T-Shirts

T-Shirts gathers the plain crew-neck tops at Mens Collection, the men's clothing store on New Utrecht Avenue in Brooklyn, New York — the layer worn closest to the skin and, in most wardrobes, the piece replaced most often.

What separates these is the cloth. Some are straightforward cotton, cut clean and slim, designed to sit flat under a shirt or a jumper without bunching at the waist. Others blend silk with cotton, or silk and cotton with cashmere, which changes how the fabric falls: silk brings drape and a soft lustre, cotton keeps the shape honest through wear, cashmere adds warmth at the shoulders. Those are the ones that finish an outfit under tailoring rather than fill a gap in it.

Fits are slim, classic or regular. A slim cut is meant to be close and works best as a base layer; a regular cut leaves room to move and hangs on its own in warm weather.

White and black do the most work, which is why most drawers run out of them first. Buy the size you normally take and expect to reach for these before anything else in the wardrobe — that is the whole argument for the T-Shirts collection.