H&M Cotton Shirt (-1)

I generally only part with money for beer. But when I do buy men’s fashion I make damn sure it’s decent quality. Welcome to my review of ethical menswear available online. The good, the dishonest, and…

I’ve been making use of H&Ms recycling bins to get rid of my off cuts for a while now, and indeed the 15% discount on one item is certainly enough to encourage a new purchase. With H&Ms prices already obscenely low (one wonders how they manage this) the discount lets you pick up a decent shirt for around R500.

Being the fashion slave that I am, I bought this deep navy blue shirt a while back and took a closer look at what this mega brand is peddling. As usual I’m not strictly blown away by the quality of the construction or any innovation of style, but I’ll confess it’s a good purchase for the price point.

The first thing that struck me is that there’s something really strange going on with the collar, I can’t quite figure out where the flaw is in the pattern, but the collar jumps out in the oddest way. Besides that lets get into some specifics:

I love these 3 things

1 – It’s 100% cotton (yes I checked) which means this garment will decompose easier when eventually discarded, making it better for the environment both now and in the long run. Although the price point makes you wonder about the source of the cotton, at least the brand is sticking to it’s sustainability guns with natural fibers.

2 – The colour is to die for! Such a beautiful deep blue bordering on black, I really think it’s a great piece to add to your wardrobe. A dark shirt’ll go great with any outfit, but a black one can be a bit limiting. I think it’s pretty smart of them to have included this colour in their current collection.

3 – The price is really accessible, and with the encouragement to recycle old garments, it’s again well in line with H&Ms target of bringing good fashion to a broader audience.

I hate these 4 things (brace yourself)

1 – Small, Medium, and Large are not sizes, they’re categories, and should (at the very most) be reserved for t-shirts. How on earth can you have a slim fit shirt with such a broad fit range! And H&M doesn’t (at least not that I’ve been able to access) correlate these categories to metric sizes (i.e. Medium = 32 – 40). Though most big brands do this kind of thing without any internal consistency anyway, so whatever.

2 – Slim fit?!? Without darts?!? Giving me a saggy back?!? Maybe this attempted slimming is what messed up the collar idk.

3 – Made in China, snore

4 – Construction issues, especially loose threads (my pet hate). I guess we now know how they keep the price so low: skimp on quality control.

-1 Overall, Can’t say I’m in love, but for the price it’s definitely an alright shirt

Despite the neglect of finer construction issues, this shirt is on the whole well enough made to be considered a good product. Although I’m skeptical of H&Ms sustainability vision, being the only major retailer encouraging recycling certainly gives them enough credibility in my books.

 

Do you peeps have any experience with H&M to share? Let me know in the comments what you think of their recycling drive and the quality of their clothes.

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