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Comment by bcaulfield | Hacker News Reader

Yes, and the clothes. Okay, I know by many statistical measures we're wealthier now. But those clothes would cost a fortune now. Do they have fewer outfits? Are we only seeing the elite?

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My grandfather was a tailor, and ended up employing a 100 people or so. Tailor made clothing was the norm, rather than the exception for anybody of moderate means and just about everybody that could afford it had a sewing machine or knew how to use one. Sewing machines were common wedding gifts, and were the equivalent in money of a small car today. Fabrics were of far better quality than the ones we have today and repairing stuff rather than throwing it away was normal. Fashion was as much a thing back then as it is now.

I grew up in a house that still has a sewing machine. My grandmother knew how to use it, and my father does too - he still repairs some old pieces from time to time, but never touches anything made of newer fabrics, he says there is nothing that he can mend there. Funny thing, he's a civil engineer.

> Fabrics were of far better quality than the ones we have today

At a low confidence, I'd suggest that fabrics were often of higher quality, but even more often were simply sturdier. Our "better fabrics" often have a focus on being light weight at a cost to durability - which is a fine thing for some use cases and a poor fit for others.

They almost certainly only had one or two outfits for going out. The ones strolling around might also be richer on average as the poorer would need to be working (either at a job or in the home).

EDIT: I suppose the photographer might have preferred better dressed subjects, too.

We dress worse now than we did than because clothing is cheap and mass produced. If you look at a typical middle class family from 1880, much more of their paycheck would go towards clothing, and they would have far fewer options in what to wear.

I wonder about that myself. Those are some elaborate outfits. Manufacturing the full outfit with first world labour by hand using natural fibres would cost 1000s of dollars in today's market.

One guy had a beaver pelt top hat. I read somewhere that at one time they cost as much as a Porsche in today's dollars, though you can only make a crude analogy between our money and theirs.

Nowadays, things that can be made by machine using little labour are cheap. Things that need a lot of manual labour are super expensive.

We are wealthy because so many cheap things exist now, so we can have a lot of things. But tailored clothes are still expensive.

Those clothes are mostly home made. It's not so hard once you know how to do it.

Both the photographer and his subjects are the elite. No-one in a top hat would tip it to anyone of a lower status.

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