Is it just me?

[Mummylovesmonkeys]

I enjoy looking at the queries on Mumsnet, but can't help thinking why?

Motheroftwo asks for help with a dress for a work do, and gives a budget of £200 - why? - Imanidiot suggests a Louis Vitton dress for £750, or Imbetterthanyou suggests a jumpsuit for £195. What the hell is wrong with a dress from M&S for £50, or one in the sale at Yours for £25?

Ineedideas asks for help with a plain white boxy t-shirt, Superspender suggests one from some obscure designer that costs £150 - what's wrong with the identical Sainsburys Tu one for £5.50?

It seems to me that some people have more money than sense!

they should start setting the lowest price as well as the highest!

That’s part of what I was referring to - someone may well be able to get hold of a fantastic pure wool, beautifully tailored Maxmara jacket (for instance) for less than the price of something polyester on the High St, if they know how and where to look.

When someone says they’re ‘willing to spend up to £500’ what they mean is they want the kind of design and quality that typically costs around £500 new and full price. They’re not interested in saving £400 because someone pops up with something from H&M. (As lovely as that may be.) But they may be interested if you point out that there’s one left, in their size, on a site they might be unfamiliar with. Or, if they only want it for a single occasion they might be glad to know they can hire a suit of that quality for four days for a fraction of the price.

Meh. Not everyone wants a dress from M and S or Yours.
This is Style and Beauty after all.
Each to their own..

Sometimes it seems as if it should be renamed:

‘My Very Important Husband Gives Me £150 Housekeeping A Month And I Get All My Lovely Clothes From Tesco So Why Don’t You? & Beauty’

Sorry …

Cheap fast fashion, yes, but what is wrong with second hand?

Well, I have zero beauty.....does that mean I'm not allowed here?
And I'd be more interested in someone who could look stylish on high st prices then somebody who is draped in labels.

Not that I mind hearing about expensive clothes. Nine times out of ten I think 'that looks like a linen bin bag and would only suit an 8ft tall twiglet' but sometimes i see a nice item and can shop for the cheaper version.

I agree with you, if I have a budget of €250 (I’m in Ireland so no pound signs on the phone 😂) I want a dress that I can wear to the event and wear again and again and again for next 5-10 years! That is not to say that I don’t live a bargain - my best buy last year was a linen shirt dress in Primark - I wish I had bought it in another colour, it is so lovely.

But I’m always amused at €80 white t shirts - I love investment buying, but I would never spend money on white tops - I always end up spilling either coffee or tomato sauce on them!

More often than not people post asking for urgent outfit options and don’t specify a budget at all. That’s annoying.
Orherwise if someone specifies a price point then that should be taken into account.

It’s not for you to decide that someone has more money than sense. I’ve all but given up reading S&B because I’m sick of people coming on saying oh that’s much too expensive look at this cheap crap version instead when the OP has given clear guidance on price range. I can assure you that if someone has specified a budget up to £200 for a dress they don’t want a polyester horror from the low end of the high street. If you can’t see past M&S and supermarket clothing maybe S&B is not your natural home.

@Mummylovesmonkeys

Motheroftwo asks for help with a dress for a work do, and gives a budget of £200 - why

Huh? Are you seriously dissing on someone who has a bigger budget than you? £200 is not a crazy big amount anyway. It's top end high street ffs. Hardly designer prices.
Imanidiot suggests a Louis Vitton dress for £750, or Imbetterthanyou suggests a jumpsuit for £195.
Yes. These are both stupid suggestions. A) £750 is not in budget. B)a jumpsuit isn't a dress
What the hell is wrong with a dress from M&S for £50, or one in the sale at Yours for £25?
Nothing if that's what you want. But if someone wants a £200 from reiss or Massimo dutti or ARKET then it's unlikely something from
yours (?) is going to be as nice. I have never found a single thing in M&S that wasn't bit wrong somehow. Fit. Fabric. Just not nice. Done people find things there. I don't. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Ineedideas asks for help with a plain white boxy t-shirt, Superspender suggests one from some obscure designer that costs £150 - what's wrong with the identical Sainsburys Tu one for £5.50?
no matter what anyone says, a £5 tee from Tu is NOT identical. If you think it is then you haven't got the ability to discern differences in quality.

It seems to me that some people have more money than sense!
Honestly, the difference in quality is so vast that it seems to me that some people have no sense of texture, cut, style or fabric quality

Hannnnngggg on. No pound sign? Even if you flick to symbol keyboard page? I have £€$¥ options.

So we have established that people will be snobs at either end of the scale!
Either you have more money then sense or you are a pleb, how dare you venture anywhere near the stylish beautiful people!

Honestly I think expensive clothes just aren't worth the effort for me. I don't need a dress that creases if you breath near it and needs to be washed in nuns tears and air dried in the Alps.
Similarly I don't need a t shirt of such fabulous quality it is thick enough to be a jumper....I have actual jumpers for that!😂

I can understand it if someone’s looking for something specific. Like my endless search for comfy wedges. But if I wanted a dress, I’d look myself.

I’ve got a wardrobe full of fairly good quality dresses (Adrianna Papell, Coast, Karen Millen) from Vinted, all for under £10. If I was spending £200 I’d want 20 dresses!

People giving a budget is fair enough but yes there are always the people who will throw in an 750 pounds offering 🤷‍♀️ . The one recently which has made me think WTF is when someone says they carry the weight all on their stomach and people suggest the most ridiculous skin tight dresses 😂 " well that's what me and my mates wear" 🙄

I get so much useful info from this board about what's in and out etc.

Over the 15yrs I've been on here it has been so helpful to me for recalibrating my wardrobe and not looking dated.

From the old boot cut jeans and mum boots of the late 2000s, into the 'skinny jeans are dead' of the late teens, and the the wide leg trousers and top of now.

I love seeing all the brands at all the price points. If I set a budget for £200 I'd think it strange if someone sent me to the supermarket where the cut is never as good and the fabric isn't as good etc.

It is likely that the dress from reiss mentioned above is significantly better cut and will last for many years more than marks and Spencer.

What @HucklefinBerry says about Tshirts is so accurate.

I have been rocking some from New Look this summer. But they don't come close to the year after year quality of my COS shirts, I buy a new one every couple of years and frankly you can tell they cost £35 and not £5.

Try comparing your Cos t shirt to some by American Vintage.

(You have to actually try them on …)

@Sobetterthanyouatthis totally believe you and I'd love to! I absolutely believe that clothes cost more the better the cut and fabric.

I buy as much of the good stuff as I can! Ebay usually.

(James Perse, also. Unfortunately …)

I dont get this obsession with 'the cut' of clothes. Surely it all depends on your body shape and the type of clothing?
It cant even be about tailoring because often the fashion is for baggy, over sized stuff. I much prefer the cut of clothes on me now rather then 7st ago...but thats a me thing, not a clothes thing!!

@henlake7
There is a difference in the cut of a size 10 top from Tesco than there is on a size ten top in Massimo Dutti.

Equally, the cut/drape in H&M is never as good as the one in J Crew or COS.

The fabric matters, the darts around the bust matter.

I bought a cute size 10 top in Tesco at the start of the summer. It should have been perfect. A little cotton blouse. Except I couldn't lift my arms up in it as the whole top lifted too. There wasn't enough fabric around the bust and the armpit.

Surely it all depends on your body shape and the type of clothing?

Absolutely not! Ask any competent tailor.

I have to say that until I came to S&B I had no idea that so many women in the UK base their clothing choices entirely on the goal of hiding perceived bodily faults. I can’t wear this, that, the other … But at the same time people insist on buying the cheapest possible everything - expecting a £12.99 polyester frock to work miracles.

The whole point of ‘quality’ clothes is that they make the wearer look good. They’re constructed in ways that skim over, balance out, lengthen, narrow, invisibly enhance the body in all sorts of ways. I’m no seamstress, but was fascinated by a few moments on GBSB where they showed how a tailor can fill out the area just below the shoulders, above the chest, to balance a particular figure type. And I don’t have limitless money for clothes but well recall my astonishment at the first pair of Marc Jacobs or Roberto Cavalli jeans I bought massively reduced in sales years ago - my legs were suddenly about 8 inches longer …

Knowing this means that when you’re buying clothes you can actually choose the things you like best, not just the things that on Friday, what do you mean? least bad.

Friday, what do you mean?

Bloody hell - I wrote seem!

Just ‘seem’.

Anyone in the market for a stand out dress for £200 is unlikely to be swayed by a cheaply made, polyester dress from Tesco.

which makes your suggestion as stupid as those pushing Luis Vuitton or a jumpsuit

What amazes me us the price of some dresses that don't look anything special.
I'm looking in particular at the Royal / celebrity favourite Erdem.
He has designed some things in ghastly fabrics that cost £ thousands.

See I adore the style of Erdem. Closest I’ll come to is the H&M scarf I have!