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?

If you look under the fabric tab on the item description it tells you about the provenance of both the fabric and the garment.

Sorry, posted without refreshing the seeing the other replies!

I love aslan - where are you buying clothes please?

Is there any clothing manufacturing left in the UK?

I used to visit factory shops for M&S, Next and Laura Ashley, Dewhirsts being one of the large manufacturers. This industry provided jobs, where I am, now all gone.

Saying that, I think Barbour us UK based….? They do have a factory shop.

There are small manufacturers, trouble is very few people will want to pay the price of UK clothes manufacturing. Things like h&s, NMW make a massive difference.

I think Burberry trenches are still made in Yorkshire?
I seem to recall an undercover documentary about suppliers to Boohoo/PLT or another similar site, using factories in the Midlands and them not paying NMW, not that long ago.
Do they still make undies in Coronation Street?! 😂

Barbour seem to be like Celtic (sheepskin) and Doc Martens now, in as much as the vast majority of the product is made in China, India and Portugal but for marketing purposes they’ve retained a very small range of higher priced ‘premium’ product made in the UK. The info on Barbour that I could find says its just a few of the jackets.

Aaaah Laura Ashley in the 90’s. I got some really lovely stuff from them in my 20’s. I wish I’d kept them. I was shocked when they became just another crappy high street brand and then closed down. It seemed quite sudden.

Expensive and niche so perhaps not relevant to this discussion Cabbages and Roses say they buy their fabric from British manufacturers like Abraham Moon and have their garments sewn in Cambridgeshire, with no factory it will have to be by outworkers - some of the things I’ve got look quite homemade. I’m just referencing them because I was a collector until last year.

They buy in knitwear from China and have done since the start but until a couple of years ago they had some of their lambswool jumpers made in a family owned mill just five minutes from me - I knit with their yarn ans recognised all the colours in the patterns by name!

My two older sisters used to work evenings in a tiny factory making Burberry trenches in Halifax, West Yorkshire!

It was the mid to late 1970’s - during the ‘Ripper Enquiry’ as its now known - so my Dad went on the bus to collect my sisters from work at about 11.30pm most nights.

They would sometimes bring fish and chips back with them. I was seven or eight years old and a couple of times I was allowed to get out of bed and have some chips. That must have been a real treat if I remember it forty odd years later!

To stay relevant to this discussion I think the vast majority of factories making clothes in the Halifax/Huddersfield area had closed down by the time I left the area in 1990.

Community clothing use British factories and their lambswool knitwear is so lovely and soft and very reasonably priced for the quality.

I think the eco message is a factor yes. Charity shopping, vinted etc is now more acceptable to a range of customers especially younger buyers. I know very well off people who shop secondhand and tell me about it - that didn’t happen 5 years ago

I've noticed that fashion has stopped changing and occasions have merged - stuff from 10 years ago doesn't look as dated as it used to, if you were comparing 1995 with 1985 for instance. I don't dress up for the office and as a result don't dress down at the weekends. If I'm out for dinner, I'm probably just wearing a nice blouse and smart jeans. Even between seasons, it is the same clothing but with different layers. There's just no need to go clothes shopping as entertainment any more.

I was just re-watching some old episodes of Seinfeld and Friends and thinking how remarkable similar the fashion was today!

DD's city of London based company did a thing recently where you bring in clothes, get tokens depending on quality, and then use those tokens in exchange for other clothes. A company runs it across the city, so you get a good selection of high end clothing. This in an area where everyone is pretty well off too. The younger generation are very pro vintage, re-use, re-cycle etc. She got some really nice things.

But surely the stuff you buy on Vinted is the same tat that has faded and shrunk

This very true. In 1995 you really couldn’t wear anything from 1985. The cut would have been totally wrong and you’d look instantly very obviously out of fashion.

Styles have changed since 2014 but I could still wear my skinnies and ankle boots from that time and look maybe a bit bland rather than glaringly out of fashion. I still see plenty of people wearing this look.

@OooScotland the chips 😂
There were many textile factories in West Yorks, maybe a hangover from the mills being nearby? The ones near my MIL made lots of M and S products.

And I know the 90s are back, but you could wander around in any of the friends outfits and hardly raise an eyebrow, I don't think you'd look 30 years out of date.

Except that style suits only a certain shape. So while a twenty year old might wander around looking great, there is very little chance a fifty year old would look current doing the same thing.

True!

Good. The garment industry contributes to a huge slice of global pollution. Not to mention the amount of stuff that ends up dumped on beaches in the global south.

Like many, I use Vinted for everything now apart from underwear (and the odd item of outdoor gear that's hard to find secondhand). However, even Vinted is frustrating as sellers aren't obliged to state fabrics. I'm becoming more and more conscious of just how crap plastic fabrics are, whilst it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid them. I bet even a lot of dresses on Vinted that the sellers might proudly state are cotton will have elastane as a minor component. Whilst secondhand anything is always going to be more eco friendly than organic cotton, it's still frustrating not being able to make fully informed choices on there so you can know you're buying one of the rapidly dwindling supply of cotton (or even viscose) items available.

I'm in New Zealand.

Or you can just ask them to show you the label?

True! Sometimes people don't always get back to you when you ask further questions, though. I wish providing this info was the default.

I buy a lot from eBay but it annoys me that a lot of the used clothing isn't described in a practical way any more. Instead, the description reads 'Elevate your wardrobe with this lovely jumper...' or similar, with nothing about the condition or sizing.