It’s Not Just Shein: Why Are ALL Your Clothes Worse Now? – YouTube

“I want you to think about how many new pieces of clothing you bought last year. If you’re anything like the average American, it was around 68. In 1980 that number was 12. But wait, it gets crazier. In the ’80s, Americans spent about 7% of their annual income on clothes. Today, it’s just 3%. We spend half as much, even though we’re buying five times more.”

I found this video enlightening.

@patrickrhone Oh! Thank you for recommending Darn Tough Vermont; I recently got my first pair and instantly felt the difference. They are now on our list for trusted clothing, the primary condition for which is: Can these items make it easier to massively reduce our number of purchases.

@patrickrhone 68?? Does she ever expand on how 'a piece of clothing' is defined?? That is a crazy statistic to me (partly because I hate clothes shopping, partly because I currently have fewer opportunities to shop anyway, and partly because it's acceptable where I am to wear the same outfit to work more than once a week)

@patrickrhone Funny, I was just about to post a link to this video. It was eye-opening. I would have liked her to say a bit more about what we can do while we wait for systemic changes. I've been moving toward buying less but more costly stuff (some of it from US makers recommended by you); my wife already buys almost everything at thrift stores, so I guess she's set already. Still, I wish everybody would watch this!

@patrickrhone Thanks. Forwarding to my daughter who is graduating this year with a business degree focused on the fashion industry.

@patrickrhone Anti-inflation, anti-inflation, anti-inflation! 🤓 Was seriously the best resolution I have ever adopted.

Also, the SNL version of this is hilarious…ly sad

@SimonWoods Yay! That makes me happy.

@patrickrhone this is so interesting to me. We've been using Cutter and Buck for work shirts for years and the quality used to be great. Now every shirt I've bought in the last two years has completely disintegrated. The only ones I still wear are over five years old and still look new

@val Unsure if she further defines it but I would assume that is all clothing (including underwear, socks, shoes, etc.)

Thus, an "item" of clothing in the case of underwear likely means if, for instance, I but a three pack of undershirts that would be three "items" of clothing.

But, this is just my interpretation and, in general, I never trust the numbers. In context, it's mainly support for the larger point.

@JohnBrady Yeah. My wife is actually way better at this than I. She gets all of her clothes via clothing exchanges and Buy Nothing/Free groups on Facebook.

@danjewett Glad it helps.

@grubz Yep.

I have a denim shirt from JCrew in the early 1990's that is US made​ and single needle stitching and it still looks great and is hole free. Same with many of my other pieces I still have from that era (I have a fair bit of JCrew from that period). Stuff was made to last.

@patrickrhone I miss that kind of quality 😩

@JohnBrady Ha! So did mine!

Though, the dress she got married in the first time (it is a second one for us both) is a family Heirloom that is over 100 years old.

One of me favorite things in our house is a collection of portraits of her, her mother, her grandmother, and her great grandmother all in that same dress.

@grubz Same.

@patrickrhone I don't have the patience to watch a video right now (so tired!) but just that quote is fascinating. I think it's a rare year I buy more than 20 new items of clothing, including thrifting.

@KimberlyHirsh I’m usually not on the high end of the clothes buying spectrum but have recently purchased a few because I’ve lost weight.

@patrickrhone Yes, some of my recent purchases are the result of my moving the other direction. I tend to budget about $400/year for clothes.