I'm not sure when the golden age of everything being non synthetic fibres and excellent quality was but for sake of argument let's say 1980. £50 in 1980 was £12.18. Were leather shoes selling for £12 ?
it’s complicated because of changes in the global economy since then. I have lots of my mum’s and mine and my siblings’ clothes from the 70s-90s, and if anything that was also the age of synthetics - but almost everything was made in the U.K. Postwar clothing in those years was not great quality - all the baby clothes my mum had for us were mixed fibres and synthetic mixes; ditto the decent quality clothes from brands like JL, M&S, etc. However, shoes were mostly leather (and comparatively more expensive than current shoes - and also largely made in the U.K.).
It was in the later 90s-mid 2010s that clothing quality improved massively, and you could get well-priced natural fibres even in the mid-market (Gap, etc.), as well as the upper mid market (Jigsaw, etc.) This was largely because of the globalisation bonus where we got to buy decent quality clothes (as well as fast fashion), largely made in the far East at knockdown prices because of cheap labour, shipping and currency arbitrage during the long boom of the 2000s.
I assume that what we’re seeing is the unwinding of that period when we could ship in good quality goods because we’d outsourced the labour. Now those economic benefits are reversing, but brands still want to make the same profits as before, and so instead of cutting their profit margins to still make quality goods, they’re swapping decent fibres for cheaper synthetics in the hope that the entire fashion industry can keep on as before and we won’t notice. Brexit didn’t help any of this, either.
Not sure if it will work though. In the West we have declining purchasing power and for many people the era of wanting cheap clothes at any cost is over. For me, I’d rather now wear the same few decent quality things until they wear out than buy cheap stuff I don’t like. But that’s in a way exactly what I did in the 90s and early 2000s anyway - it’s just going back to a time where we didn’t all buy as much as we’ve got used to. BUT I would just like to be able to find a decent item when I do want to spend the money!
I have lovely cotton and linen and silk dresses I bought, for example, for around £89 in Jigsaw in about 2010. Now, I accept that I’d probably have to now pay £150-200 for the same quality. But they aren’t even selling anything like that, even at double the prices. Brands seem to have decided that we’ll all be getting polyester anyway, at whatever price point they choose. Personally, I’m probably going to accept that I’m at the age where it doesn’t really matter if I don’t look the height of fashion, and I’ll wear my silk and linen 2010 dress instead of buying a crinkly viscose one that doesn’t fit and makes me sweaty at £200.