Comment by crazygringo
5 hours ago
That doesn't even make sense. Banana Republic cotton is fine. I have a bunch of their shirts and machine wash cold and hang-dry and zero shrinkage.
Did you put it in the dryer afterwards or something? Like I know that sounds dumb but I'm struggling to imagine what could have possibly caused what you describe.
There's zero "enshittification" of the cotton at a brand like Banana Republic.
What I'm relating is 100% the truth, and I did not machine dry them after washing. I could not even believe my eyes when it happened, because I've been a customer of their dress shirts since like a decade ago and always relied on them for a precise fit.
I bought two of them, the ones that shrunk. They are labeled as wrinkle-resistant slim shirts, 98% cotton and 2% spandex.
Don't be mistaken, the quality of their apparel has definitely gone down of late. I went on Reddit and its definitely a thing people have noticed.
That's truly bizarre. I genuinely can't imagine what could have physically caused that. Like, if that happened to me I'd have to assume a family member had warm-washed and machine-dried the shirt without telling me.
You can have your own opinions on quality -- if there's anything I know, people have been complaining about the decline of quality of major brands every year for as long as I've been alive. Yet somehow clothes still seem fine. But that's actually irrelevant.
Because the point is, there aren't really any conceivable fabric quality issues that should cause a cotton-spandex shirt to shrink with a cold wash and hang dry. It doesn't matter the brand or quality, that's just not how cotton or spandex work. And even if you do accidentally wash warm once or dry, the denser weave that a dress shirt has will always shrink less than something like a looser Oxford or a t-shirt jersey material.
So truly that's just bizarre. I have no explanation.
Do you find there's a difference in cotton quality with different shirt brands that results in some shrinking more than others?
Not when washing cold and hang-drying.
When washing warm or machine drying, absolutely, although I'm not sure how much is attributable to the cotton itself versus how much is attributable to the denser weave that tends to come with nicer brands.
But this comment was specifically about washing cold, hence my confusion.