How have we accepted substandard clothing

[anonMH]

I have a teenage daughter and y2k and late 90s ‘vintage’ clothing is very ‘in’ - hence I am on vinted etc looking at the very clothes I wore in my youth.

It has struck me that the quality is incredible - embroidery, proper pleats and waistbands and lots natural fibres. I had known this was the case with more traditional fashions from St Michael’s and C and A - but many of the clothes are from Primark and New Look. It seems that we were initially lured with very cheap pricing and poor fabrics and workmanship and now it’s no longer cheap - with poor fabric, along with no darts, waist bands, women’s shaping. It seems to be all smocking, elastic , unlined and so on. All the vintage shops in my town are sports wear/ shell suits/ carhartt and so on - I need to find these clothes!

Examples below. Wish I hadn’t dithered on the teal skirt. Although I am v reluctant to spend the £25 some sellers are asking for vintage primark clothes!

while yes, there was crap available then too and the prices were higher for the better quality items, normal high street shops did sell the quality products for a bit more, now it’s only the luxury brands - with luxury prices.

I do think when brands like M&S do produce a decent quality item, we need to reward them by sharing and buying! Make them realise they can do the good stuff and we’ll buy it.

It's the faff of looking after better clothes too. I've got some fabulous vintage dresses, but they're dry clean only because of the fabric and patten. That's £16 a clean!
I've tried the DIY stuff in the tumble dryer, but it didn't clean enough.

Tbh with knitwear I find if you want both quality and design you do have to pay for it. Or know exactly where to look for good sale prices. Or buy pre-owned.

I hardly have to buy any new knitwear because what I’ve bought over the past decade lasts and lasts. But none of it is from the High St.

This year, having a bigger clothes budget than usual and a great need of replacements, I ended up making a conscious decision not to go for 'quality classics' because everything I liked was dry clean only. We don't even have a dry cleaner locally, I have to send it away. And I dirty my clothes!

In the event, I'm having a lot of fun with cheap clothes. They're not particularly well made, but they're natural fibres - and viscose; the stuff's a godsend - and I can justify buying 'too many' of something because I simply like it.

I've also done my final charity shop dump of the good clothes I bought when I was well off and much thinner. This made me think of what many have said above - those items were proportionally more expensive than they would be today. I remember paying £80 each for some silk shell tops at Monsoon. The fabrics were pretty (and washable) but I reckon you can get the same for about the same price today.

The point about survivor bias is a good one! There was plenty of stuff that didn't last to the next year; you're only seeing items that have lasted 30 years.

Yep!
I remember getting a dress from TopShop c1995/96 (mid teens). lt wasn't cheap, but i had lusted over it, so i saved up and my mum said she would come with me and give me the rest of the money. I bought it and tried it on once we got home - my mum was shocked at how poorly it fitted (shoulders etc) and how rubbish the material was (and that it wasn't lined). It was the sort of silky polyester and I think it was worn twice, by which time it looked like a limp distracted. I was so disappointed.
However I have a top and trousers from primark, from 2007 which still look great. They're summer wear, so not over worn in our general climate, but they have definitely lasted well.

The thing that I've noticed recently is not only the poor quality of the fabric, but the skimping on material. It's really obvious when you look at things like skirts which should be full, but which in fact just don't have enough material in them to swish properly.
Sun-ray pleated skirts were fashionable in the 80s, and they were really flattering, making your waist look small by having the skirt very full around the hemline. The ones you see now have about half the fabric that is needed to make the skirt hang properly. You see kilts in shops having a small moment this year, but they are not proper kilts pleated all the way round, they are just wrap skirts with a couple of pleats. You used to be able buy very good quality skirts at shops like M&S, so not ruinous price-wise, made from wool, with stitched down pleats to the hips and then the lower part of the skirt free to swish. I see this style on school uniform skirts now, but the bottom part of the skirt is now almost straight, with just a couple of box-pleats.
As for price, what I can remember is getting a term's grant cheque for £300, and spending it nearly all on clothes shopping in one trip....I bought a wool winter coat, the aforesaid wool skirt, heeled knee-length leather boots, a few jumpers and had a bit of change. (Enough for a lovely Stewart tartan kilt from a charity shop plus an extra tenner to get it turned into a mini.)
I don't know how much you'd have to pay now to get generous cuts, I haven't seen a decent sun-ray pleated skirt for years.

I was young so didnt have the money for higher end stuff in the 80's -90's. But clothes then cost a similar amount to clothes now, DESPITE inflation. School shoes, jeans, etc. Im not sure quality has deteriorated so much, although then we probably looked after things more carefully - polished shoes with proper polish, reheeled shoes promptly, dry cleaned, hand washed, dried things flat, changed into scruffy clothes for home, etc.
There were shops that sold real cheap shite then, too!

Funnily enough I remember clothing being really expensive and I had to shop in charity shops because of it.

Next was really expensive in those days, too. I worked for them in 1992, Saturday job, and we were taught how to look for quality: kick pleats, boxy jackets, extra buttons on the cuffs, quality stitching. They were selling points to their garments.

My family is in the tailoring industry & family members would have extra jobs sewing on the labels, buttons, and sequins onto Debenhams clothes. They were very good quality in 1983/4/5. Skirts and dresses were lined, spare buttons would be sewn in, and fabric and elastics would be plentiful.

People started looking for cheap clothes around 1995/6 when New Look started. It was so so cheap at first. Prior to this, cheap clothes came from market stalls. In those days I also bought clothes from Karen Mullen, Benetton, Jane Norman, later Coast. I used to buy a lot abroad - Mango and H&M were not as available in the UK.

Now it’s all cheap and nasty. I think how we nicknamed C&A ‘Cheap & Awful’ but at least the cottons were good & things were well made.

@Saz12 - that’s how I look after my clothes and shoes now. Was taught to do all those things as a child and never stopped. I’m single-handedly keeping cobblers and shoe polish manufacturers in business. 😂

Please tell me wear you can get silk tops for £40!

I love finding 90s/ early 2000s baby & toddler clothes for my DDs, the designs were more fun and so much of it is 100% cotton. The quality is so poor now and it’s not even cheap.

I also remember places like next selling clothes for a similar price when I started work. So about £30 for basic office trousers. The bank of England inflation calculator says these would be £82 now but it can get basic office trousers for £30 still.

My Mum bought me a navy dirndl skirt with a wide dropped waist from Next in the late 80s. It had pockets and a side zip and was made in a lovely heavy cotton. So good quality fabric and lots of sewing and probably made in the UK. It cost £25 which would be £75 now, or probably more because of fuel costs. I think the few manufacturers left in the UK would charge more but everyone is so used to the volume of cheap rubbish that they aren't prepared to pay the cost.

There are plenty of posters on S&B who would be horrified at the thought of spending £75 on a skirt today - and not because they’re living in poverty.

No, I remember primark clothes, which is what op is talking about, being very cheap -mainly because as op has I've also noticed their prices shoot up recently. You used to be able to get vest tops for something ridiculous like 80p!

I agree that perhaps the next stage up were a bit more expensive comparatively to income - e.g. Topshop jeans were a bit of a treat purchase, youd buy one pair and wear them to death rather than buying multiple pairs in different colours, but op is talking about the very cheapest fast fashion.

I agree op, I have a dress from new look I bought for a funeral when I was 18 and its still as good as ever 20 years later!

I haven't but I've found it harder to find clothing that is decently made and doesn't fall aprt. I spend more and more on fewer and fewer pieces. Shopping as a teen was a joy, going into the local big town with my pay packet burning a hole. Now the search for a new dress can take months.

To manufacturers, if you want me to buy your clothes -

PLEASE stop making cotton or linen clothes with polyester thread. When ironed, the thread becomes brittle and fails.

PLEASE charge us the extra 75p and make clothing with decent seam allowances so minor adjustments are possible.

PLEASE make linings from cotton or viscose. I don't want to spend money on cool cotton trousers, and have to replace the nasty sweaty polyester lining.

PLEASE leave decent hems on trousers so taller ladies can let them down.

I spend too much time adding darts, adjusting hems, replacing cheap & nasty buttons etc. It takes the joy out of buying clothes.

I went through a wardrobe clear out a few years ago and sold a bunch of things, was thrilled at the time because made £45 on a blouse that was £90 new and I had worn so many times - but now I REALLY regret selling them because I can’t get the same quality again 😭 holding onto everything good quality for dear life now even if it’s not something I am drawn to wearing right now - the style will come back and then I’ll be ready!

I had this experience with & Other Stories, I bought a huge haul online and actually returned every single item. In particular there was a yellow dress that I loved the colour of and theoretically the style except that the “full skirt” was about 50% less fabric than required to be as full as the style suggested it should be! Just utter shite.

M&S still does full fabric skirts but the amount of “cotton rich” and “wool rich” fabrics totally puts me off - literally just disgusting synthetic fabrics with 10% cotton or wool! So misleading for consumers who don’t pay attention to the fabric composition and just see “cotton” or “wool”.

For teenagers born after 2010 y2k IS vintage. Just like a pair of jeans from 1970s was vintage for me in late 1990s while my mum rolled her eyes 😊

I had a lot of Next clothes when they first appeared. Great styles and fabrics presented as a capsule wardrobe type of thing. I think trousers, dresses etc would have been about £40 each. Same with M and S. Great quality knitwear, standards styles and a range of colours. Last year my local M and S had no wool in any of their knitwear. What is air yarn, cloud yarn? Just synthetic fibres that are cheap. Likewise, vegan leather - so plastic but with a leather price tag.

Other Stories is notorious for poor quality and very poor customer service. I’m Swedish and I wouldn’t buy from them, they take greenwashing with their long-lasting, sustainable, tailored piffle to a totally new level, unfortunately.

I see M&S now some describe things as 'viscose rich'. I don't object violently to viscose but I didn't realise it had become aspirational.

I remember lots of:"I used to have a jacket/ top/ dress/ pair of jeans just like that but I threw them out" from my parents in the 90s. The 70s seemed so long ago though! Having said that, I'm going through a70s phase again.... only now it's 50 years ago. Which is like teen me going back to the 40s..... which i did in my 20s.....

I noticed the huge drop in quality basically everywhere, it’s the enshitification of everything - from food through clothes to services. If I told my beloved late grandfather that in 2026 I would be talking to a machine instead of a human while shopping, or that clothes on average fall apart after two washes, he would assume I was writing a dystopian novel.

I think it’s the late stage capitalism - consumption on steroids and everybody chasing the lowest possible price at all costs - quite literally, because the environmental costs are enormous.

I remember when ONLY (a Scandinavian brand) was brand new in just before y2k and I worked like crazy selling hotdogs and tutoring kids to be able to afford their clothes that were well-made, interesting and cool but not really cheap for a poor student. Nowadays their clothes cost the same as back then and the quality and design have obviously plummeted.

"Viscose rich" is marketing ploy to convince the buyer they're buying something....salubrious....like someone else said up thread, when did Viscose become so desirable.

"Vegan" handbags/belts....marketing for non leather to move us away from the plastic shite mentality.

They know thier producing overpriced shite but trying to hoodwink us into thinking otherwise.

Today we have the abomination of "Shein". I was shocked to see they had pop up shops. So people must be seeing the shit close up before buying it, not always caught out online. Im assuming Shein must be pronounced Sheen and not She-in based on the fact that you can tell when someone is wearing a Shein item by the plastic sheen most of their items have alongside all the other tell tell signs of a shit garment.

Other bug bears of today's clothes include patterns and embellishments ONLY on the front. Think Xmas party dress...sequins at the front.....looks like a sack at the back. I might not have eyes in the back of my head but im probably not gonna stand with my back to the wall all night.

Crooked patterns and mis matched seams. The material hasn't been lined up at the seams, I always think, you you hang wall paper where the pattern does not pair up.

After this summer ....cotton and linen items lined with shitty sweat inducing cheap shit....im buying linen/cotton to try and stay cool you fools.