-shirt fabrics and what each is best for.

By Raj Rahman, Founder & Managing Director

A cream jersey tee laid out with knit swatches and yarn cones

How to approach fabric selection

Every fabric decision resolves into three questions asked in order: which fibre, knitted how, and at what weight. Skip the first and the other two cannot be answered, which is why so many first ranges are specified as soft cotton and arrive as something nobody recognises. The best fabrics for t shirts are not a fixed list — they are whichever combination of those three matches what the garment has to do.

It helps to separate fabric type from fabric quality. Cotton is a fabric type; combed ring-spun cotton at 180 GSM on a fine gauge is a specification. Two suppliers can both quote you cotton and deliver garments that feel nothing alike, and the difference is almost never the fibre name on the label.

Natural fibers

Cotton, linen, wool and silk grow rather than being extruded. Natural fibers breathe, feel better against the skin, and take dye and print with a depth synthetics struggle to match. They are also heavier when wet, slower to dry, and more prone to creasing and to gradual fading with wash and wear.

Synthetic fibers

Polyester, nylon and elastane are engineered, and each is engineered for a property. Synthetic fibers give exceptional strength for their weight, hold colour far longer, resist creasing, and recover their shape after stretch. The trade is next-to-skin comfort: synthetic fabrics carry heat and odour in a way cotton does not, which is why very few tees are pure polyester and very many are part polyester.

Single fiber fabrics and blended fabrics

Single fiber fabrics give you one clear character. Blended fabrics let you buy a property from one fibre without giving up the other, and most commercial apparel lives here: a cotton-rich blend keeps the hand feel and borrows durability and shape retention from polyester. Neither route is better in the abstract — the question is which properties your garment cannot do without.

100% cotton — the default for a reason

Soft, breathable and easy to print, pure cotton is the standard for most tees and the right starting point for most brands. It is also the fibre where the gap between grades is widest, so the words after cotton on a spec sheet matter more than the word itself.

Its limits are worth stating up front. Cotton shrinks, mostly on the first wash. It loses shape at the neckline before it loses anything else. And it holds water, so a cotton tee stays wet against the skin through a workout rather than letting the moisture evaporate quickly. None of that is a reason to avoid it, and all of it is why the blends below exist.

Combed and ring-spun cotton

Ring spinning twists the fibres into a finer, stronger yarn; combing removes the short fibres before spinning. Do both and you get a smoother surface, less pilling, a cleaner print base and a noticeably better fabric feel. This is what premium blanks specify, and it is the single upgrade that buys the most perceived quality per cent added to the price.

Carded and open-end cotton

Open-end cotton is spun faster from uncombed fibre. It is cheaper, coarser, and more prone to pilling and to fading, and it is entirely defensible for a promotional run where the garment has a short life. Specifying it by accident, on a retail collection, is the mistake.

Pima, Supima and long-staple cotton

Long-staple cottons produce fewer fibre ends per centimetre of yarn, which is why they feel smoother and hold up better through repeated wash cycles. They sit at the top of the cotton range on cost and earn it only where the customer will notice — a fashion tee, not a giveaway.

Organic cotton — the same feel, a different supply chain

Certified organic cotton offers the hand-feel of premium combed cotton with a sustainability story a clothing brand can stand behind, and for some buyers that is the essential part of the spec. It costs more per kilo, and for brands that market on environmental values it is often the right call.

One distinction is worth getting right before it reaches a label. A fabric certificate covers the fabric. A finished garment needs its own certificate covering every component — thread, ribbing, trims, prints and labels — so building a tee from certified fabric does not make the tee certified. Ask your supplier which of the two you are being offered, and ask for the document rather than the claim.

Blends — CVC, poly-cotton and tri-blend

Blended fabrics are where most volume apparel actually sits, because they let you tune the properties instead of accepting a single fibre wholesale.

CVC, or chief value cotton

Mostly cotton with enough polyester to matter, usually around 60/40 or 80/20. CVC keeps a cotton hand feel while gaining shape retention and much less shrinkage, and it is markedly more durable through repeated washing. For a brand that wants a cotton tee that survives its customers, this is the reliable choice.

Poly-cotton, often 65/35

More polyester than cotton: stronger, cheaper, dimensionally stable through industrial laundering and good on wrinkle resistance, which is why poly-cotton dominates promotional apparel, uniforms and workwear. It reads less premium in the hand, and it is still the correct answer when the garment has to survive a hundred hot washes.

Tri-blend, cotton with polyester and rayon

The rayon adds drape and a slightly heathered surface texture, giving a fabric that is exceptionally soft against the body with a worn-in fall from the first wear. Tri-blend is the sweet spot for premium fashion tees and the wrong choice for anything that needs a crisp, structured shape.

100% polyester and performance knits

Polyester wicks moisture, dries fast and holds sublimation prints, which makes it the default for activewear, sports jerseys and team kit. On its own it can feel less breathable than cotton, which is why performance blends and moisture-management finishes exist at all.

Odour retention is the honest weakness of synthetic fabrics, and it is a real one over a season. Pure polyester also feels warmer against the skin in still air, and it takes a poorer print if the ink chemistry is not matched to it. Blending a third of cotton back in solves most of that at a small cost in drying speed.

How moisture wicking works

Polyester does not absorb water, it moves it. The yarn structure and finish pull sweat along the fibre to the outer face of the fabric, where the larger surface area lets it evaporate quickly. Cotton does the opposite — it absorbs and holds — and that is the whole difference between a training tee and a cotton one at minute forty.

The specific fabrics we hold in stock versus the ones needing a custom knit run are listed on our t-shirt manufacturing page.

Bamboo fabric, modal and viscose

Bamboo fabric and modal are regenerated cellulosics: a natural raw material chemically processed into fibre. They are prized for a silky, drapey hand and superior breathability against most synthetics, and they blend well with cotton for premium and loungewear-leaning tees.

Two cautions. They are weaker wet than cotton, so seam construction matters more, and they sit at the higher end on cost. Use them where the fabric feel is the product, not where the price is.

Linen, silk and the fabrics that are not tee fabrics

Linen breathes better than almost anything and is superb for summer shirting, dresses, skirts and casual woven pieces. It creases hard, has almost no stretch, and does not knit into a t-shirt that holds its shape. Silk is a woven luxury fibre with a place in blouses and linings and none in a printed tee.

Naming them is useful because buyers meet these fibres while planning a wider collection, and the honest answer is that fabric choice is category-specific. The right fabric for a summer skirt is not the right fabric for a hoodie, and no single material carries a whole range.

Knit construction and weight — the other half of the story

Fibre is only part of the equation, and the full story needs the knit. A 100% cotton tee can be a light 150 GSM promotional piece or a structured 240 GSM heavyweight depending entirely on how it is knitted and how much yarn is in it.

The common knits

Single jersey is the standard tee knit: light, fluid, one smooth face. Interlock is double-knitted, so it is heavier, more stable and smooth on both sides. Pique has the textured surface used on polos. Slub uses deliberately uneven yarn for a vintage look. French terry and brushed fleece carry the weight a hoodie or an outerwear piece needs.

GSM, and what each range is for

Grams per square metre is the shorthand for weight. Roughly: 120 to 150 GSM is lightweight and suits summer and promotional work; 160 to 190 is the everyday comfort range most retail tees live in; 200 to 240 is heavyweight, structured, and where a boxy fit starts to hold its shape. Above that you are into sweatshirt territory.

Matching fabric to your target market and budget

Fabric decisions are commercial decisions. Work backwards from what the customer is buying and what they will pay, rather than forwards from the nicest swatch on the table.

A streetwear label selling at a premium can carry heavyweight combed cotton and should. An events business printing a thousand giveaway tees cannot and should not. Between those two, budget constraints usually settle it, and cotton-rich blends occupy the sweet spot for a reason: most of the hand feel at a fraction of the premium, with better shape retention than either fibre alone.

Three checks make the call concrete. What does the garment have to survive — a season, or three years of weekly wear? How will it be washed, and by whom? And what does the customer touch first, because fabric feel at the moment of pickup is what closes a sale in a physical store.

How fabric behaves in bulk production

A swatch that feels perfect can still be the wrong specification, and the reasons only appear at scale. Availability is the first: stock fabrics ship from inventory, while a custom knit and dye run adds seven to ten days and carries its own minimum. Consistency is the second — dye lots vary, so a repeat order months later needs the shade matched against an approved standard rather than re-ordered by name.

Shrinkage and skew are the third. Every knit moves in the wash, and the pattern has to be cut oversized so the final product finishes at your intended measurements. That is a bulk production question rather than a sampling one, and it is settled by testing a washed sample instead of trusting a datasheet.

Care: machine wash, fading and how a tee ages

How a garment ages is a fabric property, and it belongs in the decision. Cotton softens and fades gradually. Polyester holds colour and shape but pills where it rubs. Rayon-rich blends drape beautifully and are the least tolerant of a hot machine wash.

Write the care instructions from the fabric rather than copying them from a competitor. Cold wash, inside out, low heat is the honest instruction for most printed cotton, and following it does more to protect a customer relationship than any claim on the swing tag.

The questions to put to your supplier

Send these with any fabric enquiry. The answers separate a supplier who knows the materials from one quoting off a list.

Exact composition and yarn type — not cotton, but combed ring-spun, and the yarn count
Knit construction and GSM, measured after washing rather than off the roll
Whether the fabric is held in stock or needs a custom knit and dye run, and what that adds to the lead time
Shrinkage and colourfastness results for this fabric, not a generic datasheet
The minimum for a custom knit, and how colours split within it
Which certificates cover the fabric, and whether any of them cover the finished garment

Frequently asked questions

What is the best fabric for a t-shirt?: For most retail collections, combed ring-spun cotton between 160 and 190 GSM. It gives the hand feel customers expect, prints cleanly, and sits at a price a growing brand can carry. Move to a cotton-rich blend such as CVC when durability and shape retention matter more than the last few per cent of softness, and to polyester or a performance blend when the garment is made to be trained in.
Is a cotton-polyester blend better than 100% cotton?: Better at different things. A blend shrinks less, holds its shape longer, dries faster and costs less; pure cotton breathes better and feels better against the skin. If the tee will be washed hot and often — uniforms, workwear, anything institutional — the blend is the more sensible choice. If it is a fashion piece judged on feel, cotton wins.
What GSM should I choose for a t-shirt?: 120 to 150 GSM is lightweight and suits summer and promotional work. 160 to 190 GSM is the everyday range most retail tees use. 200 to 240 GSM is heavyweight, holds a boxy or oversized shape, and is what streetwear brands generally specify. Weight is felt immediately, so approve a physical sample rather than choosing a number on paper.
Which fabrics are best for hoodies rather than t-shirts?: French terry for lighter, more breathable hoodies at roughly 240 to 380 GSM, and brushed fleece for warmth from about 320 to 500 GSM. Both are usually cotton-rich blends. The knit is the difference: the loops on the inside face are left uncut in terry and brushed open in fleece.
Does organic cotton feel different from regular cotton?: Not inherently. The certification covers how the fibre is grown and processed, not how it feels — an organic tee and a conventional one in the same yarn type and weight feel much the same. What changes the feel is combing, ring-spinning and staple length. Choose organic for the supply chain, and specify the yarn separately for the hand.