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Dear American Vintage,

I recently bought an American Vintage top and I’m afraid that it will definitely be the last time that I do so.

The first time I wore the t-shirt, I made a small stain on the front of the garment. There was no care label on the t-shirt (nor any evidence that the shop had removed it) so, in order to remove it before the stain set, I immediately treated it locally with some very mild, delicate laundry liquid. The stain came out – but I realised that I was left with a whitened patch in the area that I’d used the soap.

I have owned many dyed cotton t-shirts, and this has never happened with local treatment before. In disappointed, I searched in the bin for the labels that had been on the t-shirt when I bought it and found the warning about localised washing. I have never seen this warning on an item of clothing before – let alone on a simple cotton t-shirt! Perhaps using the word ‘vintage’ is, in your case, a way to excuse a cheap dying process which leaves your clothes particularly vulnerable to patchy loss of dye. I find it extraordinary given the price of the garments. I recently washed a stain on a basic Zara t-shirt that cost 8 EURO in the same way and it didn’t lose dye in the way your t-shirt did.

Obviously I feel that I have been cheated by your company, and have been sold an article that is of poor quality dressed up as something special and ‘delicate’ – without even a care label on the garment itself. I suspect that not providing a label is illegal, because I have no way of knowing where the garment was made or what it is made of.