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It depends. If you are buying high priced stuff (i.e. Borders wool) then it is going to be high quality. What people don't realise is that in the North there a

It depends. If you are buying high priced stuff (i.e. Borders wool) then it is going to be high quality. What people don't realise is that in the North there are people working for 50p/£1 an hour making clothes for Primark et al (some of this isn't even branded as "Made in the UK"). So the reason quality is lower is because no-one will pay for quality anymore. These jobs go overseas or they done here under illegal/slave labour conditions (the UK is a bit like the U.S. in that there is basically no oversight of these breaches). Also the "skills" required aren't that high. That is why the jobs went to China.

switch007 7y ago
> So the reason quality is lower is because no-one will pay for quality anymore That's seems overly simplistic. Many people in the UK /can't/ pay for quality. I've tried to seek out quality and many times I've been bitterly disappointed. Paying for quality can be waaay above what even an above-average earner would want to pay, and with little guarantee about the quality. Is something 2-10x more expensive going to last 2-10x longer? Take carpet for example. £50-100m2 vs £15-30m2. The latter looks nice (can even get a wool mix in that price bracket) and if kept clean might last 10 years. With the former, which will probably outlast even you, you might lose money if you move, damage it or fancy a new design. It can also be just as liable to a manufacturing defect, with no promise of better customer service.
- hogFeast 7y ago
  > Paying for quality can be waaay above what even an above-average earner would want to pay, and with little guarantee about the quality. There is your problem buddy. There are still masses of companies making high-quality products in the UK but the issue is that most Brits expect to pay the same price as Primark. It is totally illogical: why would you expect an adult in the UK to make clothes for the same wage (i.e. produce a product that costs the same) as a 9-year old in a Vietnamese sweatshop? Whether it is worth it is really up to you but I have not come across a British company making products where the extra price isn't worth it (ignoring the ethics of having small children make your clothes)...and that is why they exist. Yes, most Brits don't pay for this stuff anyway but the companies that focus on quality generally operate in areas where that premium pays (your assumption is presumably that high prices are just about corporate greed...this isn't the case). You can buy a pair of a suit shoes made by a child and they won't last very long. You can buy Church's and they will last until you die. I also don't really think most people in the UK being poor. Relative to what most UK workers produce, they are paid a fucking bomb and are able to consume (and do) almost all of their income. The issue is that they spend their money on cheap tat (this is something in the national psyche, Brits love the idea of getting something for nothing...from what I have seen, other countries will pay for high quality products).
  - switch007 7y ago
    I don't have a problem thanks. As I said, I've bought "quality" and had bad experiences. Funny you mention Church's. I bought a pair of Church's and the sole came off after a week. I think we disagree on whether a large part of the population is financially able to spend £400 on a pair of shoes or £100 on a jumper or £5,000 on carpet. Especially now with our weak pound: things might be made in the UK but many materials come from abroad.
    - hogFeast 7y ago
      Right, and you take it back and they will fix it for free (they have a specialist team at their factory that deals with this stuff...as you don't own Church's though, I doubt you knew that). And yes, they are able to. UK consumers consume close to 100% of their income, per capita incomes in the UK are high by any measure, they have the budget. But, as I have said, they choose not to because they want to buy cheap tat. Instead of pearl clutching behind your copy of the Guardian, look at data from the ONS on income.
      - switch007 7y ago
        They did fix them. I still have them. Calf leather. They're very nice. That is beside the point and you know it :-) Ex finance guy? OK, that explains your haughty mentioning of data, and being out of touch with many Brits :-)
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
cmroanirgo 7y ago
> Also the "skills" required aren't that high I hear this a lot and in my experience, I tend to disagree. Learning how to sew a shirt is much harder than say making a solid timber table or welding something together. It's certainly harder than any desk job/IT role I've had. Having spent 30yrs in professional development, I'd say that programming is about as hard as making a table: once you know the libraries inside and out is the same as knowing chisels inside and out. After that it's just design and then implementation of said design. (Yes, I got bored with professional programming: c++ games -> automation -> finance & web). I've looked at a huge range of skills since winding down my programming life. Making clothes is actually challenging ... For me at least. No piece of cloth is perfect, like a program can (almost) be: it moves as you measure it and cut it. It reacts to heat/cold and humidity. Then there's style (a thing I'm seriously lacking in). It goes on. Such as how a complex flat plane shape, combined with other flat plane shapes, when sewn can generate a 3d image -- but you put it together inside out! It's pure mathematics made real. So, to say that it's unskilled, since having tried to learn it... Is simply not true. I'd say it's only a few notches easier than trying to visualise the curvature of space time when you're studying the theory of general relativity (yes, I dabbled in that too) So, I'd say that appreciation for the skill set has disappeared, and that is due to a managerial thing: metrics. Once your job is analysed in terms of metrics, then it can be analysed in a clinical way. It's what almost completely happened in our industry: hence the migration of a lot of development to India/Indonesia, and manufacturing to the cheapest country. Edit: typos/readability
- hogFeast 7y ago
  I will have to continue to disagree with you. A prepubescent child with no education can learn how to make clothes, most of the clothes in the world are made by children...so it probably isn't skilled work. Even more complex pieces, i.e. trainers, that require more than just finishing machine work can be made by children. Some work requires specialist knowledge (i.e. tailoring suits) but the majority does not. Welding and metalworking is more complex but not by much. When Japan and Korea were getting into shipbuilding, there definitely was a learning curve which meant places in the West surviving for a short while after their entry...but after a decade or so, they had caught up.
flukus 7y ago
> So the reason quality is lower is because no-one will pay for quality anymore. Unwilling or unable? I can't find a way to distinguish something that's expensive because it's high quality from something that's expensive due to branding. Price is an unreliable signal, brand is an unreliable signal, reviews can't take longevity into consideration, So I just buy cheap shit and hope for the best.
- tripzilch 7y ago
  I mean this is a standard story in economics, right? Something about lemon cars. If the information isn't available symmetrically, then the person selling the quality is going to lose out on the person selling the branded fake quality. I am so sick of hearing that same old story "people don't want to pay for quality" because it's bullshit. I try to, but it's not always on offer, half the time it's just a more expensive (probably nicer-looking) version of stuff that lasts about as long. I'm not talking about shoes. In fact I grant your point on shoes, if dress shoes were the only kind of shoes we need. Which is of course nonsense and I'd love to hear where you get for instance running shoes that last a life time. But jeans. I've bought expensive jeans, I've bought cheap jeans. There is zero correlation how long they last. It's a gamble. In fact, because the cheap ones will occasionally surprise you with some serious longevity, the best gamble is in fact to buy the cheap jeans and see which keep best. But unlike shoe stores there's usually nobody around who can tell you about their relative quality. Or they will tell you anything. Again, that's the lemon game. Lack of information. Not unwillingness to pay. I am certain that many people calling out the "people don't want to pay for quality" are just trying to signal "I can afford expensive stuff" and kind of forget about the part where they can also afford to occasionally buy something expensive that is also shit, doesn't last quite as long as the premium suggests, but not feel it in your pocket and keep telling yourself you buy quality. See I can afford $400 shoes, but I can't afford to "try" $400 shoes.
danpalmer 7y ago
Actually my example came from the world of luxury fashion. For coats at a ~£1500 price point, quality can be worse in the UK than abroad because we don't have the skills.

switch007 7y ago

> So the reason quality is lower is because no-one will pay for quality anymore That's seems overly simplistic. Many people in the UK /can't/ pay for quality. I've tried to seek out quality and many times I've been bitterly disappointed. Paying for quality can be waaay above what even an above-average earner would want to pay, and with little guarantee about the quality. Is something 2-10x more expensive going to last 2-10x longer? Take carpet for example. £50-100m2 vs £15-30m2. The latter looks nice (can even get a wool mix in that price bracket) and if kept clean might last 10 years. With the former, which will probably outlast even you, you might lose money if you move, damage it or fancy a new design. It can also be just as liable to a manufacturing defect, with no promise of better customer service.

hogFeast 7y ago
> Paying for quality can be waaay above what even an above-average earner would want to pay, and with little guarantee about the quality. There is your problem buddy. There are still masses of companies making high-quality products in the UK but the issue is that most Brits expect to pay the same price as Primark. It is totally illogical: why would you expect an adult in the UK to make clothes for the same wage (i.e. produce a product that costs the same) as a 9-year old in a Vietnamese sweatshop? Whether it is worth it is really up to you but I have not come across a British company making products where the extra price isn't worth it (ignoring the ethics of having small children make your clothes)...and that is why they exist. Yes, most Brits don't pay for this stuff anyway but the companies that focus on quality generally operate in areas where that premium pays (your assumption is presumably that high prices are just about corporate greed...this isn't the case). You can buy a pair of a suit shoes made by a child and they won't last very long. You can buy Church's and they will last until you die. I also don't really think most people in the UK being poor. Relative to what most UK workers produce, they are paid a fucking bomb and are able to consume (and do) almost all of their income. The issue is that they spend their money on cheap tat (this is something in the national psyche, Brits love the idea of getting something for nothing...from what I have seen, other countries will pay for high quality products).
- switch007 7y ago
  I don't have a problem thanks. As I said, I've bought "quality" and had bad experiences. Funny you mention Church's. I bought a pair of Church's and the sole came off after a week. I think we disagree on whether a large part of the population is financially able to spend £400 on a pair of shoes or £100 on a jumper or £5,000 on carpet. Especially now with our weak pound: things might be made in the UK but many materials come from abroad.
  - hogFeast 7y ago
    Right, and you take it back and they will fix it for free (they have a specialist team at their factory that deals with this stuff...as you don't own Church's though, I doubt you knew that). And yes, they are able to. UK consumers consume close to 100% of their income, per capita incomes in the UK are high by any measure, they have the budget. But, as I have said, they choose not to because they want to buy cheap tat. Instead of pearl clutching behind your copy of the Guardian, look at data from the ONS on income.
    - switch007 7y ago
      They did fix them. I still have them. Calf leather. They're very nice. That is beside the point and you know it :-) Ex finance guy? OK, that explains your haughty mentioning of data, and being out of touch with many Brits :-)
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]

cmroanirgo 7y ago

> Also the "skills" required aren't that high I hear this a lot and in my experience, I tend to disagree. Learning how to sew a shirt is much harder than say making a solid timber table or welding something together. It's certainly harder than any desk job/IT role I've had. Having spent 30yrs in professional development, I'd say that programming is about as hard as making a table: once you know the libraries inside and out is the same as knowing chisels inside and out. After that it's just design and then implementation of said design. (Yes, I got bored with professional programming: c++ games -> automation -> finance & web). I've looked at a huge range of skills since winding down my programming life. Making clothes is actually challenging ... For me at least. No piece of cloth is perfect, like a program can (almost) be: it moves as you measure it and cut it. It reacts to heat/cold and humidity. Then there's style (a thing I'm seriously lacking in). It goes on. Such as how a complex flat plane shape, combined with other flat plane shapes, when sewn can generate a 3d image -- but you put it together inside out! It's pure mathematics made real. So, to say that it's unskilled, since having tried to learn it... Is simply not true. I'd say it's only a few notches easier than trying to visualise the curvature of space time when you're studying the theory of general relativity (yes, I dabbled in that too) So, I'd say that appreciation for the skill set has disappeared, and that is due to a managerial thing: metrics. Once your job is analysed in terms of metrics, then it can be analysed in a clinical way. It's what almost completely happened in our industry: hence the migration of a lot of development to India/Indonesia, and manufacturing to the cheapest country. Edit: typos/readability

hogFeast 7y ago
I will have to continue to disagree with you. A prepubescent child with no education can learn how to make clothes, most of the clothes in the world are made by children...so it probably isn't skilled work. Even more complex pieces, i.e. trainers, that require more than just finishing machine work can be made by children. Some work requires specialist knowledge (i.e. tailoring suits) but the majority does not. Welding and metalworking is more complex but not by much. When Japan and Korea were getting into shipbuilding, there definitely was a learning curve which meant places in the West surviving for a short while after their entry...but after a decade or so, they had caught up.

flukus 7y ago

> So the reason quality is lower is because no-one will pay for quality anymore. Unwilling or unable? I can't find a way to distinguish something that's expensive because it's high quality from something that's expensive due to branding. Price is an unreliable signal, brand is an unreliable signal, reviews can't take longevity into consideration, So I just buy cheap shit and hope for the best.

tripzilch 7y ago
I mean this is a standard story in economics, right? Something about lemon cars. If the information isn't available symmetrically, then the person selling the quality is going to lose out on the person selling the branded fake quality. I am so sick of hearing that same old story "people don't want to pay for quality" because it's bullshit. I try to, but it's not always on offer, half the time it's just a more expensive (probably nicer-looking) version of stuff that lasts about as long. I'm not talking about shoes. In fact I grant your point on shoes, if dress shoes were the only kind of shoes we need. Which is of course nonsense and I'd love to hear where you get for instance running shoes that last a life time. But jeans. I've bought expensive jeans, I've bought cheap jeans. There is zero correlation how long they last. It's a gamble. In fact, because the cheap ones will occasionally surprise you with some serious longevity, the best gamble is in fact to buy the cheap jeans and see which keep best. But unlike shoe stores there's usually nobody around who can tell you about their relative quality. Or they will tell you anything. Again, that's the lemon game. Lack of information. Not unwillingness to pay. I am certain that many people calling out the "people don't want to pay for quality" are just trying to signal "I can afford expensive stuff" and kind of forget about the part where they can also afford to occasionally buy something expensive that is also shit, doesn't last quite as long as the premium suggests, but not feel it in your pocket and keep telling yourself you buy quality. See I can afford $400 shoes, but I can't afford to "try" $400 shoes.

danpalmer 7y ago

Actually my example came from the world of luxury fashion. For coats at a ~£1500 price point, quality can be worse in the UK than abroad because we don't have the skills.