Which brands still make good quality clothes?

[TwoMagnificentLabradors]

We’ve heard loads on here about the decrease in quality of many brands (Boden, FatFace, Hush). Which brands (old or new) still produce decent quality clothing that lasts and lasts, and represents decent value?

The three items I’ve been most impressed with this year are my Hobbs Tilda coat (rich colour, softest wool, gorgeous lining), my Toast pyjamas ( make my feel like Anna Madrigal, if anyone gets the reference) and a Brora sweater I picked up second hand in a charity shop. DMIL buys lovely stuff at Poetry, but it’s not really my style or my price bracket for regular purchases.

Any ideas for brands worth a try?

Well, you kind of are, aren’t you? That’s why you’re tagging posters who have offended you by not liking Whistles clothes, whinging about ‘unnecessary negativity’ and imputing sinister motives to anyone who disagrees with you (“I see what you’re doing!”). Get over it.

Don’t sheep eat grass though? And using crap materials was years before Ukraine.

It won’t be anything to do with that at all, it costs a farmer more to shear a sheep that he gets for the fleece. The price is currently 103p per kg for clean fleece. Last year farmers were getting about 30p per kg for fleeces. It will be the processing and dying where the cost is added. Most fleeces are less than a kg total and shearing per sheep costs about £1.60 per sheep.

@fyn I didn’t know that. How depressing. A lot of wool comes from countries with lower welfare standards (and presumably lower costs), so maybe feed costs increasing internationally. I always look at the welfare standards when purchasing wool. There is the second issue mentioned of growing cotton (cost of pesticides (I try to stick to organic) and land).

Sheep fleeces vary hugely in quality by breed. The sort of sheep that produce beautiful soft fibres for drapy clothes turn soggy and fall over if you put them on a welsh hillside.

The sheep that will happily live in british weather eating scruff produce fleeces mostly suitable for carpets.

Yes, there are exceptions, before a proper woolist tells me all the reasons I'm wrong. But it's a good rule of thumb.

I said this in another thread a while back, but now before I do anything else I flip the garment over and look at the composition and seams. I've had great t-shirts from h&m for £2.99 which have lasted ten years and I've had a shitty wool jumper from a higher-end brand that cost £100. I do think h&m still do some things really well, particularly cotton and linen. My maternity wear was exclusively h&m and it washed really well.

Generally I love COS, their clothes wash well and don't bubble. The 100%cotton stuff from Uniqlo too, although it shrinks more. Arket for t-shirts, and quite sadly I really rate shoes from Clarks. Not trendy but they last well.

Sainsbury's clothes for kids are brilliant, the adult stuff less so.

My husband just got some t-shirts from Rapanui and they seem fabulous.

I agree with Whistles, sadly. I love the designs but too much man-made stuff. I've had some success with Jigsaw, particularly the silk/merino mixes which are fabulous and machine-washable.

Good quality: Maxmara, Margaret Howell, Joseph, &Daughter (at the higher end), Rapanui for t-shirts, Patagonia for outdoor clothing. Seasalt for weather proof coats (can look a bit frumpy, but work brilliantly).

Variable: Jigsaw (still holding up, but fussy styles, and increasing use of polyester), Uniqlo (good for cotton things and technical coats, but lots of polyester in knitwear, trousers, etc.), COS and Arket (deteriorating quality of materials and finish, seams coming apart).

Poor or worsening: Whistles, Boden.

@Pigtailsandall I also rate Clarks. My chunky black boots are from there.

Oh and Craghoppers for outdoor wear. Much cheaper than Pantagonia and great stuff.

Clothing made in Europe is generally better than average, but the prices are also higher.

The same thing is happening to a lot of the European brands too, especially as regards synthetics over cotton etc. The effect may have been delayed, but it's still the same.

About 10-15 years ago, shops in Poland had, to my impression, a lot more of nicely done cotton than in the UK, where synthetic fabrics was much more visible. I noticed a big rise in polyester and viscose in the mid 2010s, so that while Orsay (a German brand, which I used to like for blazers in particular but also had some knitwear and tops) was stocking a similar style blouse to one I had from the early 2000s, mine was cotton and their new one was polyester and a lot of their other things were viscose. I have some jeans from Big Star, which is a Polish brand, and now they're less cotton than they used to be as well.

Polyester/viscose instead of cotton is now an international issue.

Margaret Howell for knitwear
Varley and Lululemon for activewear
I still like Levi’s for denim even though the quality is not what it used to be.

Everything else my style and in my price bracket or below seems depressingly shite.

There is still a good and very high quality UK knitwear industry. Companies like John Smedley, Johnstons of Elgin etc, still manufacture the knits and make the fabrics for top couture businesses. But the prices are not mid-market, much less high street mass market. Think about £300 for a sweater. Or M&S. Most of us settle for M&S. I rate Uniqlo very highly for normcore staples but the simple woollen/cashmere charcoal poloneck I have been searching for since October hasn't surfaced yet. IMO it's the undue reliance on the textile shows colour predictions for the next year. Surely, most people should be able to grasp that there is a replacement market need for the black, white, cream, navy, olive/khaki, charcoal and light grey staples that we wear and wash on repeat. I am never going to spend a lot on a cyclamen pink sweater with bouffant sleeves that I will wear twice and might stain with curry or red wine.

I agree about wanting normal staple type clothing rather than weird cuts, but the same applies for other colours. There's the same replacement market for other colours. I don't have any jumpers in the colours you mention and I'm certainly not going to start wearing khaki, grey and charcoal, all of which I would look dreadful in. The people who like more brighter clothing rather than dressing in greyscale and neutrals, like your cyclamen pink example, which isn't my colour, want to replace them too.

That is, I agree that some colours/shades are more perennially popular than others and that you'll always get customers who'll want black and navy, but I'm not convinced that there's such a market for your other listed colours that's significantly larger than the market that wants some shade of blue, green, red, purple.

Totally Precipice, I only chose those colours because sludge is my default setting. Accessories I can change cheaply are my colour fix. I'd buy expensive bright trainers, if comfortable, to lift all the neutrals but wouldn't spend more than £30 on a bright sweater. Mainly because I'd get bored with it.

Place marking, hope you find what you’re looking for OP

Jeans - surprisingly, Asda - they wash brilliantly, they don’t get baggy or overstretched and they are basically indestructible.
Dresses - Albaray ones are lovely. Really well made!
jumpers - most surprising of all - Cotton Traders men’s ones. They are brilliant! Plain bright colours, wear well, long enough, which is my major bugbear for jumpers, no bobbling…..

I’ve just bought an Autograph cashmere roll neck and I didn’t want to take it off.

I also like Sezane knitwear. It’s really warm and the colours are great.

Colours, especially bright/true versions of red and blue and green and purple, don't often appeal to me for clothes, and I'm not big on patterns. Muted versions of all of them are fine, but for full on colour it has to be inexpensive or accessories. Basically I wear monochrome top and bottom half year round, and then have bags, shoes, coats and scarves to vary the picture.

I can't stand Whistles. It's so so overpriced it's a joke, polyester dresses and nothing interesting.

I love Hush style but the quality is variable - I wouldn't risk knitwear but their jersey stuff - sweatshirts etc - are excellent and wash perfectly.

Uniqlo merino is trustworthy.

I too check labels and have given up on viscose despite all the lovely swishy midi and mini dresses around at all price ranges from Zara to Reiss

Abra but Hiut denim (I like them too) is not an everyday buy for most people. I treat myself to one pair a year.

Sorry Abra, you're quoting a Hiut denim fan, not saying you like it.

Muji is amazing.
Ditto Superdry, Uniqlo, and Land’s End, as mentioned before.

I've got some nice dresses from Whistles - I always check the label, only buy in the sale and will buy viscose but not polyester. I think all the shops are hit and miss. I also wonder if they suffer from having too much stuff now. I normally online shop but the selection is so huge that it takes forever. The quality is bound to vary due to quantity.

I've actually bought some decent stuff from M&S in the last year but you need to be selective.