How do you know ‘quality’ material?

[Tonty]

What is the make up of fabric you look for when buying clothing for instance and what percentage of a mix should I be looking for?

I’ve. Moved away from just buying something pretty or trendy to wanting to buy fabric that actually lasts. I recently dipped my toe into the world of COS for a sweatshirt...OMG, I’m converted! The quality is amazing! It is 92% cotton, 6% Polyamide 2%Elastane.
So I’m trying to stick to cotton, I bought 2 sweatshirts from gap, they were cheap but made of 77% cotton the rest polyester. I’ve washed then twice...big mistake! They are completely washed out, bobbled, you can see colour patches just awful.

Someone advised buying organic cotton. I’ve seen some that are 100% organic cotton priced at £79 but discovered another online store today with also 100% organic cotton sweatshirts costing £30 each, are they the same, What am I missing? My warmest jumper is from H&M and is made of 100% acrylic and cost £16.99 it’s warm and soft and I’ve washed it like a hundred times but was told the best jumpers have a mix of wool in them but cost upwards of £50.

Same problem with trousers, they all seem to be viscose & polyester but priced at over £100. are there different grades of viscose, polyester, wool cotton etc?

Can you please, please post the fabric makeup of your best and most durable clothes.

What an interesting thread! @PursuingProxemicExactitude - your posts are particularly fascinating. I fear lots of MNers would be utterly horrified by the advice to wash clothes as little as possible!

I started paying a bit more attention to what clothes were made of when I started knitting. I don't have a big budget but I'd really like to buy long-lasting clothes made of better quality materials. Does anyone have any recommendations for good online second-hand stuff in addition to Ebay?

I have managed to shrink two pure wool jumpers this year . I still wear them, as they were oversize to begin with. Now they're cropped 🤣.

Anyway, I have found the extra fine merino wool jumpers from Uniqlo really forgiving in the wash. You can wash them with everything else, which inevitably seems to happen if I don't guard the wash basket and someone well meaning chucks it in with another load. I've washed and even tumble dried (by accident) my merino jumper and it is still fine. Not pristine, but wearable and the same size it was before.

This is such an interesting thread. I do quite a bit of sewing/knitting and it's made me choosy about fabrics, but it's true that there is more to fabric than just its fibre content. I look for fabrics with a close weave/knit and a bit of weight/drape to them. More and more I buy vintage or better quality brands secondhand as there is so much rubbish in the shops, even in mid price range.

All fabrics have an environmental impact, some more than others. Lucy Siegle's book "To Die For" is interesting reading.

The other thing is that all synthetics aren't the same, viscose/rayon isn't sweaty but it does use chemicals to produce. Polyester can be very finely woven into good quality fabrics/sportswear and it seems to me these sort of fabrics must shed fewer fibres than bitty fabrics like polar fleece.

I like to wear wool for things that look like wool (knitwear/formal clothes), perhaps I'm lucky not to have allergies/moths/washing issues as often mentioned on MN. I think it's a shame that wool was once the foundation of the British textile industry and now we seem to be terrified of it whilst being desperate to buy ever more cashmere.

Thank you, lazylinguist.

Knitting is something I was thinking the OP might find rewarding. I too haven't the patience for dressmaking but remember enjoying knitting, for a couple of weeks or so, in a previous century ...

I must admit I'm a bit clueless when it comes to secondhand online clothes. I've made one successful purchase from Vestiaire but they're very much a designer market, and a little frustrating to navigate.

That's useful to know IllNeverLetGoJack. Usually I hand wash jumpers until they become mere home clothes, when I'm willing to take a risk. But it's been fine so far.

I think it's a shame that wool was once the foundation of the British textile industry and now we seem to be terrified of it

Absolutely. I live in an area that used to be particularly dependent on the wool trade. I was reading in a book recently by a Cumbrian farmer that when they shear the sheep, it's hardly worth the effort of collecting and bagging up the wool because it's only worth a few pence as nobody wants it. So they sometimes burn it! That seems quite strange to me, considering how much one can pay for good quality knitting wool.

Knitting is something I was thinking the OP might find rewarding.

It is very enjoyable and rewarding to produce something wearable or usable with your own hands through any craft hobby, I think, especially when fewer jobs these days involve craftsmanship. It takes a fair while to get good enough to make decent garments beyond hats and scarves though!

The joy of making your own pair of socks or taking some wool from the sheep and making an accessory is amazing. If you have the skills, I would recommend trying it. Realistically most people couldn't. It does make you re-evaluate what a well make item should cost.

In non lockdown times I love groping my way through a TKMaxx rail. Feel of fabric first, colour second and then fit. Once I skipped home with a luscious Joseph dress with 90% off.

Toast does reliably great fabric, very well made also, took apart a pair of trousers DH totalled a knee on. Very impressed with the construction.
Many others higher end high street stores seem quite inconsistent.

You can just feel luxury fabrics. Feel the difference between a cashmere overcoat and a stiff as cardboard coat. Go into a top department store and look at labels and feel the fabrics, then try some on.

Also colours are much truer and brighter. Black should be very dark and dense, not the grey tinged black fabric that is cheaply and mass produced.

Not all polyester is the same. Bog standard stuff is used in clothing.

Engineered polyester is used in sportswear. This is designed to be breatheable and wick away moisture.

It’s the chemicals in viscose that cause sweating, not the wood pulp.

Polar fleece is made from polyester. It’s the pile on it that causes the shedding.

And, confusingly, not all polyester clothing is bog standard.

I have some quite magnificent polyester trousers from Acne Studios (at least six years old); thick material, hang beautifully, repel sweat (don't ask...). Every year I look for an updated equivalent, but haven't seen anything, from Acne or elsewhere, that compares.

When l said big standard l meant it hadn’t been engineered to have special properties!!!

Big standard comes in different weights and thicknesses.

Anyway back to the original topic!! I hate told that are made if thin fabric that’s see through. H and M are good at this!

Oh - I wasn't disagreeing with you, ArseInTheCoOpWindow!

Charity shopping/browsing can be a great way to compare and contrast fabrics.

A really interesting thread. I‘m also someone who makes a lot of their own clothes and so am a bit obsessed by fabric content.
On the whole, I totally avoid any polyester content as just find it too unbreathable. My only exception is for Ponte Roma, which I don’t usually mind if it‘s got a high viscose content (around the 70% mark). I don‘t generally mind viscose, but know from my own fabric shopping what a massive difference in quality there can be. It can range from being really thin, creasing easily, cheap feeling to the most beautifully drapey fabric around. I‘ve just bought the most gorgeously soft viscose twill - it actually feels and looks like silk.