Can most people really tell expensive clothes from good high street pieces?

[pontipinemum]

I'm listening to an audiobook at the moment and the main character talks about her clothes a lot. About how expensive clothes look better etc.

Now I am absolutely NOT a fashionist by any stretch.

I am wondering though can others tell the difference? I'm not talking about really cheap shein clothes etc. Or really unusually designed dresses.

But say a regular clothing item like this Chanel pull over, it is nice but I absolutely would not be able to tell if it was $3,500 or if it was £40 from Marks and Spencer

https://www.chanel.com/us/fashion/p/P82481K11949UA790/pullover-wool-silk/

It really really doesn’t.

Generally, in passing no.

But I think I can tell more how much something cost by how well it washes, does it fade.

I also think something looks more expensive if it is tailored. Cheaper dresses, for example, tend to have an elasticated waist. More expensive items will have actual tailoring. Probably because the cheap item will fit more people (badly) than the tailored item. I look really bad in dresses that are voluminous amounts of material elasticated under the bust so I have an axe to grind here.

Actually it could be the image.

if I’d seen these images I’d have agreed this was designer.

Images

@ElBandito My personal current bugbear - shirring and elasticated cuffs on
shirts and blouses - looks as cheap as hell and not very comfortable.

By looking at someone? Me, no.

However, I've just bought several bits from Ralph Lauren off Vinted and my god the difference in the feel, the weight, the manufacturing quality and cut from my usual HS stuff is astonishing.

The vest tops retail for about £175 and the jacket for about £300 and I would absolutely never pay that price! But as a second hand purchase with each well below £10, I'm absolutely delighted and will buy many more in future.

The other image is a clear crisp imagine showing exactly what the jumper looks like.

In this one you’re taking other things in to inform your view, it’s an attractive girl, who does have a face that screams ‘expensive treatments’, her hair is polished, nice makeup routine, she’s slim, her clothes fit well and she looks well off.
It’s not the jumper specifically saying that though.

Back in the day, definitely. Now, not so much. A lot of contemporary designer pieces are IMO incredibly shoddily made. Also if you look at the celebrities wearing them, they no longer look impossibly glamorous (especially not the likes of the Kardashians and the Love Island almumnae) I get a fair number of my clothes from vintage shops, and the quality is far higher on average.

Imo, I think you could tell the difference more in the past. Now even higher end clothes seem to be poorly made and full of man-made fibres.

I don’t know about most people but I can.. always.

That’s true, it does show that designer can look cheap and tacky due to design, but I’m not sure this thread is about that as such, as designer is not the only type of expensive clothing..

That was me, @ConstanzeMozart - on the ‘Two Weeks in August’ thread. How can you not tell?! I insist you go back and watch at least the first couple of episodes again. (Ignore the white party dress.)

In general … Well, yes, if those two pieces were laid out in front of me for examination it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to distinguish one from the other. But presumably you’re talking about clothes on a body, in motion, @pontipinemum - glancing at someone in a restaurant, or at a school sports day, or at work? That’s a much more complicated question. It would be a combination of instinct - fabric, proportion, colour, how the light falls on a garment, how it moves - and pattern recognition. The latter being the entire picture, particularly how the wearer carried themselves.

(I like good clothes, but am inclined to a high/low mix in most outfits - so you might glimpse me at the cinema in a jumper that originally cost several hundred ££, and a skirt that was £35 from Zara. I have no idea at all what an observer might conclude about my clothes - I only buy them for my own satisfaction.)

That was me, - on the ‘Two Weeks in August’ thread. How can you not tell?! I insist you go back and watch at least the first couple of episodes again. (Ignore the white party dress.)

<<waves>> Hi!

I just can't tell, what can I say? I don't have an eye, or maybe you have a particular interest or a background in fashion/textiles/styling?

Possibly not from photos alone but in person, a lot of cheaper clothes are made from a very thin and sometimes smelly fabric (it's the dye) and you don't need to be an expert to spot wonky hemming and so on. Obviously crap stuff can be overpriced but in person with handling you can usually tell whether the materials themselves are cheaply made, at the very least.

Entirely non-professional lifelong interest on my part, @ConstanzeMozart, starting with stylish parents who enjoyed clothes.

But on the TV show the costume designers clearly went to some effort to make Zoe’s relative poverty visibly distinct - so they would have wanted the audience to notice it. Without re-watching I can recall an awful faded vest (cheap to start off with but now old) worn over some criminal outrage of a ‘flesh coloured’ undergarment. The other women - Nat (?) and Jess all had new (or new-ish), well fitting bikinis or hot weather wear in fresh, bright colours. (So not laundered fifty times.) Their clothes had been bought to make them look good on holiday; Zoe’s merely performed the utilitarian function of covering nakedness.

Something I find interesting on threads plus on Instagram accounts like Londoners in London is how people say with authority that you can tell who has money by the fact they look polished etc or that you can tell real Londoners from tourists etc. Well, no you can't- you make an assumption and unless talk to them or ask to see their bank account, you may be right or wrong.

Anyway, on this - I once interviewed a woman who was a fashion journalist and stylist. She looked amazing and spoke with authority on different designers etc. At the end of the interview I asked the designer of what she was wearing and she laughed and said 'oh I get all my clothes from New Look' 😁😁

I have quite a few bits from Burberry, and the lining in my 3 year old coat has ripped to shreds, compared to other cheaper coats I have. Their trainers aren't the best quality either unfortunately. Jewelry and scarves are fab though!

With some things I think it does show.

I bought a pair of low-heeled, lace-up brown boots for about £350 last year (much more than I would normally spend). Not a famous designer brand, but one with traditional techniques and good quality materials etc. Nothing eyecatching about the styling. But people keep remarking on how nice they are. And they ARE. They somehow make all my other shoes look cheap by comparison. Hard to say how, but they just do.

Being a journo and authority doesn’t mean she’s got money,

I can tell with some expensive items but not others. I can sew quite well and I am used to working with different fabrics. Sometimes the craftmanship is impressive. Others its just paying for the name.

Enshittification has hit designer brands as much as high street.

I've seen some awful examples. Wonky hems, patterns not matched, wrinkled seams and that's just from photos on a website. For stuff costing £6-800

In person you can definitely tell pure wool from mixed blend/acrylic etc and cotton/polyester/viscose. You can look at seams and buttons and the weight of the fabric.

I don't know the first thing about fashion but is the cut really that different on designer clothes? Cheap synthetic fabrics is one thing but I would have thought high street shops would be able to replicate styles and cuts fairly accurately?

As I said I know nothing, I tend to go for very plain simple clothes but I do prefer natural fabrics

Edit to add I'm talking about the likes of M&S / next, not primark / shein

No. The point was that she LOOKED good.

No

Yes, I can tell cheap fabrics a mile off