This Vancouver Fashion Designer Is On a Mission to Make the Perfect White Tee

Fit-conscious Adapture’s Vancouver-designed shirts are anything but basic.

The most complicated thing you can do is keep things simple. Or so it goes at Vancouver-based Adapture, where founder Shane Long is forever chasing the dream of the basic white tee.

Back in 2012, Long found himself working at the streetwear boutique Haven as he studied product design at Kwantlen; soon, he dropped out to design the in-house brand full-time. Over the next decade, he dealt with high-scale, high-end products, but he began to feel the itch to take a chance and strike out on his own.

“I wanted to design something that was accessible, but still that same level of quality,” Long recalls. In 2021, he started by developing a fabric that would hit that sweet spot—something that was technical enough to wick moisture but soft enough to look and feel like cotton. Adapture was born.

That fabric wasn’t the only way that Long was changing things up for menswear basics. His collection tosses out the notion of one-fit-fits-all, too. “The perfect silhouette just doesn’t exist,” argues Long. Which is why his brand doesn’t just offer sizes, but also different fits. Adapture’s artfully crafted basic tees ($70), colourful long-sleeve shirts ($80) and smart chinos ($185) come in a trio of styles—slim-fit, standard or relaxed. In clean, confident colours (sunflower yellow, forest green) or classic neutrals, these are the shirts fans reach for to adapt (a ha!) their looks. An extra-soft, nice and boxy Relaxed tee for summer (“It’s the Vancouver vibe,” says Long); the not-too-bulky, not-too-snug Standard for weekend beers; and the tight-fitting Slim, ideal for layering under your crewneck or a button-up shirt. “Most people wear that one as an undershirt. We’re not all on The Bear,” laughs Long.