Single stitch vs double stitch, and what it actually tells you

Turn up a sleeve and look at the hem. Collectors call a hem with one row of stitching single stitch, and a hem with two parallel rows double stitch. It is one of the first things people check on a vintage band shirt, and one of the most over-read. Here is what the sources say it can and can't tell you.

Telling them apart

Look at the sleeve hems and the bottom hem from the outside.

• Single stitch: one row of stitching running round the hem.
• Double stitch: two parallel rows, close together.

Then turn the shirt inside out. Most double stitch hems are a coverstitch: two needles sew the two rows you see, and a looper thread underneath zigzags between them, covering the raw edge of the fabric (University of Kentucky Extension, Coats, AMANN). In the industry's numbering this two-needle coverstitch is stitch type 406, and Coats, a thread maker, says its main use is hemming knitted garments.

A single row can be made more than one way. A single needle lockstitch (type 301) makes a tight, strong seam (Coats); the Victoria and Albert Museum records lockstitched hems on a mass-produced American T-shirt from 1980 to 1983 (V&A). A chainstitch also uses one needle, with a looper underneath (University of Kentucky Extension). So one row on the outside doesn't tell you which machine made it; the inside does.

Check every hem. A shirt can be single stitched on the sleeves and double stitched at the bottom, or the other way round, and a hem that has been mended or taken up may not be the one it left the factory with.

Why the hem changed

T-shirt factories hem sleeves and bottoms on coverstitch machines built for exactly that job. JUKI, a sewing machine maker, describes one of its industrial coverstitch machines as "best suited to hemming processes for sleeves and the bottoms of t-shirts", at up to 6,000 stitches a minute (JUKI).

Collectors agree that most blank makers moved from one row to two during the 1990s. They don't agree on exactly when, and nobody has a firm answer on why. ThriftCon, a vintage clothing fair, says the consensus on why factories switched "isn't exactly concrete", and offers faster machines, hiding flaws, cheaper fabric and NAFTA, which came into force in 1994, as possible reasons (ThriftCon). We found no maker's own record of the change.

What single stitch tells you

Single stitch fits a shirt whose blank was made before about 2000. The collector references put the change in slightly different places:

• ThriftCon says a shirt with two rows is likely "a newer shirt (late-'90s and beyond)" (ThriftCon).
• Thrifted, a vintage reseller, puts single stitch shirts "usually" from the 1970s through the early 1990s (Thrifted).
• Defunkd, a collector reference on vintage tees, documents a single stitch shirt from 1997, and says single stitch has no relevance from 2000 onwards (Defunkd).

Museum records fit that picture. The V&A holds a 1991 Hanes shirt with "single stitching along the sleeves and hem" and a 1998 shirt with "double stitching along the sleeves and hem" (V&A, 1991, V&A, 1998).

So our vintage tag dater reads single stitch as a sign of a shirt from 1999 or earlier: a general sign that supports the tag's reading, never one that sets the date by itself.

What double stitch tells you

Less than people think. Defunkd documents double stitched shirts from as early as 1973, and from 1978, 1990 and 1991 (Defunkd). So two rows don't make a shirt new. The tag dater gives double stitch no earliest year at all, and reads the tag instead.

What it doesn't tell you

• That a shirt is old. Single stitch is a choice a maker can still make. In 2025 a revived maker of vintage blanks brought single stitch hems back on its new shirts, as "a beloved detail of the originals" (Complex, 2025). A new shirt can have one row.
• When it was printed. The stitching belongs to the blank shirt, not the print. A blank can be printed years after it was sewn, and an old design can be printed on any blank. The back print's dates and copyright line say other things; our guide to reading a back print covers them.
• Who printed it. A hem says nothing about whether a print was licensed. Our guide to telling an unofficial shirt covers the signs that do.
• What it is worth. Thrifted puts it simply: "not every single stitch tee is rare."
• Which hem lasts longer. Collector sites disagree, and we found no test that settles it. Whatever the hem, mend a loose end before it runs, and see our washing and storing guide for looking after an old one.

Read it with the rest

The stitching is one sign among several. Read it with the tag, the care label and the print: our guide to reading a vintage tag goes through each, and the tag dater weighs them together from a photo of the tag and the hem. To photograph a hem so the rows can be counted, see how to photograph your merch.

Sources

Sewing and textile references:

• University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension: Cover or Chain Stitching (CT-JB.001)
• Coats: Basic Stitch Types
• AMANN: 600 Series, Cover Stitch Types
• JUKI: MF-7900-H22 coverstitch machine

Museum records, Victoria and Albert Museum:

• T-shirt, about 1980 to 1983, lockstitched hems
• T-shirt, Hanes, 1991, single stitching
• T-shirt, 1998, double stitching

Collector references and reporting:

• ThriftCon: The Differences Between Single Stitch and Double Stitch
• Defunkd: Single-Stitch, as the tag dater's sources record it, rechecked on 11 October 2026
• Thrifted: What Is a Single Stitch T-Shirt?
• Complex: How Screen Stars Became the Standard for Vintage Tees, 2025

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