In our advice column, “Ask the Strategist,” we take your most burning shopping questions and survey friends, call up experts, and draw on our own personal experience to answer them. If you have an online-shopping question of your own, please send it to [email protected] with the subject “Ask the Strategist.” We’re here to help.
I love Everlane’s organic cotton boxy raglan tee, but it’s sold out in most sizes in all colors (so I imagine they’re not selling any more). Can you help me find any dupes for it? I love the sleeve length and the boxy cut — it’s the perfect white (and black!) tee and I should have bought more of them when they still had them!
I’ve got good news and bad news: I checked with Everlane, and the shirt is indeed not due for a restock. But there are a lot of similar shirts out there that fill the same niche!
I’ve broken down what makes this T-shirt good into three categories: the proportions (long, loose sleeves and a shorter-than-average length), the fabric (organic cotton), and the cut (raglan sleeves). I am especially intrigued by the raglan thing — it’s a style in which the sleeve seams go diagonally up to the neck, effectively freeing up the shoulder for a wider range of movement. I associate raglans with vintage athleticwear, particularly sports that involve a lot of arm-swinging, like baseball and rowing. (The style is named after FitzRoy James Henry Somerset, Baron Raglan, and was first developed by British outerwear company Aquascutum in the 1850s.)
An athletic raglan shirt is usually made from a thinner cotton or a sweatshirt material like terrycloth, versus the thicker cotton Everlane uses. All this makes T-Shirt Prime unique; my best guess is that using a raglan pattern gave the shirt a more interesting hang than you’d have in a tee with a traditional set-in sleeve.
A really, really close dupe is this Elise Ballegeer T-shirt — the cut and fit are almost a perfect match — but at $128, it is out of the basic-tee price range. It’s also made of 45 percent organic cotton and 55 percent hemp, versus 100 percent cotton.
Madewell’s cotton raglan tee is close to Everlane’s; it has similar sleeves and is just a bit longer. Unfortunately, it’s also sold out in a lot of sizes — there’s a small and extra-large left in white, and smaller sizes in yellow.
A lot of other close matches are organic cotton box tees without raglan sleeves, like this one from & Other Stories. Strategist senior editor Simone Kitchens owns the shirt and says it’s held up well after two years of wear.
This Kowtow tee is also a good match if you size down to account for the oversize cut. (Sizes go down to XXS, so it should be possible, fingers crossed.) It’s made from organic cotton, like Everlane’s tee, and has a similarly crisp silhouette. Like the La Causa tee, it has an exaggerated drop sleeve instead of a raglan sleeve. If you’re not sure about sizing, I am a big advocate of emailing brands for measurements — Kowtow’s information line is listed on the product page — which you can compare against your Everlane shirt. (The red striped version of the tee is also very cool and is on sale.)
For a more worn-in vibe, this cotton-hemp Jungmaven tee has similar proportions, with long, loose sleeves and a light crop.
I am a huge Pansy fan; the cotton it uses is really lovely, soft, and dense. This T-shirt has a similar sleeve proportion to the Everlane version, although it lacks T-Shirt Prime’s crop.
When I reached out to Everlane about the raglan tee, they pointed me toward a couple alternatives, including this cropped T-shirt. It’s not exactly the same — different sleeve style and slightly more cropped — but may be a good alternative in the original T-shirt’s price range.
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