SHOP TALK : A Little Comparison Shopping to Fit Youngsters to a Tee : T-shirts are simple attire, sure, but this youth staple deserves serious consideration. And by all means, take the kids along.

Here in Southern California, there are basically two kinds of weather: T-shirt weather and sweater weather. And it’s definitely T-shirt time now.

If you’re getting your kids ready for camp, you’ll be stocking up on the ubiquitous tee, and there are a lot of them to choose from.

What is the difference between the generic tees? While one mom swears by Target’s T-shirts, another mom loves the Gap Kids’ pocket tee. Even Bullock’s produces a line of low-priced generic tees. We decided to take a closer look to see what really makes these tees tick.

We bought 100% cotton tees at all three stores in a girl’s size 6 and a boy’s size 8. The first and easiest difference to discern is price. Target’s Trend Basics line is the lowest at $3.99. Bullock’s doubles the price of a T-shirt at $8. The Gap Kids Basic T is $7.50.

The shirts all looked very crisp and cute when we tried them on the kids. Target’s T-shirts don’t have the pocket, but the kids didn’t seem to mind. We don’t think that pockets are worth $3.50 to $4 either.

We also noticed, as the kids were modeling, that the neckline on the Gap’s tee looked best. Not a big deal, but Joan Crawford would notice. The Gap’s tee also has the boxiest fit--cut widest through the shoulders and across the middle. When we measured, we found the Gap’s tees to be around two inches wider than the Bullock’s T-shirt and around four inches wider than the Target model. Buying a size larger will take care of this up to a point, but the tee will be a bit long and the sleeves rather wide.

After a couple of washes and hot dryer cycles, we were not surprised that all the shirts shrank. The biggest shrinkage came from the Gap’s shirt. But we were warned at the store to expect this. The least shrinkage was from the Bullock’s tee. Target’s tee shrinkage was somewhere between the two.

As for the softness and the thickness of the cottons, we drove ourselves batty trying to decide. Blindfolding members of the family didn’t help. Everybody had a different opinion. Not having a micrometer, we concluded that the shirts are incredibly close in these categories, the Bullock’s and Gap tees being ever so slightly smoother.

Something we can judge about the T-shirts is their color. The color selection at Bullock’s was uninspiring. Target had some really nice shades of purple and green. Our favorite color spectrum was at the Gap. The Gap and Gap Kids change their “color group” every six to eight weeks. This means that there are usually plenty of T-shirts marked down somewhere in the back of the store.

If you haven’t been to a Gap Kids, you are in for a treat. One just opened in The Oaks mall in Thousand Oaks. Wherever you decide to buy your kids’ tees, be sure to take them along to help pick them out. They’re never a good deal if not worn.