Navy Cotton Relaxed Fit Tee - Short Sleeve Round Neck for OEM

A deep navy short sleeve tee from American Vintage in 100% cotton with a relaxed fit and a round neckline, listed at 45 GBP with two of three sizes in stock and the M sold out. It carries the same table as the pink and the white versions of the same tee, to the last digit, and the navy is the colourway where that shared table matters most, because a deep shade is the one most likely to have been through a heavier dye process than the others and therefore the one most likely to have come out of it a slightly different size. The page names no process and publishes no fastness figure on a shade that is the classic case for one. It is also, by accident rather than design, the first garment in this run whose sold out size is the middle of its range rather than an end, and on a three size range that is a more serious loss than it sounds. The reference is the Apoly T-Shirt in Night Star. Dongguan Bafinasa Garments Co., Ltd. develops comparable knit tops on OEM and ODM terms, from yarn and cloth selection to retail or FBA ready packing. We publish this as a development reference and build your own version of it, and we do not supply the branded original or reproduce anyone else's label.

Key Features

• Deep navy as stated, with no rub or wash fastness figure on the shade that most needs one. See the note below
• Two of three sizes in stock, with the M sold out, the first time in this run the missing size is the middle of the range. See the note below
• The same table as the other two colourways to the last digit, on the shade most likely to have been dyed differently. See the note below
• Three sizes, S, M and L, with no UK, EU or US equivalence published. See the note below
• Short sleeve measured at 16 to 20 cm and a body length of 57 to 61 cm, both grading two centimetres per size
• Round neckline and relaxed fit as stated, 100% cotton, made in Portugal, wash at 30, do not tumble dry, iron on low
• Two photographs, on the same garment the white colourway shows six of

Customisable Options

• Cloth: cotton jersey to the reference, with the weight in grams per square metre set to your market since none is given
• Dye: piece dyed or yarn dyed to your brief, with the route stated, and garment dyeing quoted as an option with its size tolerance
• Fastness: rub, wash, light and perspiration fastness tested on the navy and the results held to a stated grade
• Size set: S, M and L to the reference, with the equivalence published, or an extended set from XS to XL
• Neck: round neckline to the reference, with the rib or the binding specified and the rib matched for shade
• Length: 57 to 61 cm to the reference, with hip length and long line options
• Cloth weight, dye route, fastness testing, size set and equivalence, ease, body length, sleeve length, neck trim, colour development, private label and care labelling

Specifications

Size Chart as Published by the Reference

The chest figures are flat half measures taken with the tee laid down, doubling to 94, 98 and 102 cm around, or 37.0, 38.6 and 40.2 in, identical to the figures published on the pink and the white colourways of this same tee. With no equivalence published for S, M and L, the ease has two readings: about four, one and three fifths and minus four fifths inches if the letters span UK 8, 12 and 16, or about four, three and a half and three and a quarter if they span UK 8, 10 and 12. The sleeve grades two centimetres from 16 to 20 cm and the length two centimetres from 57 to 61 cm.

Our Proposed Body Chart

Occasions and Styling

Suits everyday wear, weekends and layering. A navy tee does the work of a black one without the formality of it, and at this length it sits under knitwear in winter as easily as it does with shorts in summer, which is the range the reference claims for it.

Production and Quality Control

The reference publishes three columns for all three sizes, states its fibre, describes the fit, the neck and the sleeves, gives a care instruction with an ironing note and names the country of make. It publishes no dye route, no fastness figure, no cloth weight, no size equivalence and no model, and one of its three sizes is sold out. Three things follow: what a deep navy needs that a pale shade does not, why losing the middle size of three is worse than losing an end, and what a shared table asserts about the dye route.

Crocking, and the figure that is not there, and that is the first thing. A deep navy cotton is the classic case for a rub fastness test, and no fastness figure of any kind appears on this page: no rub, no wash, no light, no perspiration. Rub fastness is the one that matters most here and it is worth saying what it measures and why this shade is the one that fails it. A deep shade carries more dye on the surface of the cloth than a pale one, and some of that dye is loosely held, so when a dry navy surface is rubbed against a pale one the loose dye transfers. In wear that means a navy tee rubbing dye onto the inside of a pale jacket or onto a light coloured bag strap, and in the factory it means a mark that shows up on the packing bench. The test is standard, cheap and quick, it produces a grade from one to five for dry rubbing and again for wet, and a mill or a brand that has tested knows the number. This run has now gone twelve batches without seeing a single fastness figure published on any garment, and it has met several that should have one: the printed tees, whose prints are the product, the twill trouser, whose page actually warns that colour will be lost in the wash, which is a fastness statement without a fastness number, and now this. The recommendation is the same and it costs nothing: test it, state the grade you are working to, and put the number on the page. There are three more things a navy needs that belong in a specification rather than in a description. The first is wash fastness in the first wash, because a navy that bleeds will bleed onto whatever it is washed with, and the standard instruction for a dark shade is to wash it separately the first time, which this care label does not say. The second is light fastness, since dark cottons fade unevenly and a navy that has faded at the shoulders and not elsewhere is a garment that looks old before it is. The third is dye migration in storage, which is the one that surprises people: a dark garment folded and packed against a pale one for months in a warm container can transfer dye without anyone touching it, and the fix is a packing specification that separates them. None of this is exotic and all of it is a line in a tech pack.

The middle size is the one that is gone, and that is the second thing. Every garment in this run that has had a size sold out has lost one at an end of its range: the 4 of five on the corduroy skirt, the 16 of six on the graphic tee, the 6 of six on the trench coat, the 10 of six on the poplin dress, the 8 of six on the chiffon dress, and the 10 and the 16 on the twill trouser. This is the first to lose the middle, and on a three size range the middle is not one of three, it is the size that most customers take and the size that holds the range together. Losing it leaves an S and an L with a gap between them of four centimetres of flat chest width, or eight centimetres of circumference, and if the letters span the full range that gap is four inches of body. A customer who would have taken the M is offered a garment two inches too small or two inches too big with nothing in between, and that is the structural weakness of a coarse size set showing itself: a six size range can lose a size and still offer a continuous fit to almost everybody, and a three size range cannot. It is worth putting a number on it, because it is the sort of thing that is felt as a lost sale and never diagnosed. If the M is the volume size, which it usually is, then this listing is currently offering maybe half its potential. There is a production answer as well as a commercial one, and it is the reason we raise it: on a three size set the grade should be sized to the increment, and when the increment is four inches of body and the grade is 1.57 inches of circumference, the middle size is doing more work than a grade can carry. So the fix is either a finer size set or a grade scaled to the increment, and in both cases the M is the size that tells you whether it is working. And it is worth noting what the page does well in the middle of all this, which is that it publishes the measurement for the sold out size anyway. Most pages in this run publish a full table regardless of stock, and that is the right thing to do, because a customer who wants the M still needs to know what an M is when it comes back.

One table, three shades, and the assertion the navy has to carry, and that is the third thing. The three listings for this tee publish a table that is identical to the last digit, and this run has argued that sharing is correct in principle, since dye changes the colour and not the pattern, and that it becomes a claim once the colour routes differ. The navy is the colourway most likely to be the exception. A deep shade is often put through a heavier dye load than a mid one, and it is the shade most often dyed after the garment is made rather than before, because garment dyeing gives a soft hand and a slightly washed look that suits a relaxed tee. Both of those are wet processes with a dimensional consequence: a garment that is dyed after it is sewn has been through a bath and a drying cycle that a piece dyed one has not, and the two do not necessarily come out the same size. This run met the named version of this two batches ago on the twill trouser, whose page states that a special dye process was used and warns that colour may be lost in washing, which is an admission that the route has consequences the brand knows about. This page names no route at all, so the shared table is asserting that whichever route was used, the three shades came out the same, and nobody has said so. The remedy is a minute's work: measure one size in every colourway before the table goes up, and if the numbers differ by more than a centimetre, either publish a tolerance or publish two tables. There is a second and related point that belongs to the navy in particular. If a brand does garment dye its darks, it should say so, because garment dyeing has consequences a customer should know about beyond the size: the colour will soften over the first few washes, the garment should be washed with like colours, and the shade will vary slightly between pieces, which is a feature to some customers and a fault to others. Saying it turns three potential complaints into three expectations. Then the smaller absences, which this run has counted on every garment in this batch and which apply here as they do to the pink and the white: no equivalence for S, M and L, so the ease cannot be read without guessing; no hip or hem width, so a relaxed tee cannot be checked for how it falls; no model height, so 57 cm cannot be placed on a body, and 57 cm is the shortest body length in this run; no cloth weight, on a garment whose hand is the reason anyone buys it; and two photographs against the six on the white. And the style code is worth one line, because it is the best coding in this run: a base code for the style and a suffix for the colour, so a reorder can be placed unambiguously, which is more than can be said for the three different season prefixes this run has met from another house. Every bulk shipment gets a measurement report against your approved chart.

Optional upgrades include testing and publishing rub, wash, light and perspiration fastness for the navy, stating the dye route and publishing a size tolerance if the darks are garment dyed, adding a wash separately for the first wash note to the care instruction, separating darks and pales in packing to prevent dye migration, measuring one size in every colourway before publishing a shared table, publishing the UK or EU equivalent for S, M and L or the body measurements each size is drafted for, extending the size range so the middle size is not carrying the whole fit, stating the cloth weight in grams per square metre, publishing the hem width, adding a model height, matching the neck rib to the body shade, a V neck and a boat neck option, cap and long sleeve options, hip length and long line options, size set, colour development, private label, hangtag and care labelling.

Pre-production sample approval, in-line inspection during cutting and sewing, and a final AQL inspection before packing, with measurement reports and photos shared before shipment.

Send us your tech pack, a photo or a reference garment and we will quote within 24 hours. Contact bafinasa@bafinasa.com or WhatsApp +86 13827222469.