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> The 90 euro Converse sneakers and the 30 euro Mywears have a similar CPW (...). In this case, money buys quality, at least when measured by durability. (...)

> The 90 euro Converse sneakers and the 30 euro Mywears have a similar CPW (...). In this case, money buys quality, at least when measured by durability. (...) The more expensive sneakers, the 150 euro Diesels, perform remarkably worse than the two aforementioned. (...) In this case, money does not seem to buy quality, at least not durability. This is the part that it's infuriating to me: I would willingly pay more if I knew which items are of good quality, but quite often there is no way to tell. One would assume that price is a proxy for quality, but (as seen here) this is rarely so: yes, the quality item is probably more expensive, but you can also easily buy items that are both expensive and bad.

cainxinth 6y ago
> I would willingly pay more if I knew which items are of good quality, but quite often there is no way to tell. Of course there are ways. It’s called product research and asking friends. For example, I could have told him that with Diesel shoes you are paying for style and branding, not performance or durability.
KozmoNau7 6y ago
It takes research, reading reviews and asking people you trust for their experience. One general rule of thumb that has worked well for me, is to look at how much marketing focus is on selling you a lifestyle and the brand name itself. The higher the focus is on brand name and identity, the less they trust the product to sell itself on its inherent qualities. Unfortunately there is no easy way to ascertain the quality of a particular item. You may be buying online, with only pictures and a description to go on. Sometimes the quality looks and feels acceptable in the store, but the workmanship itself is bad, so the item falls apart after a short time. You can certainly learn to distinguish quality by feeling the fabric and looking at the stitching, but there are so many places to hide shoddy quality out of sight. What I've concluded is that I generally go for items with as little or as discreet branding as possible, as my very first filter. The flashier an item is, the lower I expect the quality to be. It also meshes will with my desire to not be a walking advertising banner. That considerably narrows the list of items I'll have to research in detail. Learning which manufacturers and retailers can be trusted is hard. They may change their suppliers, but keep the same product name, it's hard to know this, unless they specifically tell you. Some online retailers will have only the barest possible information on a product, such as nominal size and color and nothing else, while others will give you an entire rundown of the materials used, which thoughts went into the design, how you can expect a given cut to fit and a full listing of all the important measurements, plus tell you where it was manufactured. That last bit is shockingly absent on so many online shops. And please do try to go for local production and organic/repurposed materials whenever possible :-)
shalmanese 6y ago
It's surprisingly easier to derive this from first principles than most people think. All clothes undergo a fairly predictable set of stresses and the design solutions for these stresses are mature enough that they lie pretty close to the efficiency frontier for price/performance. Basically, if you know what you need to look for in terms of material selection, stitching, hem design and tolerances, you can pretty quickly evaluate the design life of clothing and then compare it to the price. There's many guides out there that tell you what to look for as a final result but I haven't seen a good guide break it down to fundamental material science but the back derivation is not especially difficult.

cainxinth 6y ago

> I would willingly pay more if I knew which items are of good quality, but quite often there is no way to tell. Of course there are ways. It’s called product research and asking friends. For example, I could have told him that with Diesel shoes you are paying for style and branding, not performance or durability.

KozmoNau7 6y ago

It takes research, reading reviews and asking people you trust for their experience. One general rule of thumb that has worked well for me, is to look at how much marketing focus is on selling you a lifestyle and the brand name itself. The higher the focus is on brand name and identity, the less they trust the product to sell itself on its inherent qualities. Unfortunately there is no easy way to ascertain the quality of a particular item. You may be buying online, with only pictures and a description to go on. Sometimes the quality looks and feels acceptable in the store, but the workmanship itself is bad, so the item falls apart after a short time. You can certainly learn to distinguish quality by feeling the fabric and looking at the stitching, but there are so many places to hide shoddy quality out of sight. What I've concluded is that I generally go for items with as little or as discreet branding as possible, as my very first filter. The flashier an item is, the lower I expect the quality to be. It also meshes will with my desire to not be a walking advertising banner. That considerably narrows the list of items I'll have to research in detail. Learning which manufacturers and retailers can be trusted is hard. They may change their suppliers, but keep the same product name, it's hard to know this, unless they specifically tell you. Some online retailers will have only the barest possible information on a product, such as nominal size and color and nothing else, while others will give you an entire rundown of the materials used, which thoughts went into the design, how you can expect a given cut to fit and a full listing of all the important measurements, plus tell you where it was manufactured. That last bit is shockingly absent on so many online shops. And please do try to go for local production and organic/repurposed materials whenever possible :-)

shalmanese 6y ago

It's surprisingly easier to derive this from first principles than most people think. All clothes undergo a fairly predictable set of stresses and the design solutions for these stresses are mature enough that they lie pretty close to the efficiency frontier for price/performance. Basically, if you know what you need to look for in terms of material selection, stitching, hem design and tolerances, you can pretty quickly evaluate the design life of clothing and then compare it to the price. There's many guides out there that tell you what to look for as a final result but I haven't seen a good guide break it down to fundamental material science but the back derivation is not especially difficult.