To think the price of clothing has soared!

New Look has lots of dresses in the £30 range. You do have to search through the tat for the gems, though. And there is always a 25% code floating around.

Primark still has decent children buys but you have to actually look/touch the material to figure out if it's going to last. £7 for branded joggers is good.

M&S has kids' clothing discount codes all the time. The clothing is very good quality and they are doing more branded items (i.e. pokemon, harry potter). Their cotton pjs last for ever.

Nike/Disney/NBA store we only shop during big sales (NBA just had a good one). Happy to pay £25-30 for a good quality kids' hoodie if it lasts and lasts and can be handed down.

Stuff like adult shoes, jackets/coats, sweaters we only buy higher quality, expensive items now, and sell stuff on when we get bored of it.

I just buy in the sales, I bought some Seasalt and WhiteStuff things in Next sale recently. Because clothes like this aren't generally fashionable it is never worth buying at full price. I bought some summer jeans from M&S with a 20% Sparks discount.

I think the supermarket stuff has gone up. I bought a skirt from sainsburys. It was 28.00 which was more than I am used to paying from there.

Was going to say this.
I am no style icon but am fussy about quality and fit and I have had so much fantastic stuff from Costco.

Am another one who tries Vinted and eBay first but I don’t buy shoes and trousers on there. Need to be able to try them on.

My DD has a pair of vintage Levi’s she has worn to death so has been stalking eBay for the exact model and size and bought two more pairs last week. One is perfect and the other is too tight and long. Some things need trying on.

Much as I’m sick of not being able to afford nice stuff any more because my wages are low and everything is expensive, it’s about time we stopped the culture of cheap ‘throwaway fashion’ - better for the planet to buy less and wear more. If I want something I can’t afford new, I go to Vinted and have got some great work clothes from there. Yanbu though in that every damn thing has got so expensive compared to wages, for those of us at the lower end of the massive wage gap. I don’t go clothes shopping that often so haven’t really noticed it there as much as you, but we never eat out any more apart from McDonalds and I can’t justify buying anything in a coffee shop any more.

Do people honestly need new clothes or do they just fancy new clothes.? Do people shop as a hobby or when they’re a bit bored. I used to be a bit like this. I still am sometimes but try and restrict myself to second hand shopping. If you find vintage clothes from places like M&S and remark on the quality you need to remember that proportionally that purchase was probably quite a pricy for someone. ( cost versus their earnings).

That works out at £5 per item of clothing, which isn’t unreasonable at all.

Agree with PP, we all got used to ridiculously low prices and now things are priced at what they should be it has come as a big shock.

YANBU. Not only is everything really expensive, it's all really nasty too. I spent ages scrolling through several online retailers this week and found nothing that I would actually want to buy

Costco sometimes has good deals on branded clothes.

What pisses me off is my local charity shops regularly charge more than the original retail price for dirty damaged clothing! I can no longer afford to shop in charity shops. I sew my own now.

Zara was significantly cheaper in Spain than in the UK before Brexit ever happened. It certainly can't have helped, but it's definitely not the only reason

"Why has it gone so crazy?"

In March 2022, the minimum wage for most adults was £8.91.
In April 2024 it's £11.44.

That's a 28% increase in just over two years. That's for the people that work in the shops, in the warehouse, cleaners, people that maintain the buildings and computers/tills. It will also affect the cost of things they need to use in the business like cleaning products and till rolls and toilet rolls.

Electricity prices for business are astronomical at the moment. The business I work in, their electricity has gone from £450 per month to nearly £2000 per month. It's a small business in a building the size of an average house. There is no price cap on business electricity. The cost in places like Primark will be astronomical.

I imagine too, that makes have gone down, as people can afford less. These overheads still need to be paid for by customers. That will also have a knock on effect on prices.

I do agree with the vinted comment. I haven't been able to get much success on there, and I'm not alone. Great if you do well though.

Agree with the shop prices, but I'll also say it - charity shop prices have increased and the quality of clothes has been poorer. Not all, I still get some very good purchases, but I've definitely noticed it.

Completely agree!

Ordered my 3 children, 3 pairs of leggings/joggers and 3 T-shirts each and it came to over £90, nothing fancy just navy bottoms and multi pack of T-shirts for the top 😵‍💫

As well as more general inflation, Brexit has had a huge impact on the clothing industry.

Hopefully, some of the price increase is attributable to a greater focus on supply chain sustainability and labour conditions.

Additionally (much needed) increases in minimum wage have caused significant cost pressures across the retail sector.

I've always been a fan of independent brands (or individual makers) with a focus on quality and sustainability, so I don't mind the increases in high street prices, as it makes the clothing I like (which generally lasts for ages) far more affordable/financially justifiable in comparison!

‘Cheap’ brands yes are really bad value for money and are absolutely more expensive than they used to be and cost a lot per wear. It’s actually cheaper per wear to buy expensive and keep it a long long time. ASOS etc quality is just awful. I still think M&S is good x

This x1000.

We have been spoiled with very low inflation for a long time. Everyone expects low prices but then complain about low wages.

£20 for a pair of black trousers for school for DD from New Look the other week! But they fit her so we just had to take them although I'd have expected to pay only between £10-15 not so long ago.

The prices you are used to paying are stupid, though. I make some of my own clothes, and I couldn’t do so for cheaper than primark just paying for materials / not accounting for labour. If you consider it takes several hours to make a dress, the materials involved, is it really reasonable to expect to pay less than £30?

Harsh. I would say for every 30 things you buy, there’s a terrible one.

Totally agree. I used to buy basic black work trousers from Asda for £4; doesn’t seem that long ago. The equivalent is now £10 more. Everything is so expensive now.

I purchase all but underwear secondhand. Eco-friendly and costs less.

It's been a race to the bottom for too long. Keeping prices lower proportionately over a long period of time when they really should have risen. And now a sudden jump. Prices should have increased slowly over time - then it would still feel like value for money.

It's a similar patten with the cost of eating out. Prices in restaurants literally stayed the same for ~10 years. Eating out feels like a cheap treat when it shouldn't.

Eventually restaurants are forced to increase prices due to inflation (after a period of reduced quality while the try to reduce costs), but it feels like too big of a jump after such a long period of static prices. A few months later, restaurant closes.

Prices should have gradually increased in line with inflation to give restaurants a better chance of survival.

yes. this. and yes clothes, food all have been far too cheap for far too long, yadda yadda, but wages haven't risen to match at all.

What do you mean by the reseller problem? l know from facebook groups l am in that clothing resellers try to get away with selling on Vinted, although it is meant to be private sellers only, and also some buy items cheap on there to sell for more on other sites