4 ms·

As far as I’ve seen thriftstores and vintage boutiques are actually thriving. My naive theory is that clothes are designed to break faster and faster and some o

As far as I’ve seen thriftstores and vintage boutiques are actually thriving. My naive theory is that clothes are designed to break faster and faster and some older clothes have a quality you can’t find anymore, hence vintage has an aura of good quality old stuff. The other end of the theory is that the increasing povery forced people to rummage through thriftstores.

free2OSS 6y ago
I think people forget that "quality" stuff survives, but there was always a cheap alternative to "quality". The olden days were not better. Obligatory-"survivorship bias"
- tartoran 6y ago
  That is true but now even more expensive clothes are designed to break faster, back in the day expensive stuff was good durable stuff. For example theres a new trend for shoes in which soles wear out faster because of the material used. I’ve seen myself throwing out shoes that were in perfect condition or still very wearable if it wasnt for the hole in the heel. A lot of classic shoes that one used to be able to take to a shoe repair shop are now unfixable for this reason
  - free2OSS 6y ago
    Be careful not to confuse expensive brands for durable stuff.
    - tartoran 6y ago
      Don’t worry, I don’t. Maybe when I was younger Id make that mistake but luckily never bought expensive clothes in label only. If I had the money to throw around I’d have probably fallen into that trap. But Im having more and more difficulty finding that real good classic shor that is well made and is maintainable/fixable and which is a good fit and could be happy with for a couple of years. I live in NYC and the market here is innundated in low quality crap. Even an expensive brand such as Prada doesn’t have well made shoes, they’re made to not last very long
      - convolvatron 6y ago
        https://builder.wescoboots.com https://builder.wescoboots.com. I still have a pair that I bought 20 years ago that I have worn for a large part of that time (with yearly resoling). They have a deal where you can return a pair of boots and they will rebuild them (keeping only the uppers) for half the cost of new. they are not stylish. they will last forever. you send them your measurements and they make a form (last) which they keep and you can order against again. that first pair had some minor fit issues, I sent corrections and the second pair was a perfect fit.
        tartoran 6y ago
        Thank you!!
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    Buy a tube of Shoe-Goo. Inspect your shoes for wear and build up the areas that need it. You can keep a set of soles forever if you do this periodically before holes grow too big.
    - tartoran 6y ago
      I like that, I'll give it a try. Thanks for the tip
  - quickthrowman 6y ago
    > For example theres a new trend for shoes in which soles wear out faster because of the material used. Don’t buy shoes with EVA/foam soles, problem solved. All my shoes have leather, vibram (rubber), or dainite soles. All of them can be resoled as well. A few brands to get you started, prices range from $200-$500ish but mostly $200-$350 Shoes: Grant Stone, Allen Edmonds, Meermin, Carmina Boots: Red Wing, Wesco, White’s, Thorogood, Chippewa
    - tartoran 6y ago
      Thanks, I'll take note of these brands.
    - wyclif 6y ago
      For dress shoes, the top of the line Allen Edmonds are a great investment. High quality stitched leather uppers and soles. If you clean them, polish them, and store them in cedar shoe trees, they might just last a lifetime with resoling.
  - dr_orpheus 6y ago
    When these discussions come up, there often tend to be suggestions durable brands for "big ticket" items like shoes, boots and outerwear (as other comments have suggested). Does anyone have recommendations for longer lasting every day clothes? I feel like I often have dress shirts and pants/jeans that wear out more quickly than they should. Dress shirts tend to have holes wear in the elbow area and pants tend to wear in the pockets where I have phone/keys.
    - ummonk 6y ago
      r/BuyItForLife on reddit is a decent resource.
    - KozmoNau7 6y ago
      If it's just the inside pocket that wears, and not the pant leg itself, that's pretty easy to fix with scrap of fabric, plus needle and thread. I've done that myself with plenty of pants, even sewn a completely new replacement pocket for one pair. For the shirts, you could sew patches on the elbows, but the would probably be at-home/casual shirts at that point. The skill of mending clothes is one I think many people don't think about, out maybe they just don't think it's something they want to do. It's not rocket science at all, and there are tons of guides and videos or there to show the various stitches and techniques. I mend all of my clothes when they start to wear, fix and replace buttons, even slight alterations to fit. When a piece of clothing finally becomes overall too threadbare, I harvest buttons and sometimes zippers, as well as scraps of remaining good quality fabric, all for future repairs. My current pants are all from the Finnish store Varusteleka. Their ordinary jeans are good, their tactical jeans are amazing, and their worker pants are a breath of fresh old-fashioned air, with high waists, pleats and buttons for proper suspenders. The materials chosen are solid, as is the workmanship, although you wouldn't call it superlative. Like the style, it's practical, not flashy. I like their wool shirts too.
naravara 6y ago
Yes. Vintage clothing (and even more current but high quality clothing) does well in thrift stores. But most of the clothes people are junking is low quality and doesn't actually stand up well enough to being reused OR it's got some sort of gimmick or pattern that falls out of fashion too quickly rather than seeming timeless. Some of it might be cool again in 20 or 30 years, but probably not and that's longer than the cycle time for people to dispose of clothes besides. But the article isn't really about that. The article is about how making stuff new nowadays is so cheap that there is barely any cost savings over making stuff out of recycled material. This is partly because our standards for new stuff have slipped to where good quality fabrics and material are no longer valued. But it's also because a lot of the costs of making stuff new are so externalized that nobody's paying them. Also, people are so accustomed to the cheap stuff that most people wouldn't even know how to differentiate between good quality and bad. They've outsourced that discrimination to brands but the brands have wised up and there isn't as much of a relationship between the brand equity/prestige of a luxury brand and quality as there used to be.
- tartoran 6y ago
  But doesn’t that imply that more cheaper clothes would eventually end up filling thrifstores? The reality is that not everyone can afford to buy new and that segment of the popularion is unfortunately growing. Also, even if clothes cost little to make does not mean that retailers don’t add a mark up that renders them unaffordable to many. My main point is that poverty will make these thifstores more frequented by many, until things get better poverywise.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    At least where I've lived the trend for thrifting has mostly made thrift stores just as expensive, if not more, than going to your local fast fashion store and buying a $5-10 thing that will disintegrate after a year of laundry. In the same way that quinoa used to be a very cheap staple food but has been gentrified into an expensive health food. There is also a floor for how cheap thrift stores can sell things, because it requires labor to sort through clothing donations and figure out what is actually still in resalable condition, and stores need staff as well.
dylan604 6y ago
While designed obsolesce is probably a thing, don't forget the main thing about vintage clothing is the style is what people are looking for when specifically shopping vintage. Thrift stores are different than vintage.
- tartoran 6y ago
  Thrifstores are different nowadays, I agree. People who owned vintage stores used to run through thrifstores and buy whatever was better quality, I know some cases like that in NYC. Now they have a separate triage process so no better quality item can end up in thrifstores.
  - rufus_foreman 6y ago
    >> Now they have a separate triage process so no better quality item can end up in thrifstores I know people who run a vintage store, and they still hit the thrift stores. Along with garage sales and estate sales. They can go through racks in a thrift store and find items they can get for $5 and turn around and sell the next day for $200. I love the smell of arbitrage in the morning. Although now that they're established, they've got other people doing the digging and bringing stuff straight to them.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
It's true, I heard this from multiple people who stopped buying new. Most stores dropped the quality of stock, even the "high end" ones, while others went out of business.
asdff 6y ago
On of my friends hunts for vintage Levis. The new ones are not built nearly as well as even the ones 10 years ago which were commonly selvedge denim too (now levis wants >$100 for that).
canada_dry 6y ago
> My naive theory is that clothes are designed to break faster Yup. I've long suspected that tee-shirt manufacturers do extensive research to find the cotton-blend that goes from crisp white to dull yellow after just one wear and stays yellow no matter what amount of bleach/detergent is applied.
- smileysteve 6y ago
  Check out vinegar. It, maybe some baking soda will do more than bleach to pit stains
the-pigeon 6y ago
> My naive theory is that clothes are designed to break faster and faster and some older clothes have a quality you can’t find anymore, hence vintage has an aura of good quality old stuff. Two things going on here. First just the general race to lower prices means you have less material used in most brand's items and it's designed to be manufactured cheaply not to last. Which is different than designing it to break fast. Breaking faster is a side effect of saving money during manufacturing, not the goal. Second is survivorship bias. There were plenty of junk products in the past but those are already at dumps. The vintage items you see in stores were either high quality in their day or were not used before sitting on a shelf for a very long time.
Bluecobra 6y ago
I think there’s some truth to older clothes being higher quality, there was a point where almost all clothing was made here. In the ‘60s, 95% of clothing was made in the US and that has been on a gradual decline since then. Even in the ‘90s it was 50%. Now it’s just 2%... Source: https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/7939/madeinamerica https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/7939/madeinamerica

free2OSS 6y ago

I think people forget that "quality" stuff survives, but there was always a cheap alternative to "quality". The olden days were not better. Obligatory-"survivorship bias"

tartoran 6y ago
That is true but now even more expensive clothes are designed to break faster, back in the day expensive stuff was good durable stuff. For example theres a new trend for shoes in which soles wear out faster because of the material used. I’ve seen myself throwing out shoes that were in perfect condition or still very wearable if it wasnt for the hole in the heel. A lot of classic shoes that one used to be able to take to a shoe repair shop are now unfixable for this reason
- free2OSS 6y ago
  Be careful not to confuse expensive brands for durable stuff.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    Don’t worry, I don’t. Maybe when I was younger Id make that mistake but luckily never bought expensive clothes in label only. If I had the money to throw around I’d have probably fallen into that trap. But Im having more and more difficulty finding that real good classic shor that is well made and is maintainable/fixable and which is a good fit and could be happy with for a couple of years. I live in NYC and the market here is innundated in low quality crap. Even an expensive brand such as Prada doesn’t have well made shoes, they’re made to not last very long
    - convolvatron 6y ago
      https://builder.wescoboots.com https://builder.wescoboots.com. I still have a pair that I bought 20 years ago that I have worn for a large part of that time (with yearly resoling). They have a deal where you can return a pair of boots and they will rebuild them (keeping only the uppers) for half the cost of new. they are not stylish. they will last forever. you send them your measurements and they make a form (last) which they keep and you can order against again. that first pair had some minor fit issues, I sent corrections and the second pair was a perfect fit.
      - tartoran 6y ago
        Thank you!!
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  Buy a tube of Shoe-Goo. Inspect your shoes for wear and build up the areas that need it. You can keep a set of soles forever if you do this periodically before holes grow too big.
  - tartoran 6y ago
    I like that, I'll give it a try. Thanks for the tip
- quickthrowman 6y ago
  > For example theres a new trend for shoes in which soles wear out faster because of the material used. Don’t buy shoes with EVA/foam soles, problem solved. All my shoes have leather, vibram (rubber), or dainite soles. All of them can be resoled as well. A few brands to get you started, prices range from $200-$500ish but mostly $200-$350 Shoes: Grant Stone, Allen Edmonds, Meermin, Carmina Boots: Red Wing, Wesco, White’s, Thorogood, Chippewa
  - tartoran 6y ago
    Thanks, I'll take note of these brands.
  - wyclif 6y ago
    For dress shoes, the top of the line Allen Edmonds are a great investment. High quality stitched leather uppers and soles. If you clean them, polish them, and store them in cedar shoe trees, they might just last a lifetime with resoling.
- dr_orpheus 6y ago
  When these discussions come up, there often tend to be suggestions durable brands for "big ticket" items like shoes, boots and outerwear (as other comments have suggested). Does anyone have recommendations for longer lasting every day clothes? I feel like I often have dress shirts and pants/jeans that wear out more quickly than they should. Dress shirts tend to have holes wear in the elbow area and pants tend to wear in the pockets where I have phone/keys.
  - ummonk 6y ago
    r/BuyItForLife on reddit is a decent resource.
  - KozmoNau7 6y ago
    If it's just the inside pocket that wears, and not the pant leg itself, that's pretty easy to fix with scrap of fabric, plus needle and thread. I've done that myself with plenty of pants, even sewn a completely new replacement pocket for one pair. For the shirts, you could sew patches on the elbows, but the would probably be at-home/casual shirts at that point. The skill of mending clothes is one I think many people don't think about, out maybe they just don't think it's something they want to do. It's not rocket science at all, and there are tons of guides and videos or there to show the various stitches and techniques. I mend all of my clothes when they start to wear, fix and replace buttons, even slight alterations to fit. When a piece of clothing finally becomes overall too threadbare, I harvest buttons and sometimes zippers, as well as scraps of remaining good quality fabric, all for future repairs. My current pants are all from the Finnish store Varusteleka. Their ordinary jeans are good, their tactical jeans are amazing, and their worker pants are a breath of fresh old-fashioned air, with high waists, pleats and buttons for proper suspenders. The materials chosen are solid, as is the workmanship, although you wouldn't call it superlative. Like the style, it's practical, not flashy. I like their wool shirts too.

naravara 6y ago

Yes. Vintage clothing (and even more current but high quality clothing) does well in thrift stores. But most of the clothes people are junking is low quality and doesn't actually stand up well enough to being reused OR it's got some sort of gimmick or pattern that falls out of fashion too quickly rather than seeming timeless. Some of it might be cool again in 20 or 30 years, but probably not and that's longer than the cycle time for people to dispose of clothes besides. But the article isn't really about that. The article is about how making stuff new nowadays is so cheap that there is barely any cost savings over making stuff out of recycled material. This is partly because our standards for new stuff have slipped to where good quality fabrics and material are no longer valued. But it's also because a lot of the costs of making stuff new are so externalized that nobody's paying them. Also, people are so accustomed to the cheap stuff that most people wouldn't even know how to differentiate between good quality and bad. They've outsourced that discrimination to brands but the brands have wised up and there isn't as much of a relationship between the brand equity/prestige of a luxury brand and quality as there used to be.

tartoran 6y ago
But doesn’t that imply that more cheaper clothes would eventually end up filling thrifstores? The reality is that not everyone can afford to buy new and that segment of the popularion is unfortunately growing. Also, even if clothes cost little to make does not mean that retailers don’t add a mark up that renders them unaffordable to many. My main point is that poverty will make these thifstores more frequented by many, until things get better poverywise.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  At least where I've lived the trend for thrifting has mostly made thrift stores just as expensive, if not more, than going to your local fast fashion store and buying a $5-10 thing that will disintegrate after a year of laundry. In the same way that quinoa used to be a very cheap staple food but has been gentrified into an expensive health food. There is also a floor for how cheap thrift stores can sell things, because it requires labor to sort through clothing donations and figure out what is actually still in resalable condition, and stores need staff as well.

dylan604 6y ago

While designed obsolesce is probably a thing, don't forget the main thing about vintage clothing is the style is what people are looking for when specifically shopping vintage. Thrift stores are different than vintage.

tartoran 6y ago
Thrifstores are different nowadays, I agree. People who owned vintage stores used to run through thrifstores and buy whatever was better quality, I know some cases like that in NYC. Now they have a separate triage process so no better quality item can end up in thrifstores.
- rufus_foreman 6y ago
  >> Now they have a separate triage process so no better quality item can end up in thrifstores I know people who run a vintage store, and they still hit the thrift stores. Along with garage sales and estate sales. They can go through racks in a thrift store and find items they can get for $5 and turn around and sell the next day for $200. I love the smell of arbitrage in the morning. Although now that they're established, they've got other people doing the digging and bringing stuff straight to them.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

It's true, I heard this from multiple people who stopped buying new. Most stores dropped the quality of stock, even the "high end" ones, while others went out of business.

asdff 6y ago

On of my friends hunts for vintage Levis. The new ones are not built nearly as well as even the ones 10 years ago which were commonly selvedge denim too (now levis wants >$100 for that).

canada_dry 6y ago

> My naive theory is that clothes are designed to break faster Yup. I've long suspected that tee-shirt manufacturers do extensive research to find the cotton-blend that goes from crisp white to dull yellow after just one wear and stays yellow no matter what amount of bleach/detergent is applied.

smileysteve 6y ago
Check out vinegar. It, maybe some baking soda will do more than bleach to pit stains

the-pigeon 6y ago

> My naive theory is that clothes are designed to break faster and faster and some older clothes have a quality you can’t find anymore, hence vintage has an aura of good quality old stuff. Two things going on here. First just the general race to lower prices means you have less material used in most brand's items and it's designed to be manufactured cheaply not to last. Which is different than designing it to break fast. Breaking faster is a side effect of saving money during manufacturing, not the goal. Second is survivorship bias. There were plenty of junk products in the past but those are already at dumps. The vintage items you see in stores were either high quality in their day or were not used before sitting on a shelf for a very long time.

Bluecobra 6y ago

I think there’s some truth to older clothes being higher quality, there was a point where almost all clothing was made here. In the ‘60s, 95% of clothing was made in the US and that has been on a gradual decline since then. Even in the ‘90s it was 50%. Now it’s just 2%... Source: https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/7939/madeinamerica https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/7939/madeinamerica