Remember when Next used to sell good quality clothes?

[peaceanddove]

I was browsing eBay and looking at vintage 90s Next & Laura Ashley clothes. On a whim I bought a cream, knitted cotton jumper with a roll neck, from Next. It's just arrived. OMG it is such good quality. It's really heavy but soft and just looks like a very good quality sweater. Love it.

Also, was thrilled to spot a candy floss pink, fluffy sweater from Laura Ashley circa 1995. Thrilled because DH bought me the said same sweater Xmas '95, and I loved it so much. Until I shrunk it Again, the quality is just amazing, so heavy, soft, seams properly finished.

It's made me so nostalgic for when the high street sold good quality clothes.

When I was a student in the late 80s/early 90s I had a Saturday job in Next. Its target market was somewhere between M&S and Jaeger and so many of the clothes were beautiful and so well made. They had a diffusion range called Next Too which was weekend/relaxed wear and featured lovely cotton pin tucked smock tops and angora cardigans. All the shoes and boots were made from great quality leather, and shopping and working it it was just such a pleasure. Nowadays its basically a New Look that’s up its own arse.

I have just found the earrings I wore with the outfit I mentioned up thread from Next.
So they must be at least 35 years old! They are still as good as new as well.

but it taught me how to immaculately fold jumpers whilst standing

A skill I hope you still put to use regularly!

When I had DS in 2003 all the next clothes went through 3 children bland still looked great. They are not that good now!

I remember west Quay opening in Southampton. Omg shopping was a whole day out.

Student in late 1980 when Next launched.
I still have a beautiful pure wool jacket bought approx 1990
Velvet frock coat same period brought out every Christmas
Neither were cheap approx £100 each I think.
Also treated my self to a lovely crocodile style leather bucket bag to celebrate my first job think it was £80 I still have it.
Wedding shoes came from there too £75 still have the box
Household things used to be excellent quality too.
Early 2000s it was more about children's wear for me.
Clothes started to go a bit down hill although I did find an old directory in a cupboard at home think it was from 2008 and the clothes looked lovely and some very classical.
Didn't shop there for years,
During lockdown they were one of the few places still delivering and I ordered some underwear- reasonable quality and I noticed they now sell lots of high end brand like a mini John Lewis .
The Next own brand stuff though looks cheap on par with Matalan / New Look
Might use the next day delivery though for some of the branded labels they now sell.

I agree with whoever said upthread that the high street clothing retailers such as Oasis, Next, Principles, DPs, M&S , were at their peak from about 1998 - 2007, then the financial crisis hit and everyone started the race to the bottom in the form of cheap, throw away clothes. This coincided with influencers starting blogs which necessitated a high turnover of new clothes too. You couldnt tell that the clothes were cheap tat from the photographs.

What i miss most are simple, beautiful, stylish clothes, which are easy to wear and dont wrinkle. I’m tired of being fed an avalanche of frilly, fussy, thin, synthetic, oddly cut rags.

For good quality clothes now, I shop in COS, All Saints, Boden, Pure, Beaujken, Joules, Jaeger, Reiss, Whistles and Jigsaw, plus a few online boutiques - all the bricks & mortar ones have closed near me.

PerfidiousAlbion - your penultimate paragraph, in a nutshell!!

I remember Next in the late 1980’s. They were considered a middle tier high street shop ( a bit like Jigsaw now). Their clothes were well made and stylish. Not like the shop today. It’s a shame.

I agree about the financial crisis and influencers Perfidious. I also think the rise of online shopping has made it much easier for retailers to fob us off with tat. Only someone with a truly expert eye can judge quality on a screen; we're less likely to shop around - because who wants to tie up their credit card with multiple buys? - and when it arrives, we're far more likely to shrug and say, 'it'll do.'
It's also given retailers an excuse to focus on the stock in their flagship stores and downgrade the rest so we retreat further online and the spiral carries on down.

I started off a huge fan of online shopping - and of course that's all there is at the moment - but now I think we've been well and truly played.

There are copies of the 1988 Next Directory online. The problem is that we expect clothes to be so cheap now, so there is now way they can retain the same high quality. In 1988 the prices were the same as they are today over 30 years later! Whereas now, lots of people refuse to spend a lot of money on clothes in shops like All Saints, Cos etc.

I also remember the luxury of the Next Directory and very stylish River Island shops. They were aspirational for me as a teenager but by the time I could afford to buy there, they’d gone downhill

Agree it’s frustrating that price is barely linked to quality now. I spent a ton on a Reiss jumper recently that bobbled horribly in a 30 degree 15 minute wash!

I think we only expect clothes to be cheap because they are sold cheaply.

It’s my belief that the companies made a profit-driven decision to cut costs and hence quality, because they calculated the increase in revenue was worth the hit to their ‘quality’ reputation.

They must’ve reached a different financial conclusion for men’s clothes, it worked out better for them to maintain the standard.

I have still have a skirt that I got for my birthday from Jigsaw that cost £50 in 1990. Although expensive, this didn’t seem a ridiculous price then. The equivalent skirt would probably cost £80 now in Jigsaw. So prices in some shops have increased, but shops like Next haven’t increased at all.

I agree fridge - unless you go really high end, I often think there's no discernible difference in quality between the supermarkets and mid-high end high street shops. I also have some bits from Asda and Sainsburys that I've worn to death, got lots of compliments on and they've lasted for years.

@fridgepants

I have clothes I bought from Tu at Sainsburys that have lasted years. Maybe this makes me very middle aged, shopping there rather than at Missguided or Pretty Little Thing.

I do find it annoying that price is now no indicator of either quality or whether the person making it got fairly paid and treated.

I buy quite a few bits from TU as well, I really like the style of a lot they sell and the quality is similar to the high street. However I will say I don't think the clothes have the most flattering cut and I buy quite a few bits that look lovely on the hanger but when I put them on the shape is just a bit odd. I'm quite curvy though.

The high streets really taken a nosedive, not just in quality but in cut - even considering people are bigger sizes nowadays, having a waist smaller than your hips or chest is still the norm, so why is nothing cut for anything other than a C cup with no hips?
(Sidenote if anyone does know anywhere that cuts for hourglass shapes please let me know!)
Im also buggered because im 5"7 and the high street seems to have been exclusively cut for people who are 5"4 or below the last few years.

Floisme Can I recommend Klarna? I use it exclusively to order multiple items of clothes online without carrying the financial overhead. Most of it is precisely for the reasons you state - it’s impossible to judge cut/quality/ colours etc accurately. You purchase as normal, select your Klarna account and then manage all the returns and payments through the Klarna app. Combined with free returns from retailers, it minimises the opportunity cost and also encourages me to have better standards, because I don’t feel I’ve committed to an item in the same way as if I bought it with a credit card.

I remember when the Next shop opened in Dublin in the late 80s, it was fantastic, it even had a very chic cafe. I often tell dd about the beautiful things I got from next, I don't think she believes me!

I was a student at the time, and really into fashion. I remember I used to buy a lot from the men's department, lovely shirts and one of my favourite purchases ever, a chocolate brown suede backpack, it was a soft, floppy knapsack style, I wore it to death.

They also had brilliant shoes, really classic styles, great quality.

My memory is that it was very like Massimo Dutti is now, classic shapes, great fabrics and look much more expensive than they were.

I know it seems like a relatively small thing, but one of the things that really annoys me about a lot of high street clothes, is that so many of them are not cut properly on the grain. In order to cut costs & get the maximum number of pattern pieces out of each bolt of cloth, cheaper clothes manufacturers usually won't bother to ensure that pieces are cut along the grain. This means that the different parts of the garment stretch in different ways, don't hang right when they're drying, in the wardrobe or when you're wearing them, & it tends to get worse over time. It's really noticeable with stretch fabrics. Cheap t-shirts & pyjamas are awful for this. Next used to do lovely well cut t-shirts, but I wouldn't buy there now.

I've also noticed a horrible trend for cheaper clothes shops to sell knitwear, where the pattern pieces are cut out, instead of knitted as whole pieces. So the edges of the pieces unravel really quickly. This was actually one of the final nails in the coffin for me, for Next. I noticed that some of their knitwear frays at the edge now. Shoddy, shoddy workmanship. It might look like knitwear but it's just coarse stretch fabric, cut & bound at the edges. It doesn't last last very long, if you look at the jumpers some of them are already starting to come apart while they're still in the shop.

I think they started in the 80s and their clothes were gorgeous. Unusual colour combos' quality fabrics and stylish. A bit like Hobbs of say 10 years ago.

The problem for Next and all the retailers to be honest is the popularity of Primark and the online retailers like Boohoo.
And although I agree the quality has declined, their T-shirts are still a whole load better quality than All Saints for example which gets away with the skinniest fabric which twists the minute its washed and still charges a fortune.
However, I do hold Next responsible for the vanity sizing trend.

A friend in the biz had some very critical feedback on the fabric used by Samantha Cameron in her clothing range, Cefinn. Bought from the cheapest mills in Turkey, apparently, but still sold at big prices.