Every Cheap T-Shirt I’ve Thrown Away

Every cheap T-shirt I bought between 2005 and 2010 is gone. Thrown out, mostly, after two or three washes turned them into shaped suggestions of garments—collars stretched, fabric thinned to something you could read through. At the time I thought that was fine. Normal. Maybe even the point. Low price, brief ownership, back to the shop for another one.

At some point that stopped sitting right. Partly it was learning the supply chain basics—that a two-euro T-shirt doesn’t come from nowhere, that someone made it at a pace and in conditions that the price makes obvious, once you actually think about it. Partly it was design instinct. A thing that isn’t made to last wasn’t made well. Whatever compromises reached the finished object were baked in from the very beginning.

I started being more deliberate about it. Slower, fewer, better. The Munich label ThokkThokk operates on exactly this logic: organic cotton and Tencel, fair trade certified, no animal products in the construction. Their pieces are built to move between seasons rather than expire with them. GOTS and Fairtrade certifications mean the paperwork exists and someone is checking it—which, in sustainable fashion, is not something you can take for granted.

The aesthetic is streetwear-adjacent without being loud about it. Graphic prints on honest basics, the design sitting on top of a construction that actually holds up. It doesn’t reinvent the concept of a T-shirt, but the object underneath the print is more honest than most things at this price range—starting around twenty euros for a plain shirt, climbing from there for knitwear and outerwear.

There’s still a gap between wanting ethical fashion and making it effortless to acquire. It requires intention in a way that Amazon doesn’t. But the things you have to actually seek out, you tend to keep. I’ve got a jacket from five years ago I still reach for. I can’t name a single thing I bought at Primark.