I guess the more important question is why would you want to store shirts 3 years?

I've had issues with black old stock shirts shredding when stretched. They were stored is an unheated warehouse.

 

I've had issues with black old stock shirts shredding when stretched. They were stored is an unheated warehouse.

Very concerning, maybe the damp is what did it to them ?

@andmanbjj
I was wondering about something like Dry Rot, but I did not konw the name of it so couldn't do any research.

Dry rot should not take place in my current storage. They are stored in plastic bags in plastic boxes in a room that is on the second floor, and air conditioned about 20 hours a week. The store that warned me of this is quite humid, and has poor ventilation.

I was wondering if the chemicals in the possibly deteriorating plastic bags and the dyes might be part of it also.

Anyone else have any ideas?

 

Dry rotting maybe? But I have black t shirts I've worn longer than 3 years

 

Used to be some brands were over dying their black and you could see an occasional breakdown problem. I don't know of any of the major brands that over dye anymore. The same is true for some off brand embroidery threads.

Overdye is a process where, for example, they run a batch of a color shirts only to find the color isn't right so they over dye to black. It is a pretty harsh process to put a fabric through.

But I agree with others, I would much rather have green dollars in the bank than black shirts on the shelf for three years.

And be careful of poly bags as a long term storage solution, they pose another set of problems. If you do poly bag, get good vented bags or a fold over bag that allows some breathing. But poly bags are more suited for keeping the dust off. I can;t see where they would add any benefit as far and longevity.

 

I work at a dry cleaner during the day and we advise customers to avoid storing the clothes in the plastic bags long-term. I will ask the reason when I get back to the store shortly.

Sent from my LTEvo.

 

Sorry for late post, but I've got the answer to this.
Dry rot happens to black shirts that have remained unwashed for extended periods of time. Usually 10 years or more. Not all black shirts though. They had to have been dyed with a sulfur based black dye. Over time, if remained unwashed, the sulfur deteriorates the natural fabric. It's actually really easy to test shirts at risk before it happens.
I had some dry rot shirts and sent them cotton inc. for lab testing. That's how we solved this. For more details, check out the article I wrote for DEFUNKD. It's called "pHuck your t-shirt"

 

Cool. That was an interesting and fun read. Sure you're not a Rocket Surgeon?

Here's a link to it:
How to Test for and Save Your Vintage T-Shirts From Dry Rot

 

Hope you are fine, according to my personal experience plastic bag not good for long time preservation because sometimes moisture affected badly on your clothes colures and also its thickness so you should need to preserve them in Corrugated Box and put air vacuum medicine inside. You can save your shirt colour for long time using this technique.

 

We have purchased old stock in the past and never had an issue. What brand is falling apart after 3 years?

 

These we're proprietary brands that you will have most likely never heard of, not a major manufacturer. It seems that although they are masters of the sewing, and printing, the people who are busy dying for them are not so swift. None of them are Old Stock, some of them are only 8 months out of dying. Really cheap trash, had to stop buying from them altogether.

 

Wow this thread is still active.

We found the problem, it was specifically Black Sulfur Dye.

The shirts we were buying were not washed after Dying, and the Sulfur in the Dye was continually eating through the cotton as we stored them.

We have resolved this issue mostly by not dealing with people who use Sulfur Dyes, there are better dyes available for a bit larger cost that we are more than willing to pay for.

If you are in the business of selling shirts you are dying yourself, and use sulfur, I would suggest possibly educating your customers about non sulfur based dyes that they can pay a bit more for you to produce.

We are a retail seller of shirts, not a wholesaler, so storage is an issue, as it will be for many of your end customers. We were dealing with people who were trying to maximize their profits per sale, and not educating their customers about it.

I am likely not the only one who had to toss out thousands of t-shirts and then stop business with them entirely for their unwillingness to explain the limited lifespan of their t-shirts to us beforehand. Some of the ripping shirts made it into customer's hands which forced us to either refund them, or send them new shirts, in addition we got a few bad reviews on Social media because of it.

To make things worse, some of the companies we dealt with, initially did not use sulfur, but switched to it to try and maximize profits later on, so while we thought their products stored well due to previous instances of storing it, it was no longer the case.

In the cases where we still have to purchase a few of the Black Sulfur dyed shirts, we are washing them after purchase, we expect this will increase the lifetime of them for storage, but have not yet had the time to test the theory out fully.