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Buying online is a terrible idea. I would advise against it. How you get durable, functional clothing is by being extremely patient, selective and most importa

Buying online is a terrible idea. I would advise against it. How you get durable, functional clothing is by being extremely patient, selective and most importantly getting a basic education in textiles. Even if a brand is held in high regard the incentive is too strong for companies to use these brands to push off cheap, high-margin products. As a consumer you need to be discerning. Part of that involves a basic, but yet often undervalued sense, touch. You might not have a textbook understanding of textiles, but I promise that you can tell the difference between a durable t-shirt and one that isn't by simply touching and feeling it. Now as to where to go to find these shirts, go to your local mall, outlet store, shopping centre, thrift store etc. Dedicate a good amount of time to walk in to places and compare their stock. It's time consuming but worth it. Eventually you'll realize that certain stores just don't meet a certain quality bar and you will subconsciously filter these out. Another thing you'll realize is that brands don't really have a lot of signaling power. Just because a shirt is sold in a luxury store doesn't mean that it's using high quality fabrics or has durable construction. With garments you absolutely get what you pay for but not everything that's pricy is worth it. How you're able to distinguish between the two is by building the knowledge and there's sadly no royal road to that, you're just gonna have to put in the work.

farseer 3y ago
Walking around "feeling" clothes sounds like a terrible waste of time. I can just order a $100 T-shirt from a brand known for its high quality rather than spend $200/hour of my time checking clothes in the whole city in the hope of saving a few dozen dollars. The point is there are brands that don't compromise on quality or don't mix cheap fabrics.
- inertiatic 3y ago
  If you're making $200/hour, you probably don't share a lot of the problems other people have around buying goods of all sorts. Furthermore, you're likely to go shopping with friends/significant other/kids anyway and touching something when you're there is free - assuming you could even find clients to pay you your $200 an hour on a Saturday morning for example. Overall, I don't think it's a bad idea to develop an intuition for most things you consume, even if you're well off.
wintermutestwin 3y ago
>Buying online is a terrible idea. While the rest of your post is on point, I strongly disagree with this. If you shop on a site with free shipping and returns, online can be a great choice. I recently bought 7 pairs of shoes from Amazon and returned all but one. Yes, I may have to float the cash (depending on my CC billing cycle), but it is worth it to me compared to: drive time, traffic/parking frustrations, toxic perfume air in malls and dept stores, and the hours it takes going store to store (and then maybe back again to buy the least bad option), salespeople who know nothing, etc... Thrift stores used to be great, but flipper mania has reduced them to last pick of the litter spots. Some people enjoy shopping (though I suspect "retail therapy" is a big factor in that), I do not. And judging from the state of brick and mortar and especially malls, I believe that I am no outlier. Again, I really appreciated the rest of your post.

farseer 3y ago

Walking around "feeling" clothes sounds like a terrible waste of time. I can just order a $100 T-shirt from a brand known for its high quality rather than spend $200/hour of my time checking clothes in the whole city in the hope of saving a few dozen dollars. The point is there are brands that don't compromise on quality or don't mix cheap fabrics.

inertiatic 3y ago
If you're making $200/hour, you probably don't share a lot of the problems other people have around buying goods of all sorts. Furthermore, you're likely to go shopping with friends/significant other/kids anyway and touching something when you're there is free - assuming you could even find clients to pay you your $200 an hour on a Saturday morning for example. Overall, I don't think it's a bad idea to develop an intuition for most things you consume, even if you're well off.

wintermutestwin 3y ago

>Buying online is a terrible idea. While the rest of your post is on point, I strongly disagree with this. If you shop on a site with free shipping and returns, online can be a great choice. I recently bought 7 pairs of shoes from Amazon and returned all but one. Yes, I may have to float the cash (depending on my CC billing cycle), but it is worth it to me compared to: drive time, traffic/parking frustrations, toxic perfume air in malls and dept stores, and the hours it takes going store to store (and then maybe back again to buy the least bad option), salespeople who know nothing, etc... Thrift stores used to be great, but flipper mania has reduced them to last pick of the litter spots. Some people enjoy shopping (though I suspect "retail therapy" is a big factor in that), I do not. And judging from the state of brick and mortar and especially malls, I believe that I am no outlier. Again, I really appreciated the rest of your post.