Can we talk about clothing brands and target demographics?

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Because I’m thinking about the brands that form the core of my ‘going out to meet other grown ups’ wardrobe, and laughing at the Margaret Howell mail shot I’ve just opened. (Socks and sandals photo.) Beautiful young model, and each garment will be wonderfully well made - but I know no one under fifty who wears MH. That’s fine - but I wish the marketing acknowledged the fact.

When a brand does make an effort to engage with the real buyers of its clothes I’m full of awe and gratitude - Raey at Matches is usually great at this.

Studio Nicholson hovers somewhere in between. Again, everyone I know (in the UK) who wears their clothes is older and richer than me, probably in a creative profession. Not a wispy 20 year old.

I never used to care. But I’m wondering if marketing is the reason 99% of the middle aged and older women on MN exclaim that there are no decent clothes for them. There are - but not every brand tells you so.

The enko clothes I could find were all suitable for babies/children I could only find these on fb (I don't use Instagram). I think me asking for the reality of crying, snotty toddlers a step too far for these fashion marketers.... 😂

I liked the look of plumo, never heard of this brand before - looks nice and I didn't think the models looked ridiculous either. My main gripe is with the fake baby bumps (ASOS I'm looking at you) I just can't understand it when they're lot of beautiful pregnant/postpartum women out there who would surely give a more realistic image of how something flowed over a baby bump? They remind me of when I played 'babies' when I was little and popped my brothers football under my t-shirt.

Hotmilk do this very well, a mixture of pregnant women and for the nursing bras pregnant and postpartum women. They've even gone mad and thrown a few strecthmarks and the odd section scar in there.

cataloguing Coptic socks

Surely we’re all wondering why our lives didn’t turn out like @Enheduanna‘s? It doesn’t seem quite fair that no one ever sends me on a wool spinning weekend. Is this doctoral / post doctoral research? It sounds glorious. (I get my wool weaving thrills through Amy Revier’s site and the Blue Mountain School site.)

@billydilly I’ve long admired the Klements designs on YBD and have possibly recommended some of them here.

Given that I will quite conceivably be dead in 10 years time I have less and less patience with notions about whether or not something suits me or whether it's considered 'too young' or 'too old' or whether it's practical for my lifestyle or even - if I dare say so on this board - whether it's good quality

I'm on a reasonable but limited budget (which recently got a bit smaller following retirement) and I'm also quite vain still, so I haven't totally changed my shopping habits, but increasingly when I'm looking at clothes, I'm going from instinct. What draws me to something can be shape, colour, fabric, a memory of something my mum once wore, something from an old photo or a film etc etc. Sometimes I don't even know what it is. I don't necessarily buy - in fact generally I don't - but these are the kinds of factors that make me linger over something.

I've felt myself slipping into a rut lately so I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread and the glorious links - thank you and please keep them coming.

how … people come to choose their clothes, and how brands intervene to shape our choices

I didn't answer that in my other short post, so here goes. My mother had great taste in clothes and even though we didn't have much money, as she was a dressmaker she would buy fabric and make some lovely things. This was accompanied by telling me why certain styles were flattering or not on various body shapes. If the newsreader was wearing something that wasn't quite right, Mum would comment 'look how that's pulling across the bust line'. I find I do that same thing now, in my head! So from an early age I've had a strong sense of what suits me and what doesn't, however unlike my mother I am more likely to experiment. She was very rigid and that's not so much fun!

As I grew older I discovered brands like Monsoon that had great colour combos and suited me (as I am tall and thin). I only really like wearing natural fabrics as artificial ones often make me feel too hot. I'm good at looking at a model and then picturing how an item will look on me. What I don't like now is that I am housebound and so can't go round feeling fabrics and trying clothes on. Instead I have to order and then do it.

In the past, because of money shortages, I learned to think and think again before buying anything. I went by my mother's code of thinking about how useful any item would be, what clothes do I have that it will be used with, will it look horribly out of date next year, etc. As a result I have clothes going back a couple of decades.

As I am a skilled knitter, I tend to make my own jumpers unless I want something very fine. I made a lot of Kaffe Fassett styles in the past and absolutely love those jewel colours. I think that made a big impression on me and I still tend to go for those colours.

For me now, being stuck at home, I go for comfort and practicality, and don't see the point paying over the odds for a fancy label. I can see a gorgeous dress online, but if it's not cotton or a natural fabric, I'll move on straight away.

I did investigate Plumo a few hours ago and bought a dress, though! 😎

Oh good Lord, so many things I want on that Klements website!

Enheduanna, I remember having to analyse Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini portrait for art history class, and OMG if you understand the value of fabric that portrait is absolutely obscene (not sexually, except maybe for some 😶 <ahem>). It was, I suppose, a time of having to get up and go with all your earthly possessions so anything you wore had to matter. I've always found it fascinating that for a long time tapestries, furniture, and other (to our modern eyes) mundane domestic inventories were of far more importance and value than the homes they moved in and out of.

Traditional workwear can be amazing, I've mentioned it on these boards before but is supposed to be a secret:
www.detoujours.com/

My most recent purchase, as of this morning in fact, is a large, square scarf with one of those faux Hermes prints - £1 from the local charity shop. Why? because it reminds me of a photo of my mum taken late 50s/early 60s. She's sitting in a deck chair with a scarf very like it folded diagonally, around her head and knotted under her chin - think Queen Elizabeth at Balmoral. 100% polyester of course - my mum could never have afforded silk. What I will do with it, I don't know. But I'll think of something. And this, to answer the question, is increasingly how I come to choose my clothes

Does anyone remember the TV series A Stitch in Time, in one of which they recreated the Arnolfini portrait dress::

I'm a sucker for good quality fabrics - I grew up near Bradford and when I was just starting work, a lot of the mills were closing and selling off products. One, nearer to Leeds was a high-end clothing manufacturer and I bought some suits skirts and silk blouses. Not all were mega-stylish though some were, but all were beautifully made, of excellent material. When that mill sadly closed I bought some of the fabrics and haberdashery, and later had clothes made. I'm still a sucker for good fabric, especially good wool. It saddens me to see so little made of wool, when it's such a versatile fibre.

Enheduanna I remember at least one of the links on the Monty Don thread was for an organisation selling workwear - and I mean proper old school, not the swanning around version of working that I used to do I nearly ordered a jacket that was absurdly good value but couldn't work out my size. I must dig out the thread and take another look.

I am 30 and I am on a very tight budget so I cannot shop at designer brands which I think cater better to my body shape (flat chested and petite) and age. I end up having to shop at cheaper high Street chains like Sezane (which is really low quality), Cos and Toast. The problem I have is that affordable brands seem to design for women who are in their 50s and everything is so long and cut so generously.

A size 6 in toast is not really a true size 6 so I end up not being able to buy 90% of the items that catches my eye.

affordable brands seem to design for women who are in their 50s and everything is so long and cut so generously.

Ha! Tell that to 99% of MN posters over 35 - who all complain that every single thing in the shops is cropped and cut to fit their teenage daughters.

@Emotionalstorm I’m sorry to say you have been born too late! You want an (ethically satisfactory) early noughties version of Top Shop. It was so brilliant … (You probably did go there before it all ended in tears - but obviously it’s now that you need it.) Everything was so tiny I always had to size up. I don’t think I appreciated the quality at the time - but now … And I’m still wearing an amazing Simone Shailes collab jumper I bought there about 15 years ago.

I’ll try to think of some places that might work for you. (Though whether you’d want the opinion of someone twice your age is another question …)

I have an army boilersuit, and I think I bought it new online for £13.50 plus p&p. Looks great, 100% cotton and it was new

I do think one of the reasons we struggle so much now with shopping and with prices is that Top Shop - in fact the entire British high street - was so fucking great in the early noughties. I know, I know, a house of cards build on quicksand, unsustainable in every sense of the word. Absolutely. But my god it was fun. And it's ruined us.

it’s free to browse to educate the eye and inspire. Then one can often by happenstance tune into the aesthetic that appeals to you via much more economical means

This was my mother. She had no money, growing up on the edge of poverty, but she literally devoured all the images of the sixties models that she could find. She knew what was in at Biba, Mary Quant etc etc, and although she could only dream of shopping there, she ran up copies on her sewing machine on a Friday evening to wear out to dances on a Saturday night. She idolised Jean Shrimpton, Twiggy and the rest - and she made sure she looked like them.

She had such a good eye, both for what was stylish and where to find bargains. And she kept up with fashions. In her late fifties she was still shopping in Top Shop, and she always knew what to pick out. We’d go window shopping in Harvey Nicks then the next week she’d turn up in something amazing she’d found in a charity shop for a fiver.

She taught me such a lot about how to choose clothes, and I miss her greatly. I’m finding it very interesting that other posters have also mentioned their mothers as being hugely influential in their shopping habits.

I love the handbag story, @Enheduanna ! Your granny and my mother were clearly cut from the same cloth. One of the very last things she said to me (from her death bed) was “Do you think I should have bought those sandals?”

You’re absolutely right about the sense of identity tied up in dress and accessories. My mother’s world was fashion and style, even though she never worked in that field (or at all, after having dc).

So, after drawing a blank with most of the sources saved on my Home Screen, I fell back on Matches. Where pretty much all the good sale stuff is long gone. However, given your suggested price point (Cos, Toast and Sezanne really aren’t what MN-ers call ‘cheaper’!) you might find the odd thing if you go to the Sale section and filter by size.

I did see these (available in a 6). I won’t say I like them, as that would put you off, but Elder Statesman clothes in a sale ought to make any sensible person happy.

Obviously tap for details!

My mum would be highly amused to hear that she's influenced my style but of course she did, as did my aunts and my great aunt who, like my grandma, had been a seamstress, not that I appreciated it at the time sadly.
And as for worrying about sandals you didn't buy on your deathbed VenusClapTrap, I think this is one of the things now driving me on. I'm going to be cross enough about dying as it is without being tormented by lovely things I didn't buy because I thought my legs were too short.

Aside from the fact that they are orange cashmere cycling shorts, I think this approach to buying something for the name alone is as wasteful as buying lots of cheap tshirts from primark.

At least you would wear the tshirts (before they fell apart). Although I guess purchases like this are what Vinted was made for.