Hanes

For everyday basics, Hanes is hard to beat on value. Shoppers consistently praise its tag-free comfort, soft cotton and multipacks that lower the cost per pair, which is why it stays a default in many American drawers. If you want extra features like moisture-wicking performance fabric, Hanes offers higher tiers, but the core line delivers the dependable comfort the brand is known for.

Hanes T-shirts have a long-standing reputation for holding their shape and color through repeated washes, with details like double-needle stitching and tear-away tags. They are a popular blank for printing precisely because they balance durability and price. The trade-off is that fit and feel can vary slightly batch to batch, but for an affordable everyday tee they earn their loyal following.

Start with the brand's bread and butter: its innerwear. Hanes built its name on men's, women's and kids' underwear, undershirts and socks, so a multipack of cotton tees or briefs is the natural entry point. From there you can branch into hosiery, activewear or casual fleece, all of which sit under the same Hanes label.

Beefy-T is one of Hanes's signature heavyweight T-shirts, prized for a thicker, more substantial cotton feel than a standard tee. It is woven into the brand's history: for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Hanes was a major sponsor and produced a limited series of just 500 Beefy-T shirts, the first of which auctioned for $32,500. That collectible moment cemented Beefy-T as a name fans still recognize.

Hanes was founded in 1900 by John Wesley Hanes in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, originally under the name Shamrock Knitting Mills. He was one of Winston-Salem's wealthiest businessmen and had previously run a tobacco business that the family sold to R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. The knitting mill was later renamed Hanes Hosiery Mills Company in 1914.

Hanes is owned by Hanesbrands Inc., which was spun off from Sara Lee Corporation in September 2006 as a separate clothing-essentials company. Hanes is Hanesbrands' largest brand, sitting in a portfolio that also includes Champion, Playtex, Bali, Wonderbra and L'eggs. So buying Hanes means buying into one of the biggest American basics groups.

A large share of Hanes manufacturing happens in El Salvador, where the company produces around 82 million meters of fabric a year and has operated for roughly three decades. Its output there is significant enough that it has been one of the country's largest exporters. During the pandemic, Hanes even retrofitted a factory to make N95 masks for healthcare workers.

Hanes is headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the same city where John Wesley Hanes started the company in 1900. The original Shamrock Mills building there was historically significant enough to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The North Carolina roots are a core part of the brand's identity.

Both are American basics staples, but they pull in slightly different directions. Hanes is often described as offering softer, lighter fabrics and a wider range of styles including performance wear, while Fruit of the Loom leans toward thicker, traditional basics at a slightly lower price. The honest answer is that the better choice comes down to whether you prioritize softness and variety or maximum value.

Hanes has leaned on famous faces and catchy taglines for decades. Its hosiery line used "Gentlemen Prefer Hanes" in the 1970s and 1980s, and the "Just wait'll we get our Hanes on you" slogan ran through the 1990s before being revived in 2005 with endorsers like Michael Jordan. In 2019 the brand shifted tone with its body-positive "Every Bod" campaign for FlexFit boxers.