Packaging, Delivery, Presentation

As you will see below, I have a lot of very positive things to say about this shirt, but their packaging and presentation is not one of them. For those paying the full retail price of $115 for this shirt, and even for the thrifty ones like me paying $85, that's a lot of money to spend on a shirt. Thus, I was expecting some pomp and circumstance in the un-packaging experience. I was very disappointed.

As you can see in the picture, it's literally just a shirt in a box. Nothing more. No welcome message, no cool shirt bag, just a shirt in some cheap bag material in a cardboard box. Honestly, my first feeling was that I was somehow being cheated by some bullshit techy company making believe they had created something new-age and pretending to care about the customer, while not giving a damn once you have made your purchase. Now, as you will see below, that is certainly not the case here, BUT COME ON! That first interaction with a brand new product is SO important, and after 5 years of being in business they should know better than this. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I expect better from MIT dudes. Get your head out of space and back to earth!! This was especially surprising given that their website design and copy is really solid. They do a great job of explaining why they are different than other shirt-makers, and their product descriptions and pictorial presentations are all A+.

In terms of delivery, I ordered the shirt on a Thursday and it was delivered the next Tuesday, so decent turnaround for a non-Amazon Prime delivery, especially since delivery was free. Also, all domestic returns and exchanges are free. Lots of upstarts will burn you on the shipping or return fees (like WatchGang), so nice value from Ministry here.

Quality, Style & Value

Quality: I have one word to explain the quality of the Apollo 3 shirt: unfu--ingbelievable. More than any other aspect of this shirt, the quality of the materials that they make it with is where they stand out from 90% of the shirts that I have in my closet. It's not just "better" quality; it's also a completely different and next level quality. Now, before I get into the details on this, I should mention that this shirt is "made in China" (or, as they say on their website, "Made in BlueWave Factory" in Fuzhou, China, which sounds like a kind of cool factory). As sophisticated shoppers know, the country of origin never tells the whole story in terms of quality and, at this point, China is just as capable as any other country at producing high quality clothing. Yes, "made in China" still has "this is crap" connotations. But that's truly not the case anymore. And it's definitely not the case here.