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!

gap kids is awful now- when mine were small I used to get them lovely things from there, lovely soft materials, washed really well - then it turned into shoddy cartoon character transfers on cheapo sweatshirts, 3 for 2 deals, naff graphic t shirts

When I went through my wardrobe to select a daytime dress to wear on my birthday the nicest and best fitting was a Monsoon dress I bought on eBay for less than £5 in 2005. Cream background with a navy and sage print, side zip, fitted bodice and full skirt and fully lined, still a beautiful dress despite being worn many times the year zI bought it.

It's about everything we buy,cheap material,poorly made,new and improved,shrinkflation,We've been stitched up
No pun intended.

I think another major element is the rise of social media and the sheer number of people especially young women, who refuse to wear anything twice 'because pictures'. Their determination to have IG images with something different on at every event, even just a daily walk, has fueled fast fashion ... and we all suffer for it.

I was in my 20s in the 90s & Primark / Top Shop etc were cheap fast fashion even back then!

I was a post grad & had a grant & a part-time job & i bought the majority of my clothes from Jigsaw, and sone stuff from Whistles (old pink label)

Their clothes were expensive but i bough in sales & saved for stuff. I had less but looked after it & it was v well made with excellent fabrics etc

I, too, come from a tailoring family so cut & finish have always been important.

I still buy beautiful things & am still happy to save, track sales etc.

I never buy from primark, new look, h&m, river island, etc - i just don't like their stuff

I recently bought 3 or 4 shirts from COS & am v impressed with the quality of construction - tape on seams etc - v beautifully made

I occaccionally buy from zara but it's super hit & miss..

I don't know - there's a wool C&A coat bought in 1983 in my parents' coat cupboard that is still wearable!

Sorry, no, they were £80 each!

Haven’t RTFT so don’t know if anyone has already said this, but I remember my DM wearing the abomination that was Crimplene sometime during the sixties.

it was a short lived attempt at being “with it.”

I'd forgotten about crimpelene
Brown flared trousers and wedge shoes
Bottle green jumper with 3mustard stars.

Did my mum hate me😁

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.

Ooh, this one really bugs me. It started about 15 years ago. I bought a lovely top made of broderie anglaise on line. When it came it was extremely thin, misshapen t-shirt material at the back. Now I have to double check everything, front and back.

I got some beautiful pieces from the high street in the late 90s/early 00s thick cotton, silk, leather shoes made in Brazil & Europe etc. It wasn’t particularly expensive to me or compared to today. Manufacturing and raw materials become more expensive though so to maintain the same price points production shifts elsewhere

I agree with @Floisme that the banking crash meant price resistance so quality declined.

@PetulaGordenoI regret not buying a Chanel
bag in the 90s

That is true. But like OP says, a lot was better. I don't think people bought quite as much then. And although charity shops existed, most people seldom bought second hand clothes.
OP, the only things I's argue about is sportswear, there seems a much better choice/quality now. Maybe that's because in the noughties, people never wore trainers out the gym/leggings to work.

I've got 10m of assorted Crimplene that someone was selling on Ebay 😀 I'll get around to using it one day. It's a useful substance, as good as the better-quality polyesters in use today. It has body and flexibility, takes dye well and doesn't fade, it's machine washable and quick dry, rarely needs ironing.

Part of Crimplene's bad reputation might be due to the industry's excitement over its versatility. Unlike everything available before then, it could be made with any texture and intricately yarn-dyed to any specification. Coinciding with the craze for psychedelia, this led to a migraine-inducing flood of swirly colours mixed in multi-surface finishes.

Laura Ashley's quietly traditional cotton/linen prints went into factory production in 1967, heralding the end of the public's love affair with polyester. Today's equivalents are scuba knit, double-knit polyester and the like. I haven't seen anything like the embossed effects beloved of Crimplene users, but I suppose they could come back.

Polyester tends to melt if you drop a cigarette onto it, which was a more common problem in the 1960s-70s than today!

I'm still wearing my C&A leather jacket, and a dressing gown! Miss Selfridge suede r platform boots have kept well too, plus various old leather bags.

Mark One arrived in the 90's as cheap and rubbish clothes, none of that has survived.

True, as a teen I’d spend £40-80 on a dress for a night out from Topshop! Now the top end of that is wedding guest dress territory.

Once I started working, I bought lovely clothes but not a lot of them. I still have most of my suits (they still fit too) but I'm retired and don't wear them. Mostly from the 80s and 90s, and as I am about to downsize and relocate, I want them to go to good homes.

The stuff I wear now is nice jeans and sweaters, but those are everyday wear, and end up being worn gardening.

Certain segments of the population were lured into low quality clothes because they were cheap but on trend so staying fashionable was more affordable. The reason they were cheap and still are is because slaves are making them. Slaves have an incentive to do the bare minimum in terms of good workmanship.

For myself, I’ve been shopping second hand (other than expensive knickers and bras and swimming costumes) for decades. Both for anti-fast fashion use of slaves as well as the environmental damage of fast fashion.

I don’t pay prices like that for a 1990s skirt though unless it’s Benetton or better.

There was definitely polyester and/or nylon tat in days of yore. Tammy, C and A, Chelsea Girl, Dorothy Perkins.
C'mon. Some rose coloured glasses here.

Exactly this. Prices now are a lot cheaper than they were (both in real terms and, in many cases, in nominal terms). For example, back in the 1990s/2000s, I’m fairly sure you couldn’t get a top for a couple of pounds like you can now from the likes of Primark/Shein.

I’m generalising, but too many people just want lots of cheap clothes rather than a few well made, more expensive, pieces. As a teen, I was happy to wear the same item of clothing lots of times. That mindset seems to have changed. People aren’t, on the whole, prepared to pay for quality.

I remember 90s Oasis was gorgeous quality, as was French Connection. They had much less variety of stock and were more like boutiques. I still have 90s and early 00s clothes that are immaculate.
I’m not saying there wasn’t also cheap tat but it was much easier to find something of good heavy fabric that was well made on the high street. Quality has deteriorated terribly, I find some good things in Cos, occasionally Zara, Reiss do nice silk shirts and I have some lovely early Me and Em but now you have to watch the fabrics.

I have a polka dot skirt bought in Oasis in 1999 which is still going strong. It was lovely quality.

I still have a calf length wool skirt from French Connection from 1999. Part mohair it has a sort of ombré effect to it. It’s beautiful.
It went downhill for me with all the FCUK tat I hated it!

My mum's (born 1922!) habits tell me a lot about changing attitudes to clothes from the 1960s onwards. She had very few clothes, Jaegar, Daks and equivalent, all jumpers 100% wool, all skirts and coats tailored. She rarely dressed up to go out but the ritual when she did and got back home was exhausting to watch.

First, each garment was hung on a moulded wooden hangar on the outside of her wardrobe for 24 hours. Then she waited for good daylight to examine every seam to see if any repairs were needed. If they were, she compared reels of cotton standing by a window to find the best colour match. This involved spreading a length of thread on the garment because on the reel it was darker. Then the repair and at last the garment was hung in the wardrobe.

No wonder she was still wearing the Susan Small day dress she wore when she married my dad when we were on holiday in the 1970s. It was still flawless.

Although getting dressed is easier for us than for my mum's generation, we have lost a lot - UK jobs to design and make clothes, fabrics woven here, clothes that fit properly - and gained things we don't want - waste and landfill.