Why are there so many polyester clothes around? Looking for dresses in nice breathable materials.

[Gointothesun]

Why are so many dresses and other clothes made of polyester these days?

Any recommendations for shops where I can find clothes that are made of decent materials?

I have recently come across dresses around the £100 price-mark that are made of polyester, from Whistles and Hush and other shops. When I first saw them I thought they looked nice, but when I looked at the label I saw they were made of 100% polyester!

These are dresses with sleeves. Surely that's a recipe for becoming hot, sticky and sweaty as soon as you start moving, given polyester isn't breathable and traps in sweat.

I have even come across beach dresses (not even cheap ones) made of polyester. Surely that's the most unpleasant thing ever and it would just stick to you.

What is happening?! Why?? All my mum's old dresses were made of nice breathable materials and I'm sure that several decades ago the quality of high street clothes was better.

I was reading an article in a magazine around a year ago about Vogue Williams - her dress looked stunning. I found it online - it was one of her own collection - and ordered it. It was £££££.

It arrived and I was so excited....only to see it was 100% polyester and hideous. It looked and felt like a tent!

FatFace do quite a lot in cotton & other natural fibres but you do need to check the labels.

Yes, this is such a problem and I also hate it. It’s becoming increasingly hard to find anything non synthetic on the high street. I am completely wearing out all my current clothes because I just can’t find anything decent to replace them and I am genuinely regretting not buying a huge amount of clothes back in the days when it was easy to get decent clothing. A lot of people I know have taken to making their own clothes and honestly I’m upset enough about it to consider this but I am super crap at sewing 😭

When it comes to jumpers I quite like a wool/acrylic blend as pure wool makes me itch like hell, and 100% wool coats are too heavy, mine is about 70% wool.

I've not completely adverse to polyester, depends what it is really but I can't say getting too hot is the issue at this time of year, quite the reverse. Definitely cotton is a good idea in summer though.

Just looked and the ribbed polo neck I have on today is 100% acrylic and looks as good as when I bought it, whereas I've bought and passed on many wool jumpers which have gone bobbly or not washed well in the interim. Must be at least twelve years old - I found it in a bag of clothes I'd forgotten about in the loft, earlier this year.

I 💯 agree op , I saw an absolutely gorgeous dress on ASOS and it looked perfect for a wedding . I’m really into floral,boho dresses and it’s for a wedding in a really hot place. It was around 70 euros and I was so shocked to see that it was 100 percent polyester exactly the same as shein dresses. I’m a size 6 and find it hard to find the right sizing online and I don’t live near any big shops .. but 100 percent polyester I was shocked to see it at that price

This is the dress I bought that looked dreadful IRL. Horrible thing. Was just like being wrapped up in plastic.

I have a lambs wool sweater from Community Clothing and it's quite gorgeous.

Even worse the recycled polyester, I get it from the environmental impact (would like
To see some real stats on that) but I can wear it. It's like wearing binliners. I bought a pair of (not cheap) next gym leggings by mistake, felt like they were sliding down my legs the whole work out.

yetanotherday makes the crucial point about cotton not really being sustainable ‐thank you for raising this. Hence my tireless plugging all over this forum of the brilliant virtues of buying second hand: clothing, technology, personal care, homeware ‐all of it! None of our consumption is sustainable, and so much, sadly, gratuitous.

Buying second hand puts you in the blessed position of not having tickled the the tendrils of the supply and demand process, triggering the perceived need for further resource extraction and fossil fuel burning involved in the refinement, manufacture, transportation and distribution of new goods.

I could have written your post!

I shop in TK maxx (not their own brand) and the Max Mara outlet online or in Bicester, for silk, wool, cotton, linen etc. These items are more expensive full price, but if I look after them and pick classic styles, I find things last.

Patra silk has occasionally nice dresses, more for work or casual, but nice fabric.

I do also like rayon, cupro and tencel...... I think they are man made but not from plastic. Always get a nice weight and drape from them

Even in Cotton Traders I have to check the "made from" label.

I've noticed Fat Face use a lot of Ecover now, which is better environmentally than cotton, but similar in structure, and made from wood. Bamboo also seems to be becoming popular for underwear.

Outerwear gives me the rage. We have some fabulous coats, all pretty old now, feather and down. The new iterations are all recycled polyester or plastic bottles. Just no.