Bands and tours
Sold at a table to people who will wear it for years. The garment carries the price.
Custom Comfort Colors Shirts
The heavyweight garment-dyed tee that arrives already broken in. It is the shirt people keep, which is why it is what merch tables sell.
Print the 1717 with your artwork, see the price as you build it, and check out without a phone call.
6.1 ozThe heaviest tee we stock
Garment dyedSoft and faded from day one
Ring-spun cottonSmooth surface, holds fine detail
Matching rangeLong sleeve and tank in the same fabric
Design Yours on the 1717
Loaded with the Comfort Colors 1717 already selected. Drop your artwork on, pick a colour, set the count and watch the number settle.
You can switch to a cheaper blank at any point if you want to see the difference in price.
What Garment Dyeing Actually Does
Nearly every t-shirt you have owned was made from fabric that was dyed on a roll and then cut and sewn. Comfort Colors does it the other way round. The shirt is built first out of undyed cotton and then dyed as a finished garment.
That sounds like a technicality and it is not. Dyeing a sewn garment agitates it in hot liquid for a long time, which is effectively a controlled version of washing it a hundred times before you ever get it.
The result is cotton that has already relaxed. The hand is softer, the colour sits slightly unevenly across the surface the way a favourite old shirt does, and the whole thing drapes instead of standing up.
It is also why it costs more. It is a slower process with more handling and more variation, and every shirt comes out a little bit its own.
The reason merch tables run Comfort Colors is not loyalty to a brand. It is that somebody picks the shirt up, feels the weight, and stops arguing about the price. At about five dollars more per piece it routinely supports a ten to fifteen dollar higher retail.
What It Costs to Print
Same printing as any other tee. The blank is what you are paying for, and it is roughly double a basic cotton shirt at every quantity.
1 shirt$26.33each
12 shirts$22.37each
24 shirts$19.81each
48 shirts$16.83each
144 shirts$13.29each
288 shirts$12.37each
Comfort Colors 1717 in a dark colorway with a full-colour front print, as quoted by the studio today. Open the studio for the live number on your artwork.
Who Buys It, and Who Should Not
Bands, breweries, coffee roasters, race organisers and anybody with a retail table. The common thread is that somebody is handing over money for the shirt itself, and the shirt has to justify it in the first three seconds of being held.
It also does well as staff apparel somewhere the staff uniform is part of the brand, like a taproom or a shop floor where customers see it constantly.
Where it does not make sense is volume giveaways. Two hundred free shirts at a corporate event do not need to be garment dyed, and the difference at that count is real money that nobody at the event will notice.
Taprooms and breweries
Staff wear it daily and customers buy the same shirt off the shelf.
Shops and outfitters
Retail merch that has to sit next to real brands and hold its own.
Printing On It
The ring-spun surface is smooth, which means it holds fine detail better than a coarser open-end cotton. Screen printing and digital both sit down nicely on it.
The one thing worth knowing is that garment-dyed colour is not perfectly flat, so a large solid block of ink in a similar tone to the shirt can read a little unevenly. That is usually a feature on this garment rather than a problem, but it is worth deciding on purpose.
If you want the washed vintage look people associate with this shirt, print a tone slightly darker than the garment rather than reaching for bright white. It costs less on a screen-printed run and it looks more like the thing you are picturing.
Build It on the Real Garment
Pick a colour, drop your art on, and see the price at your actual quantity. Nothing prints until you approve a proof.
Comfort Colors Questions
What makes Comfort Colors different from a normal t-shirt?
It is garment dyed. The shirt is cut and sewn as blank fabric and then dyed as a finished garment, which softens the cotton and gives the slightly uneven, sun-faded colour it is known for. A normal tee is made from fabric that was dyed before it was sewn.
Will the colour fade?
It settles rather than fades. Garment dyed cotton loses a little intensity in the first few washes and then holds. That softening is the look people buy it for, not a defect.
Does it shrink?
A little, mostly in length, on the first hot wash. It is pre-shrunk but garment dyed cotton always moves slightly. Wash cold and hang dry and it barely moves at all.
What weight is the 1717?
6.1 oz ring-spun cotton, which is the heaviest tee we stock. It hangs with real weight and does not go transparent.
Is it worth the extra money over a Bella+Canvas?
If somebody is paying for the shirt, yes. It costs about five dollars more per piece and it supports a substantially higher retail price because the feel is immediately obvious in the hand. If the shirt is a giveaway, no.
Can I get long sleeves and tanks in the same fabric?
Yes. The Comfort Colors 6014 long sleeve and 9360 tank are the same 6.1 oz garment-dyed cotton, so a whole range matches.
Olive Branch Apparel
Custom screen printing, embroidery, DTF and DTG. We source blanks from suppliers across the country and ship nationwide.
Start an order
Build it yourself in the studio and check out when it looks right.
Open the design studioDesign a Comfort Colors Tee
Heavyweight, garment dyed, printed with your artwork. A real price in about a minute.