9 ms·

In a previous life when I wore suits to work on a frequent basis, I got interested in this topic and spent way too much time learning about it. I now have a clo

by dhd415 7y ago

In a previous life when I wore suits to work on a frequent basis, I got interested in this topic and spent way too much time learning about it. I now have a closet full of quality clothes that I wear much less frequently, but, for whatever it's worth, they'll last me the rest of my life. There's a lot of good info in this article, but there's also a lot more beyond it. For example, it mentions (accurately) that the fineness of cotton and wool fibers is an indicator of its quality, but the fiber length is a greater indicator of quality. Unfortunately, cotton and wool products are frequently marketed according to their fiber diameters (e.g., "800 thread count bed sheets" and "Super 100s" wools for suits), but you will never see the fiber length listed. You need to either be able to feel the fabric to assess its fiber length (something that I was never really able to do well) or rely on the recommendation of someone else who can. It's like saying that a network link has 10Gb bandwidth but failing to mention its 100ms minimum latency. Another item that they mention that is frequently misunderstood is that there are different types of fabrics, especially wools. Just because a specific type of wool such as merino is mentioned doesn't mean that it's good quality. There is both junk merino and excellent merino. Just because it came from a merino sheep doesn't mean it's great. The same goes for cashmere, alapaca, angora, mohair, camel, etc. It's like saying that it's an SSD rather than a 7200rpm HDD. The former is almost certainly better, but there are still a wide range of SSD characteristics to be evaluated. Yet another item is that while it is true that expensive clothes are not necessarily high quality clothes, it is almost always the case that high quality clothes are expensive. Or rather, they're expensive upfront but often turn out to be more economical over the life of the garment. In either case, they will be more pleasant to wear than a lower quality alternative. And the Last item, since I could go on indefinitely about this, is that garment quality should be assessed on three axes -- quality of materials, quality of construction, and fit. If the first is lacking, the garment's material will pill, rip, fray, or just plain wear out too fast. If the second if lacking, it will fall apart too soon. If the last is lacking, it will be uncomfortable and look bad on you. The trick is, of course, to find garments which have all three.

dlivingston 7y ago
Do you have any high-quality clothing stores that you recommend?
- dhd415 7y ago
  What kind of clothes are you looking for? In general, it's hard to find stores where you can walk in and be assured that anything they carry is high quality. Even the high-end department stores such as Saks Fifth Ave. and Neiman Marcus are going to carry a lot of "fashion" brands that are expensive but not necessarily good quality. Some local boutiques (e.g., Louis Boston though it too has declined in recent years) may still provide that, but you typically have to either discover those on your own or have friends who are already in the know. These days, I wear a lot more chinos than suits and I buy most of mine from Bill's Khakis (https://www.billskhakis.com https://www.billskhakis.com -- no affiliation, of course). They are not cheap, but their fabrics and construction are significantly better than anything you'll find at a mass retailer and they have several different fits, one of which works quite well for me. Another nice thing about them is that their fits are consistent. I have, from time to time, found decent pairs at lower-end retailers such as Uniqlo, but the model that fits me well lasts only for one season and I can never find it again.
  - projectileboy 7y ago
    Your comments have been really informative. I have no knowledge of fabrics or clothes, but I can second Bill’s Khakis. I had a pair that lasted many years - looked and felt better than maybe any other pair of pants I’ve owned.
    - technofiend 7y ago
      Based on Bill's prices I feel compelled to mention signing up for their email list yields a 30% discount code. That's a $48 discount on one pair of pants.
  - jboydyhacker 7y ago
    Any opinion on Outlier dungarees. They are expensive but the quality seems darn good.
    - huac 7y ago
burlesona 7y ago
Thank you for posting this. I’ve recently become much more interested in how to determine the quality of clothing, and your descriptions of how to think of it are very helpful!
mc32 7y ago
I think a rough proxy for fabric quality is the mill a textile comes from. Speaking in very general terms mills in Italy and Japan produce some good textiles (and not so good ones), but because they are expensive countries they tend to be on the higher end. Some east coast denim mills tend to be good too. Stitching done in Portugal is pretty good too. Of course, you can find good cheap tailors in underdeveloped countries too. Buying quality forces you to be more conservative: that which you buy needs to look in-place (if not in-style) for many many years. You can’t buy al courant and hope it will look stylish five or ten years down the road.
- dhd415 7y ago
  Looking at the mill for a fabric can be helpful, especially for wools. Mills such as Holland & Sherry and Scabal have built a reputation for quality fabrics though they're generally not household names so they do not yet have the motivation to go down-market to increase their sales (unlike Zegna which has become semi-famous and now makes some lower quality fabrics). That said, you won't find their fabrics except on top-tier off-the-shelf clothes or custom clothes. If by stitching you mean construction quality, you can certainly find that in many places. For suits, England and Italy are famous for it though both places do have lesser-quality vendors who will happily trade on their country's reputations and take your money. I had most of my business clothing custom-made in Hong Kong where the tailors learned from the Brits but are still much less expensive. You have to be careful there, though, because there are lots of guys who prey on the tourist who has heard that cheap custom suits can be had in HK but isn't able to assess quality. ++ on buying conservatively-styled clothes. I'm in my 40s and still wear the suits I bought in my 20s and hope I'll still fit into them in my 60s.
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    Since you mentioned HK, any opinion on Simpson Sin?
    - dhd415 7y ago
      I don't know anything about that shop specifically, but from their website, it looks a lot like many of the tourist-focused operations with pictures of all the celebrities for which they've made suits (for free, of course -- you'll have to pay) and promises to have it ready for you in a timeframe too short for the amount of labor necessary for a top-quality suit. And they're relatively new. I haven't had a suit made there in over a decade now, but at the time, WW Chan & Sons, Gordon Yao, and H Baromon were considered quality tailors there and had been in operation for decades. The first two of those make periodic trips to Europe and the US which is nice if you want to make follow-up orders and don't travel frequently to HK. I don't want to be too critical of the tourist-focused shops. It is certainly possible to get a serviceable suit at one of those places that will hold up to occasional wear and fit as well as an off-the-rack suit that's been tailored for you. It can't be top quality, though, when its total cost is less than the cost of the 3 yards of quality wool required for the suit. There's been something of a spike in demand for those guys in the last 10-20 years and their prices have gone up accordingly. As a rough point of reference, the last good suit I had made there cost 1500USD.
masklinn 7y ago
> Or rather, they're expensive upfront but often turn out to be more economical over the life of the garment. In either case, they will be more pleasant to wear than a lower quality alternative. Good ol' Vimes "Boots" Theory of Economic Injustice strikes again: > At the time of Men at Arms, Samuel Vimes earned thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars. This was beyond his pocket and the most he could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars. > Therefore over a period of ten years, he might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet. > Without any special rancour, Vimes stretched this theory to explain why Sybil Ramkin lived twice as comfortably as he did by spending about half as much every month. (though in a way modern society have made things worse as, as you note, "better" is usually more expensive but more expensive doesn't necessarily mean better, and it's often hard for the uninitiated to know if they're paying for quality, for brand, or for getting fleeced).
- artsyca 7y ago
  Ever wonder if cheap commodity exporting countries might play this as a form of covert economic aggression?
  - ptmvp 7y ago
    It's an interesting thought but I think there's little basis to believe there is a concerted effort here, as the average consumer is very aware that the quality of, say, a screwdriver from China, is very different from that of a German made one. I think it's just an unintended consequence of a race to the bottom in cheap, disposable manufacturing. Even then, I'm unsure if on an aggregate level the progress in materials engineering and overall manufacturing processes does not eventually offset this focus on cheapness, resulting on better value than the more expensive alternative.
    - deleted 7y ago
Pimpus 7y ago
> I now have a closet full of quality clothes that I wear much less frequently, but, for whatever it's worth, they'll last me the rest of my life. > Or rather, they're expensive upfront but often turn out to be more economical over the life of the garment. Okay, but this is assuming that your body composition does not change and the clothes continue to fit you. Your body is more important to how you look than the clothes you wear, so if you are logical then you place priority on continually improving your body composition. The most salient factor when buying clothing is how they fit you and your wardrobe. Quality is important insofar as an article of clothing does not distort after a wash (washing properly is also important), but you should expect to discard after a season or two. Buying expensive clothing doesn't make logical or economic sense.
- djhn 7y ago
  You can improve body composition without altering external dimensions. That's the steady state you inevitably reach after years of training anyway.
- artsyca 7y ago
  You gotta check out 'The Suit' by Nicholas Antongiovanni -- I'm not sure your assumption holds about the body being more important, this is something you may reconsider; people struggle with all sorts of body issues and clothing is the one great democratizer in that it gives us an extrinsic way to control our appearance Furthermore, fashion trends being what they are, cheap trendy clothing doesn't make sense either, there are many factors but it's a calculus optimization yet again, how can you get the maximum longevity (including fashion relevance) with the minimum cost? This hardly takes into account human psychology: let's not pretend humans don't communicate through clothing -- as a species we are able to assign meaning to anything including a plastic bag blowing in the wind. Many times the clothing we choose speaks for us and it's not always saying the most complimentary things All these things considered, for a man at least, a rotation of 8 high quality suits and related sports jackets and accessories is still the best value even if society has strayed from these mores and those who get it get it, those who don't wear crocs everywhere
  - 7y ago
tristor 7y ago
Fantastic information. To address your general point that there is some difficulty in assessing quality, it's not simply enough to spend lots of money, I'd recommend to everyone who is interested in stepping up their clothing quality game to find a reputable tailor. This is what I did, and I was lucky enough to do it while traveling in a part of the world with lower cost of living than the US. Because of this, I can order clothes that fit me perfectly and are made of extremely high quality materials for generally only a 20% markup over going to Macy's (for a dress shirt or slacks/trousers for instance), or a fully bespoke three-piece suit for about double the price of going to a Men's Wearhouse. The most interesting thing I've found with wearing better quality clothing is that people notice, but don't realize this is what they're noticing. I get comments about my shirts from clients and when I go out in public random people will stop me to say something. Nobody says something about some technical factor of the clothing itself, but they will say things like "that's a nice shirt" or "wow, that shirt is really blue" (better quality cloth tends to have more consistent and lasting color as well). This is one of those areas where quality isn't just expensive, it's more that quality only comes with being able to judge with expertise. Like most, I am unlikely to ever become an expert in textiles, so I found that having a reputable tailor do work for you was the best way to dress well without breaking the bank. My clothing lasts longer, looks better, and most importantly it feels better, all for a 20-30% markup over going to the mall.
- coryfklein 7y ago
  Did you have your tailor make your clothing from scratch, or did you buy clothes you liked and had the tailor alter them to fit better?
  - tristor 7y ago
    Everything was made from scratch, and it was literally only 20% more than a similar off the shelf shirt at Macy's. I paid $85 at Macy's for a Michael Kors dress shirt which fit me pretty okay. My tailor charges me $110 for a shirt, and it's bespoke. $125 if I want contrast stitching on the top buttonhole and my initials monogrammed on the cuff.
shay_ker 7y ago
Honestly if you made videos or blog posts that explain how to figure out high-quality clothes, I would immediately subscribe. The blog post that's posted here on HN is short on images & video, which I feel like is really necessary here. A visual aid would be extremely helpful.

by dhd415 7y ago

dlivingston 7y ago

Do you have any high-quality clothing stores that you recommend?

dhd415 7y ago
What kind of clothes are you looking for? In general, it's hard to find stores where you can walk in and be assured that anything they carry is high quality. Even the high-end department stores such as Saks Fifth Ave. and Neiman Marcus are going to carry a lot of "fashion" brands that are expensive but not necessarily good quality. Some local boutiques (e.g., Louis Boston though it too has declined in recent years) may still provide that, but you typically have to either discover those on your own or have friends who are already in the know. These days, I wear a lot more chinos than suits and I buy most of mine from Bill's Khakis (https://www.billskhakis.com https://www.billskhakis.com -- no affiliation, of course). They are not cheap, but their fabrics and construction are significantly better than anything you'll find at a mass retailer and they have several different fits, one of which works quite well for me. Another nice thing about them is that their fits are consistent. I have, from time to time, found decent pairs at lower-end retailers such as Uniqlo, but the model that fits me well lasts only for one season and I can never find it again.
- projectileboy 7y ago
  Your comments have been really informative. I have no knowledge of fabrics or clothes, but I can second Bill’s Khakis. I had a pair that lasted many years - looked and felt better than maybe any other pair of pants I’ve owned.
  - technofiend 7y ago
    Based on Bill's prices I feel compelled to mention signing up for their email list yields a 30% discount code. That's a $48 discount on one pair of pants.
- jboydyhacker 7y ago
  Any opinion on Outlier dungarees. They are expensive but the quality seems darn good.
  - huac 7y ago

burlesona 7y ago

Thank you for posting this. I’ve recently become much more interested in how to determine the quality of clothing, and your descriptions of how to think of it are very helpful!

mc32 7y ago

I think a rough proxy for fabric quality is the mill a textile comes from. Speaking in very general terms mills in Italy and Japan produce some good textiles (and not so good ones), but because they are expensive countries they tend to be on the higher end. Some east coast denim mills tend to be good too. Stitching done in Portugal is pretty good too. Of course, you can find good cheap tailors in underdeveloped countries too. Buying quality forces you to be more conservative: that which you buy needs to look in-place (if not in-style) for many many years. You can’t buy al courant and hope it will look stylish five or ten years down the road.

dhd415 7y ago
Looking at the mill for a fabric can be helpful, especially for wools. Mills such as Holland & Sherry and Scabal have built a reputation for quality fabrics though they're generally not household names so they do not yet have the motivation to go down-market to increase their sales (unlike Zegna which has become semi-famous and now makes some lower quality fabrics). That said, you won't find their fabrics except on top-tier off-the-shelf clothes or custom clothes. If by stitching you mean construction quality, you can certainly find that in many places. For suits, England and Italy are famous for it though both places do have lesser-quality vendors who will happily trade on their country's reputations and take your money. I had most of my business clothing custom-made in Hong Kong where the tailors learned from the Brits but are still much less expensive. You have to be careful there, though, because there are lots of guys who prey on the tourist who has heard that cheap custom suits can be had in HK but isn't able to assess quality. ++ on buying conservatively-styled clothes. I'm in my 40s and still wear the suits I bought in my 20s and hope I'll still fit into them in my 60s.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  Since you mentioned HK, any opinion on Simpson Sin?
  - dhd415 7y ago
    I don't know anything about that shop specifically, but from their website, it looks a lot like many of the tourist-focused operations with pictures of all the celebrities for which they've made suits (for free, of course -- you'll have to pay) and promises to have it ready for you in a timeframe too short for the amount of labor necessary for a top-quality suit. And they're relatively new. I haven't had a suit made there in over a decade now, but at the time, WW Chan & Sons, Gordon Yao, and H Baromon were considered quality tailors there and had been in operation for decades. The first two of those make periodic trips to Europe and the US which is nice if you want to make follow-up orders and don't travel frequently to HK. I don't want to be too critical of the tourist-focused shops. It is certainly possible to get a serviceable suit at one of those places that will hold up to occasional wear and fit as well as an off-the-rack suit that's been tailored for you. It can't be top quality, though, when its total cost is less than the cost of the 3 yards of quality wool required for the suit. There's been something of a spike in demand for those guys in the last 10-20 years and their prices have gone up accordingly. As a rough point of reference, the last good suit I had made there cost 1500USD.

masklinn 7y ago

> Or rather, they're expensive upfront but often turn out to be more economical over the life of the garment. In either case, they will be more pleasant to wear than a lower quality alternative. Good ol' Vimes "Boots" Theory of Economic Injustice strikes again: > At the time of Men at Arms, Samuel Vimes earned thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars. This was beyond his pocket and the most he could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars. > Therefore over a period of ten years, he might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet. > Without any special rancour, Vimes stretched this theory to explain why Sybil Ramkin lived twice as comfortably as he did by spending about half as much every month. (though in a way modern society have made things worse as, as you note, "better" is usually more expensive but more expensive doesn't necessarily mean better, and it's often hard for the uninitiated to know if they're paying for quality, for brand, or for getting fleeced).

artsyca 7y ago
Ever wonder if cheap commodity exporting countries might play this as a form of covert economic aggression?
- ptmvp 7y ago
  It's an interesting thought but I think there's little basis to believe there is a concerted effort here, as the average consumer is very aware that the quality of, say, a screwdriver from China, is very different from that of a German made one. I think it's just an unintended consequence of a race to the bottom in cheap, disposable manufacturing. Even then, I'm unsure if on an aggregate level the progress in materials engineering and overall manufacturing processes does not eventually offset this focus on cheapness, resulting on better value than the more expensive alternative.
  - deleted 7y ago

Pimpus 7y ago

> I now have a closet full of quality clothes that I wear much less frequently, but, for whatever it's worth, they'll last me the rest of my life. > Or rather, they're expensive upfront but often turn out to be more economical over the life of the garment. Okay, but this is assuming that your body composition does not change and the clothes continue to fit you. Your body is more important to how you look than the clothes you wear, so if you are logical then you place priority on continually improving your body composition. The most salient factor when buying clothing is how they fit you and your wardrobe. Quality is important insofar as an article of clothing does not distort after a wash (washing properly is also important), but you should expect to discard after a season or two. Buying expensive clothing doesn't make logical or economic sense.

djhn 7y ago
You can improve body composition without altering external dimensions. That's the steady state you inevitably reach after years of training anyway.
artsyca 7y ago
You gotta check out 'The Suit' by Nicholas Antongiovanni -- I'm not sure your assumption holds about the body being more important, this is something you may reconsider; people struggle with all sorts of body issues and clothing is the one great democratizer in that it gives us an extrinsic way to control our appearance Furthermore, fashion trends being what they are, cheap trendy clothing doesn't make sense either, there are many factors but it's a calculus optimization yet again, how can you get the maximum longevity (including fashion relevance) with the minimum cost? This hardly takes into account human psychology: let's not pretend humans don't communicate through clothing -- as a species we are able to assign meaning to anything including a plastic bag blowing in the wind. Many times the clothing we choose speaks for us and it's not always saying the most complimentary things All these things considered, for a man at least, a rotation of 8 high quality suits and related sports jackets and accessories is still the best value even if society has strayed from these mores and those who get it get it, those who don't wear crocs everywhere
- 7y ago

tristor 7y ago

Fantastic information. To address your general point that there is some difficulty in assessing quality, it's not simply enough to spend lots of money, I'd recommend to everyone who is interested in stepping up their clothing quality game to find a reputable tailor. This is what I did, and I was lucky enough to do it while traveling in a part of the world with lower cost of living than the US. Because of this, I can order clothes that fit me perfectly and are made of extremely high quality materials for generally only a 20% markup over going to Macy's (for a dress shirt or slacks/trousers for instance), or a fully bespoke three-piece suit for about double the price of going to a Men's Wearhouse. The most interesting thing I've found with wearing better quality clothing is that people notice, but don't realize this is what they're noticing. I get comments about my shirts from clients and when I go out in public random people will stop me to say something. Nobody says something about some technical factor of the clothing itself, but they will say things like "that's a nice shirt" or "wow, that shirt is really blue" (better quality cloth tends to have more consistent and lasting color as well). This is one of those areas where quality isn't just expensive, it's more that quality only comes with being able to judge with expertise. Like most, I am unlikely to ever become an expert in textiles, so I found that having a reputable tailor do work for you was the best way to dress well without breaking the bank. My clothing lasts longer, looks better, and most importantly it feels better, all for a 20-30% markup over going to the mall.

coryfklein 7y ago
Did you have your tailor make your clothing from scratch, or did you buy clothes you liked and had the tailor alter them to fit better?
- tristor 7y ago
  Everything was made from scratch, and it was literally only 20% more than a similar off the shelf shirt at Macy's. I paid $85 at Macy's for a Michael Kors dress shirt which fit me pretty okay. My tailor charges me $110 for a shirt, and it's bespoke. $125 if I want contrast stitching on the top buttonhole and my initials monogrammed on the cuff.

shay_ker 7y ago

Honestly if you made videos or blog posts that explain how to figure out high-quality clothes, I would immediately subscribe. The blog post that's posted here on HN is short on images & video, which I feel like is really necessary here. A visual aid would be extremely helpful.