Best Oversized Heavyweight Tee: Uniqlo U Crew Neck T-Shirt
If you wandered into the GQ office on any given day of the week, there’s a good chance you’d spot a handful of folks wearing this exact tee. The Christophe Lemaire-designed sub-label is a reliable source of thoughtful menswear at prices that belie the quality involved, and its tee consistently tops our list. It’s made from a substantial all-cotton jersey with a dry hand and a boxy fit, along with a thick, vintage-inspired bound collar. At just $20, it ain’t the cheapest option out there, but it’s probably one of the best values. If our word isn’t enough to convince you, maybe the fact that Tyler, the Creator swears by ’em will.
Best Insider Heavyweight Tee: Pro Club Heavyweight Cotton Crew Neck T-Shirt
You might not be familiar with Pro Club’s tees, but their chunky 6-ounce fabric—in tandem with their old-school, no-frills design—says you care about your style, but not in an obsessive kind of way. Think of of its long-sleeve T-shirt as a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that doesn’t bother catering to the cool kids, but inevitably ends up attracting them anyway.
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What Makes a T-shirt ‘Heavyweight’?
So you’re that guy—you want the hard numbers. Well, this is where things get a little hazy. Fabric weight is measured in ounces per square yard. (For reference, the average pair of jeans is made from denim that weighs around 12-13 ounces; a standard T-shirt usually weighs somewhere around 4-5 ounces.) The confusing thing is weight classes are sort of left up to interpretation and vary from brand to brand. Some brands classify 6-ounce tees as heavyweight, while others might bill them as merely midweight.
To make matters worse, other labels measure their fabrics in grams per meter (regardless of their country’s system of measurement). Unfortunately, simply converting metric to imperial won’t quite do the trick. So the not-so-short answer is that most heavyweight T-shirts start at around 6 ounces and can go up to around 9 ounces. (If we’re talking GSM, that’s about 200GSM to 290GSM). Some truly wild options damn near break the scales at 14 ounces, but that’s really more like heavyweight sweatshirt territory.
While numbers are objective (at least in theory), they can still translate to a subjective experience. This is why we handled each and every one of the options below ourselves; what we lack in fancy laboratory-grade measuring equipment we make up for in good ol’ hands-on experience. And besides, who would you rather take your styling cues from—a scientist or a menswear expert? We thought so.
How We Test and Review Products
Style is subjective, we know—that’s the fun of it. But we’re serious about helping our audience get dressed. Whether it’s the best white sneakers, the flyest affordable suits, or the need-to-know menswear drops of the week, GQ Recommends’ perspective is built on years of hands-on experience, an insider awareness of what’s in and what’s next, and a mission to find the best version of everything out there, at every price point.
Our staffers aren’t able to try on every single piece of clothing you read about on GQ.com (fashion moves fast these days), but we have an intimate knowledge of each brand’s strengths and know the hallmarks of quality clothing—from materials and sourcing, to craftsmanship, to sustainability efforts that aren’t just greenwashing. GQ Recommends heavily emphasizes our own editorial experience with those brands, how they make their clothes, and how those clothes have been reviewed by customers. Bottom line: GQ wouldn’t tell you to wear it if we wouldn’t.
How We Make These Picks
We make every effort to cast as wide of a net as possible, with an eye on identifying the best options across three key categories: quality, fit, and price.