The smallest order I was able to make of XL Gildan 2000’s was a 2 pack on Amazon ($10 Sept 2026). Honestly the buying experience carried a whiff of dynamic pricing. Packaging wasn’t great, and the shirts came in too wrinkled to wear without washing first.
One of the things I’m trying to illustrate through these reviews is that treating cheaper clothes nicely can yield a better wear experience at no additional cost. As such, I cold washed and line dried my Gildan 2000s just the same as my Samurai Jeans SC01 and Whitesvilles. Despite this, the G2000 shrank significantly and it shrank throughout the review process. Heavyweight shirts by comparison, seem to finish in one wash.
In good news, after the third wash I started to find this shirt comfortable. It didn’t billow as much, the material was no longer waxy (Pre-wash to Wash 1) or crispy (Wash 2). It was soft enough to wear. The construction, while by no means great, seems solid enough to last a few months. I’ve worn less comfortable, less well built band merch, that’s for sure.
If I received a branded G2000 from work, I wouldn’t immediately get rid of it. Though it would have to be a darker color. This white tee is a bit too transparent to wear comfortably on its own. I don’t know if it’s a dye uniformity issue or a material uniformity issue or a thinness issue, but it’s a bit see through. Transparency has worked for me on thin, form-fitting shirts because it’s pretty easy to use those as undershirts. To get a form fitted look in this shirt you’d have to undersize, but you might not get the length you need since length shrinks so much in the wash. I think it might end up being too short on a lot of people.
Plainly speaking, I don’t think the G2000 successfully does what I like to use thin and light white t-shirts for. You could probably get this shirt in another color too and it would be opaque enough to wear in one layer. I think it would be hard to achieve a fitted look in this shirt. It doesn’t really achieve the current boxy tee look either, but it’s really competing on value more than anything. The G2000 is the cheapest t-shirt I’ve reviewed so far. It doesn’t feel special, but after 4 washes it’s serviceable. Wash 1-2 had me pretty worried. I really didn’t enjoy wearing it then, but that’s a relatively short period in the overall lifetime of a garment.
Worst of all, I find styling the G2000 frustrating. Its shape and size changed quite a bit over the course of my review. With every wash I felt like I was wearing a slightly different shirt. I have shirts on rotation that are not perfect, but because they exist in a static enough form wash to wash, I have been able to learn how to style them. I haven’t been able to do that here, because it feels like a slightly different shirt every wash.
In sub-$10 / unit land there have been some shirts that I’ve liked more. In the USA, Gildan, American Apparel and its reinvention LA Apparel seem to own the cheap blank market, but overseas there are other incumbents. Depending on the Tariffs and the distributor, I’ve been able to pick up my favorite blanks from the Toms Printstar line, the lightweight 085-CVT and heavyweight 148-HVT, for $4-$16 a piece.
Considering how much I like the Printstar’s fit, feel and uniform quality, I personally would not buy another Gildan shirt. Sure every flaw in the G2000 feels justified when considering the low price ($10 Sept. 2026), but I was tolerating the shirt, not enjoying it. I may in fact buy another Gildan one day for science, but the value and quality isn’t there for me as a user. There’s certainly worse out there for the price, but there’s also better.
Speaking of better, if you don’t want to get into importing Japanese blanks without US distribution, American Apparel offers a 2 pack of G1301s ($16 Sept.2026) for a couple bucks more. The fit and feel on those is way less wonky. You’ll even be supporting the same parent company. I’m not petitioning that people don’t give Gildan money, I’m just suggesting they buy better Gildan products than the G2000.
I’ve certainly had worse shirts than the G2000. Its material is comfortable to wear, but I don’t like any of the different fits it achieves and I have access to better value options.