Is there any quality left?

[Tsukiko]

I have been searching for a couple of new jumpers and trousers for 3 months and not having any joy because I don't much like current shapes and also due to quality concerns.
I have always avoided buying cheap turnover fashion items, so used to purchase from the middle ground, but in recent years I notice the quality of these items has also plummeted, whilst the pricetags keep increasing.

I am willing to buy one or two higher priced items if I can guarantee quality, but such stores are not within my area or would take a heck of a lot of time to visit.

Is there any truly good cashmere out there now? I used to trust John Lewis, Poetry, etc but something has definitely changed. Wool trousers are all crazy trend shapes with clown legs or voluminous crotches, and I can't find anything suitable.

It is the wool I am bothered about most. The mid range (£200-£300) bracket such as White Co, Reiss and Whistles are not what they used to be, regardless the cost.

I kind of want to give up, just buy utilitarian stuff from Carrier Company but I know such masculine shapes don't suit me. I wish they did.

Any advice or tips regarding where to look would be fantastic. There's so much choice out there now but so much crap. Buying clothes used to be really simple. Even when you get used to a brand now it will do a sudden lurch and the sizing and quality will fly off!

In times gone by, people would buy little and make it last. Stores like M&S, BHS etc sold staples that didn't date badly, and the quality was decent.
How people shop has changed. People want things that are fashionable. Stores like M&S are competing against cheaper shops. If they only sold good quality long-lasting classic styles, they wouldn't get much business.

@KirstenBlest, I think you really are talking years ago now. Fast fashion really gained popularity in the 60s with Biba! It was priced so young people could afford it.

I was a teenager in the late 60s/early 70s. I had a Biba poster on my bedroom wall and I deeply regret never getting the chance to go but quite honestly, I no more thought of shopping there than I thought about flying to the moon. Where we lived (and we weren't exactly out in the Styx) 60s fashion was something you read about in Jackie. It wasn't real life.

That video talks about Biba selling dresses for £2. That would be equivalent to £38 today, so not something an average teenager would have been able to buy often.

I started buying second hand when I was 16 or 17, not for ethical reasons but because it was the only way I could afford to buy clothes I liked. I'd supplement with the odd new item, which I'd save up for, and later by making my own clothes - very badly. Not that different to now really.

I briefly gave up in the 90s when the price of clothing began to come down and then went back to it a few years ago.

@Floisme well, admittedly it was only the start of fast fashion as before ready to wear you only had couture or small independent dress makers. Barbara herself talks about making fashion more affordable.

And this is what is happening now. The trouble is that as a nation we are generally poorer so can afford less. So 'high to mid range' is lower quality as a result.

I think my observation that the high end of high street is meeting up with the more mainstream high street fashion in terms of quality is true. I have never really been able to afford high end high street as a matter of course. Or indeed those almost mythically long lasting high quality goods of decades ago. If I ever have had an item like that it is more through chance than me searching it out. As a result I am used to keeping more clothes and having a larger rotation.

I wouldn't want to go back to the days of one spare set of clothes nor would I want to. Nor do I think that is more ethically sound due to all the washing involved! As I said my clothes generally have good longevity.

For most of us, I'd say fast fashion didn't really begin until the 90s, when manufacturing moved overseas and prices (at least in real terms) began to fall. Like I've said it made enough of a difference for me to temporarily give up buying second hand at that point, because it didn't seem worth the effort any more.

I'd say the peak years for the British high street - when prices were low but quality was still relatively high - lasted from the late nineties until the banking crash. For people who were young or growing up then, as many posters on this board were, then it's understandable to assume that fashion had always been like that. But in reality it was a bubble fuelled by credit and totally unsustainable. I think we're still paying the price.

I was in my late teens in the early 90's.
I recall the turnaround of new clothing on our high street was much, much slower than it is now! However we wish to categorise 'fast fashion', there's no mistaking the onslaught began after the millennium and steadily grew with the popularisation of the internet.
I remember being shocked at websites like Lookbook, Tumblr back in 2008, with absolutely masses of young women wearing new outfits every day. This has since spread to the middle aged bracket, and you will find the most excessive consumption in our age range on instagram. I guess they call this 'growth', uugh.

I was so excited in my teens to visit Topshop each season. The store was definitely not restocking constantly, and I could save up for months for a pure wool coat there and be able to rely on it not having sold out or being replaced by new styles.
It was rather a big event for us, locally, when new stuff landed in.

Now, the endless scrolls of 'new in' at brands such as COS and even NavyGrey are becoming similar to H&M. We shouldn't allow ourselves to be conned by the greenwashing and eco-focused marketing of higher priced brands. It's all performative at the end of the day, another way to shift units and create customer loyalty.
I prefer Tesco with it's bloody clubcard, at least is isn't trying to sell me a fiction. We know it's 'big bad corp', it isn't hiding in plain sight. We know the clubcard collects data as opposed to selling us a fantasy of consumer utopia.

Edit: Tsukiko does not work for Tesco but is fond of their mozzarella balls with semi dried tomato

It's funny, though, at least with all the 'new' it means that we have more exclusivity and diversity since several iterations of styles in one season means that fashion is becoming so fast it is incredibly diverse. No one can keep up! Which in turns means it is slow! 😁

Nothing is screamingly 'in' or laughingly 'out' anymore. We can literally wear almost anything without looking odd. Added to this the booming second hand market only increases the diversity.

We shouldn't allow ourselves to be conned by the greenwashing and eco-focused marketing of higher priced brands. It's all performative at the end of the day, another way to shift units and create customer loyalty.
I prefer Tesco with it's bloody clubcard, at least is isn't trying to sell me a fiction. We know it's 'big bad corp', it isn't hiding in plain sight. We know the clubcard collects data as opposed to selling us a fantasy of consumer utopia.

@Tsukiko

Indeed! You just need to accept those high street brands masquerading as 'high end' really aren't superior to the mainstream. If you want individually artisan crafted products they usually have always been more expensive unless they are actually a very small company or an individual literally starting out or producing as a hobby.

Sorry first paragraph should be in bold quoting @Tsukiko

@heyhohello , I'm not that old!

I was a teenager in the1980s. Fast fashion was bought in markets or cheap shops. General clothes were from boutiques, M&S, JL etc. Something nice but not too expensive was from Topshop, Chelsea Girl, etc. Pocket money was saved up to buy things.

Generally the clothes had to last. I used to swap things with friends or modify the clothes. I had a wardrobe that would have emptied into a suitcase.

I remember Biba being raved about in old cast-off magazines from older cousins.

Even in the 1990s, if you went to a department store, it would be the same clothes all season. I remember admiring a coat all season in the late 1980s and when it was in the Sale I decided I no longer liked it.

Yes I think Zara was the big gamechanger in that respect. Retailers were quick to copy their model of introducing new lines all the time but until they came along, you could spot something you liked and then spend a couple of months saving up for it. Suddenly (and it did feel sudden) it was all 'Buy me now or lose me forever'.

@KirstenBlest ditto! Except I mainly got things that were hand me downs or that my mother got from the catalogue or that I bought from the likes of Top Shop/Miss Selfridge/ River Island (on a good day) market / discount stores if I spotted a bargain.

I didn't get many hand me downs as female cousins were a lot older.
We did get jumble sales unsold stock sometimes and try to refashion new garments from them.

My mum was still wearing clothes from the 60s til she died last year.

@heyhohello ·

I cannot wear wool as it makes me itchy. I am happy enough with acrylic knits. I am wearing n acrylic cardi from Sainsbury's and very happy with it. I also wear polyester instead of viscose because Viscose is what makes me sweat. Though I have noticed some polyester stuff is just wrong. Primark blouses which seem to be made out of shower curtain material for instance!

@Deathraystare yes, synthetics do vary enormously. I think there is a lots of technology that goes into producing the,

Even people who don't like them will probably have some items that are synthetic - active wear, bras, tights, Lycra in mixes, synthetic elastic, coats...I think we should be acknowledging the value of their benefits. A more rounded view. It just seems more honest.

I think a lot of shops' clothes are not the quality they once were.

Sizing also seems to vary wildly too.