Yes, it has gone downhill terribly -- to the point where I'm getting quite pissed off about it.
I recently bought a few thick cotton tops that seemed good quality, weren't massively cheap, but after a few washes, they look like rags and are pretty much unwearable for another other than gardening or housework. Someone was telling me that it is down to using cheaper cotton with a shorter thread length.
Again, for the first time ever, both of the underwires have poked through on a Freya bra I only bought early this year. And the elastic band on a pack of pretty polly cotton knickers I bought earlier this year has come away from the rest of the knicker.
I've noticed it with DH's clothes too. Fairly new cotton underwear falling into holes and "bobbling", socks shrinking (since when did socks shrink?), an utter inability to find a decent pair of natural fibre work trousers for him ...
The thing is that it all starts to get quite expensive. Fast fashion is an illusion if a top costs you £10 but you only get two wears out of it. That's a fiver a wear.
I was big into fashion in the early 90s and used to buy some fairly pricey designer items. Everything was lined and finished off beautifully. But M&S back then was known for almost indestructible clothing. I seem to remember that there used to be regulations that M&S knickers had to survive something like 6000 washes.
I really don't know where to buy clothes anymore. DH and I are at an age where our clothing needs to look smart, tidy, and stylish, not very fashionable, and we don't have the time to constantly shop for clothes.
I tell you where else I've noticed the problem: bed-linen. I still have fitted sheets and duvet covers that my grandma bought in the late 80s and they are almost as good as new. Yet I've had to chuck a few sets that I've bought in the last decade over the last couple of years because the cotton had got so tissue thin.