TCOTEditorial and checks
How we choose what goes on a shelf
The checks a piece passes here, the words we refuse to print on it, and what a clothing label legally has to carry.
The second wash
We wash a sample before we sign anything off. Colour that shifts, a hem that twists or a seam that puckers on the second wash is a fabric we do not take.
The reach test
Somebody puts the piece on and reaches for a high shelf. If the hem comes up over the waistband, the body is too short and the pattern goes back.
Water, honestly
Shells are sprayed, worn and sprayed again. What we print is what the coating still did on the fourth wear, not what it did on the first.
The label says the fibre
Fibre content, origin and care go on the label because the law requires them. We pass on the maker's wording rather than improving it.
Four things a piece has to pass
None of these are laboratory tests. TCOT standards come from the ordinary ways clothes disappoint people, turned into things somebody looks at before a run goes out.
What we will not print
We refuse the word waterproof on a shell that only resists water, and we refuse an origin claim nobody gave us. A reassuring word on a page is the one thing a buyer cannot check, so it is the one thing we leave off.
Where a maker states a fibre, a treatment or a country, we pass on their wording rather than improving it. Where they state nothing, we write nothing, which reads duller and works better.
Where a piece goes back
A knit that pills in a fortnight, a dye that shifts on the second wash, a shell that stops beading on the fourth wear. Each of those sent a run back, and a hanger shows you none of them.
Labels and standards
What a clothing label has to carry
Three federal rules cover almost everything printed in the side seam of a garment. Here is what each one requires, quoted at the source.
“The Rules require that labels identify manufactured fibers using the fiber's generic names”
“The FTC Act gives the Commission the power to bring law enforcement actions against false or misleading claims that a product is of U.S. origin”
Most textile products must carry the fibre content, the country of origin and the responsible party. Care instructions come from a separate rule, and the maker needs a reasonable basis for every line of them.
An origin claim answers to its own rule. A print of a flag is artwork and engages none of it, and the label alone says where a piece came from.
None of those three is a badge anyone buys. Each one is a requirement with a citation, and the citations are public.
Sources
Everything above, at the source
Each page below was opened and read on the date shown. Where our wording and theirs differ, theirs is right.
- Threading Your Way Through the Labeling Requirements Under the Textile and Wool Acts, U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Read 2 September 2026.
- Clothes Captioning: Complying with the Care Labeling Rule, U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Read 2 September 2026.
- Complying with the Made in USA Standard, U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Read 2 September 2026.