I Don't Take the Tag's Word For It

Every shirt that comes through my hands has a tag that already made a promise before I touched it. Wrinkle free. Machine washable. Stays cool in summer. Somebody at a factory decided that claim was worth printing in permanent ink, and most of the time it holds up. I still don't just take their word for it.

There's a Haggar button-down in the shop right now, brown and striped, collar size 17.5, tag says wrinkle free in letters almost too confident for a $10 shirt. I ironed it anyway before I photographed it. Wrinkle free off the factory line and wrinkle free after sitting folded in a bin for who knows how long are two different things. I'd rather check it with my own hands than assume the label's still telling the truth.

That's most of what I actually do here, if I'm honest. Checking things other people already told you were fine.

I don't have a quality control department. I don't have a return desk with somebody else's name on the lanyard. If something reaches you and the collar's gone soft in a way I didn't catch, or a button's looser than it felt under my kitchen light, you tell me and I fix it. No form, no explaining yourself twice to two different people. Just tell me what's wrong.

I think about it like this. A stranger wore this shirt before you did. Washed it, maybe wore it to work for years, maybe wore it twice and decided it wasn't for them. I can't fully know any of that. What I can do is look closely, be honest about what I find, and stand behind it after it leaves this house. That's the whole deal, and it isn't complicated. It just takes actually doing it every single time, not most of the time.

So if something ever shows up and it isn't what I said it was, say so. I'd rather hear it from you than have you quietly decide not to come back.

Choose to be kind. Choose to be grateful. Choose to be happy.

— Nina of GiaNina Collective