Clothing Sales are down - No surprise

[TheSuggestedAmendment]

So the ONS data on retail is out. And sales of everything including food and leisure went up in December - except clothes.

Just a suggestion here but could it be because clothes have become wildly over priced at every level and consumers are just saying no?

@GellerYeller that's why it was so popular, mass broad appeal

Their shoes were the best on the high street in terms of styling & pricing

@GellerYeller

Yeah you're right, Topshop was good for jeans and shoes, and maybe the odd jumper or coat. I still felt weird about going in and queuing up with all the teenagers though. It may have been a different experience in larger stores like London etc.

I guess that the younger generation preferred ASOS and Boohoo. The explosion of online retailers meant that they had more choice than we did.

I’m still buying, but I never buy much in December knowing most things will be heavily reduced in the sales. I bought one pair of jeans reduced from 250.00 to 70.00 in December. I did try to buy the same pair one size down in the same order, but the shop cancelled the order, they must have lost them in the warehouse.

The other issue for me is the cost of dry cleaning high end clothes. You may not pay much for a good cashmere jumper or silk velvet trousers, but cleaning costs make cost per wear very expensive.

Im part of the Vinted appreciation club. I only buy BNWT and I’m often replacing what I already have.

I have a good disposable income, but I refuse to buy overpriced, shapeless tat that is made in China.

I want cotton, linen, silk, wool and leather. I want sleeves with proper cuffs not balloon sleeves with a bit of elastic. I want jeans in heavy cotton without 20% elastane. I want T-shirts that don’t go out of shape after one wash. I want shirts and blouses that have darts so they fit around the bust - I don’t want an oversized sack. I want to be able to order something in my regular size and know it will fit. Not much to ask is it?

I don’t mind paying for quality, but I’m not paying over inflated prices for shein quality tat. Back to Vinted I go….

Yes I agree with this! I still like dressing up and thinking about what to wear but quite often I turn up to a restaurant and everyone else is in jeans. Nobody dresses formally for the office either. Fashion has changed a lot and people just don’t need as many outfits anymore - if you want to dress up you can but there’s no societal expectation.

Also Vinted! Everyone I know who is into fashion and shopping buys a lot on Vinted now.

100% agree, they were usually good quality, leather, and always a little bit different to whatever the rest of the high street was selling en masse. I’ve actually still got some 70s inspired wedges that come out in summer, my kids really like them 😂

I recently bought a secondhand leather blazer in a vintage shop for £30!!! Very similar for sale on high st for £200+.

I agree, quality of new clothes is awful and over priced, I hope some fashion buyers are reading this thread!

i was impressed by m and s today. Lots in there I really like and fair prices too. Made me think of this thread as their basics were great. Thick t shirts, silk shirt, long denim skirt, loads of jeans cuts and colours. Loads of navy, cream, black so wearable.

Thankfully, inspired by the Great British Sewing Bee 3-years-ago, I took up sewing. I never for a moment thought I might be able to make clothes, but things progressed and it turns out, I can 😃 Each season, I check out the styles in what were my favourite clothes shops, then find the right sewing patterns and make my own. The beauty of this is that I select my own fabrics. I don’t use cheap fabric. No Polyester for me and good quality fabric is certainly not cheap. Compared to Primark etc, ‘me made’ clothes are quite a bit more expensive, but compared to Hush, Other Stories, Cos, Boden etc, a me made item using great quality fabric (often better quality than some of their stuff), it will be much cheaper. I just saw a viscose dress in Boden’s new range. It’s not to my taste, but another sewist I know just made one that is practically identical. The Boden Version is £135, a me made version in very high quality viscose would cost £65 and could be much less!

For me it’s 5 things.

1. WFH I used to love buying new clothes and wearing them to the office / big meetings. I don’t do either now.
2. Lots of the shops in my local shopping area that I liked have gone bust or relocated. I used to buy most of my things from Oasis / Warehouse / Topshop / French Connection, none of those shops are there anymore.
3. I go out far less since the Pandemic, which also coincided with having young children.
4. Vinted
5. Supermarkets have upped their game when it comes to fashion and whilst I don’t clothes shop much, I still have to do the food shop and buy a lot of basics.

Off topic but I'm also wondering whether people simply don't have the space. So many in 2023 put off upsizing. Appreciate that we're not aiming for a celeb style walk in wardrobe but still. A smaller house is likely to have smaller bedrooms and less place to shove stuf like unworn clothes.

@AnnieSnap well done! I have made clothes in the past. My DM was a fab seamstress and I have her machine but lack the time these days. I have made curtains and cushion covers though and love having something unique.

I used to wear all M&S but the sizing is shocking now, though they still have (thin and poor quality) natural fibres and their own brand is still cheaper than elsewhere for stuff like cords and sweatshirts if you can get them to fit, which at 5’ 0’ and size 14 I no longer can.

Our M&S is now all Seasalt, Jaeger and other brands since all the clothes shops and John Lewis pulled out of Aberdeen during the pandemic. I never go into town any more, there’s nothing there.

I needed trousers a couple of months ago and ended up making my own. I despair at what shopping has come to, I really do.

Our big Sainsbury’s used to have lovely big changing rooms but they closed them last year and that area is now the entrance to argos 🙄.

I have picked up some nice stuff in the past from charity shops and have had a decent parka that have been from TU at Sainsbury’s but overall I find supermarket clothing a bit naff. I don’t understand the love for supermarket clothing at all.

Is there a love for supermarket clothing? I’ve been stuck in big supermarkets waiting for DH a few times recently and have looked round the clothes sections to pass the time. I’m always the only person there.

Some good basics in supermarkets. I have some lovely linen shirts from Nutmeg and sweatshirts from Tu.

Cabbages and Roses dresses are usually lined. I always cut them out because linings make the garment dry clean only, make me feel claustrophobic and, as they’re polyester, sweaty. I love the styles but its such a terrible waste of time and £££ having to do that. I gave up a couple of years ago and mostly make my own now.

Is that actually true or just wishful thinking? Genuine question. Or is it that people can just no longer find or afford decent quality new clothes any more?

I haven’t bought anything new in years but I can’t honestly say its because ‘the message’ has got out. I haven’t really thought about the environment if I’m honest because I never bought wastefully to begin with.

I bought 'new' only twice last year - a skirt on sale at Arket and a pack of Rapanoui t-shirts. Everything else comes from Vinted. I've replaced my entire wardrobe with really lovely quality clothes from Vinted over the past 2 years and will never look back for all the reasons already mentioned above.

Where I live I can still find cotton (although not so much), linen, wool, and leather - but they are still mostly made in China, including those from good quality brands. Just because something is made there doesn't automatically make it tat.

I agree with a lot of what you have said, but don't get this idea that just because something is made in China it is inferior. Of course you have your Shein etc., but in this part of the world most things are made in China, that's just a fact of life.

That’s certainly me.
Plus what I have is much better quality than the poor fabric & frumpy design of a lot of stuff now. Not that I get to the shops much now as the few women’s clothing shops that were in my nearest small market town have all closed down yet the council have made parking extortionate. So it’s a choice of what the supermarket sells, a day long trek to & from any larger town or online shopping which I hate. So for me, I’m just shopping my wardrobe for the foreseeable future.

I have been on a diet. Gone from a size 14 to a size 10. Everything in the shops is over big and baggy. Big huge bloody jeans and massive jumpers. I have not lost all this weight to wear more over sized clothes.

I have always worked for UK manufacturing companies. For the last 20+ years I have seen how UK/European companies have died off because of the dominance from Chinese companies. Firstly, they copy your designs and intellectual property. Then they flood the market with cheap copies. Once the UK company has gone under ( they can’t compete financially), they increase the prices.
I’ve seen it happen in a different industry. I absolutely believe this is now happening in the fashion industry.