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Reduce - buy jeans that last a lifetime. Reuse - buy your jeans from a thrift store. Recycle - this? So it’s the last choice, but most clothes today just end u

Reduce - buy jeans that last a lifetime. Reuse - buy your jeans from a thrift store. Recycle - this? So it’s the last choice, but most clothes today just end up in the trash, since durability is fairly awful. Even after one wash some clothes start to lose their shape and color. What will the durability of recycled clothes look like if the recycling inputs are so poor? Will people pay any less for these clothes? I wonder if brands will be trying to recycle clothes that have never been worn but went out of fashion?

AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
I don't think it's realistic for you to expect your jeans to last a lifetime. I buy decent jeans once a year. The new pair is for daily wear. The old pair is retired for manual labor. The old-old pair is retired to when I crawl under the house.
- OldHunter69X 4y ago
  Word for word how I describe my own clothing methodology to others. Rock on good fellow.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  I usually have 3 decent (not super cheap, but nothing expensive, 40-80€) pairs at a time, they usually last around 10 years, with taking them to get fixed once or twice.
- FalconSensei 4y ago
  > I don't think it's realistic for you to expect your jeans to last a lifetime. > I buy decent jeans once a year. WHAT? I have jeans I got 10 years ago and are still good. And they weren't even expensive
  - AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
    What do you do in your jeans? I wear the same pair daily to do pretty much everything. I work, I shop, pick the kids up, walk to my parents house, do yard work, hike, literally everything in the same pair of jeans. I don't think there's a fabric yet made that could withstand the abuse I put on them for more than a year. Although this pair I'm about to replace is at 16 months so I will revise to say "about a year"
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    May have to do with how often you wear them. For a few years I wore jeans every damn day, unless there was a funeral or something, and I had a similar rotation: two pairs "active" at a time (with maybe one reserve pair in case the lesser of those two got ruined, assuming I had any older ones that were still wearable)—one for light duty, one for heavy duty, order a new pair of 501s when they're on sale about once a year, they become the new light-duty pair, everything else shifts down, oldest become rags or get thrown out (they were never in good-enough shape to donate, by the time they were leaving my closet). ~$40/yr wasn't so bad. [EDIT] Oh, and for the record, I minimized washing, though I wasn't as hardcore about it as some people who claim to go months between washes. Every wash seemed to age them a couple weeks worth of wearing. These days, I wear a lot more wool, linen, and cotton/linen blends for light-duty, and wear a single pair of Prana Zions (very thin mid-tier hiking pants, synthetic material) for anything risky/dirty. The Zions are probably at something like 1,000 wears (for the first couple years I wore them kinda like I had my jeans before—for everything) over five years or so. About a penny per wear. Finally due to be replaced, starting to get enough holes that they're getting iffy for wearing around... people, at all. If I hadn't damaged them with sharp things a few times, they'd probably go another 500+ wears, they're not getting worn-looking anywhere, no stains have proven permanent, nor is any part of them fraying (except at the holes).
- slowmovintarget 4y ago
  I have a pair of jeans I still wear around the house that are more than twenty years old. The newer ones don't seem as durable.
- Arubis 4y ago
  This worked for me right up till I had kids. Now, with daily spillage, I'm washing the darned things to death.
  - wolverine876 4y ago
    Tip: Wash in cold water on the lowest-impact cycle, hang up to dry. Of course I don't know your materials, washer, etc., but for me, everything comes clean with (what seems like) very little impact on the clothing.
    - Arubis 4y ago
      I’ll try the hang-drying; appreciate it. Cold water def helps. There’s not much I can do about the frequency, alas.
      - wolverine876 4y ago
        Try the delicate cycle, too (in case I wasn't clear above). I wash almost all my clothes that way and they come clean.
lostlogin 4y ago
You have reminded me about old jeans and those that collect them. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cache-of-19th-century-blue-jeans-discovered-in-abandoned-arizona-mineshaft-180981014/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cache-of-19th-century...
Reptur 4y ago
We're past the point of innovating for a better consumer product. Most innovations nowadays are to reduce to cost while getting the consumer to accept the downgrade. Usually it happens gradually using the "boiling frog" method.

AlgorithmicTime 4y ago

I don't think it's realistic for you to expect your jeans to last a lifetime. I buy decent jeans once a year. The new pair is for daily wear. The old pair is retired for manual labor. The old-old pair is retired to when I crawl under the house.

OldHunter69X 4y ago
Word for word how I describe my own clothing methodology to others. Rock on good fellow.
Semaphor 4y ago
I usually have 3 decent (not super cheap, but nothing expensive, 40-80€) pairs at a time, they usually last around 10 years, with taking them to get fixed once or twice.
FalconSensei 4y ago
> I don't think it's realistic for you to expect your jeans to last a lifetime. > I buy decent jeans once a year. WHAT? I have jeans I got 10 years ago and are still good. And they weren't even expensive
- AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
  What do you do in your jeans? I wear the same pair daily to do pretty much everything. I work, I shop, pick the kids up, walk to my parents house, do yard work, hike, literally everything in the same pair of jeans. I don't think there's a fabric yet made that could withstand the abuse I put on them for more than a year. Although this pair I'm about to replace is at 16 months so I will revise to say "about a year"
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  May have to do with how often you wear them. For a few years I wore jeans every damn day, unless there was a funeral or something, and I had a similar rotation: two pairs "active" at a time (with maybe one reserve pair in case the lesser of those two got ruined, assuming I had any older ones that were still wearable)—one for light duty, one for heavy duty, order a new pair of 501s when they're on sale about once a year, they become the new light-duty pair, everything else shifts down, oldest become rags or get thrown out (they were never in good-enough shape to donate, by the time they were leaving my closet). ~$40/yr wasn't so bad. [EDIT] Oh, and for the record, I minimized washing, though I wasn't as hardcore about it as some people who claim to go months between washes. Every wash seemed to age them a couple weeks worth of wearing. These days, I wear a lot more wool, linen, and cotton/linen blends for light-duty, and wear a single pair of Prana Zions (very thin mid-tier hiking pants, synthetic material) for anything risky/dirty. The Zions are probably at something like 1,000 wears (for the first couple years I wore them kinda like I had my jeans before—for everything) over five years or so. About a penny per wear. Finally due to be replaced, starting to get enough holes that they're getting iffy for wearing around... people, at all. If I hadn't damaged them with sharp things a few times, they'd probably go another 500+ wears, they're not getting worn-looking anywhere, no stains have proven permanent, nor is any part of them fraying (except at the holes).
slowmovintarget 4y ago
I have a pair of jeans I still wear around the house that are more than twenty years old. The newer ones don't seem as durable.
Arubis 4y ago
This worked for me right up till I had kids. Now, with daily spillage, I'm washing the darned things to death.
- wolverine876 4y ago
  Tip: Wash in cold water on the lowest-impact cycle, hang up to dry. Of course I don't know your materials, washer, etc., but for me, everything comes clean with (what seems like) very little impact on the clothing.
  - Arubis 4y ago
    I’ll try the hang-drying; appreciate it. Cold water def helps. There’s not much I can do about the frequency, alas.
    - wolverine876 4y ago
      Try the delicate cycle, too (in case I wasn't clear above). I wash almost all my clothes that way and they come clean.

lostlogin 4y ago

You have reminded me about old jeans and those that collect them. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cache-of-19th-century-blue-jeans-discovered-in-abandoned-arizona-mineshaft-180981014/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cache-of-19th-century...

Reptur 4y ago

We're past the point of innovating for a better consumer product. Most innovations nowadays are to reduce to cost while getting the consumer to accept the downgrade. Usually it happens gradually using the "boiling frog" method.