Americans are spending less on clothing | Hacker News Reader

Americans are spending less on clothing

bloomberg.com

217 pointslxm323 comments

IMHO there are three clear causes for this trend:

1) US business fashion is increasingly casual. Ties, skirts, suits, coordinated outfits, scarves, leather soled shoes -- all are passe, even in button down East Coast Fortune 100 companies (other than for aspiring managers or those in banking/finance).

2) Color is passe. Shades of black and grey dominate wardrobes, especially in large cities. Thus fewer accessories are needed, since all shades of gray look OK with all sheens of black.

3) More people are working from home several days a week, so nobody cares how you're dressed. I'm astonished at how fast this has changed here (outside Philly). Probably 2/3 our cubes are empty on most days. Five years ago, they were full, because upper management insisted we be physically present and that we follow a dress code (no jeans). But now that management is no longer physically co-located with staff, and almost all meetings are online, nobody cares where you are or what you wear.

All these explanations are rather complicated. I think the simplest explanation is the best: people don't have the free money to spend on clothing.

This is evidenced by the following facts: 1) Wages have been stagnant 2) Cost of living has been increasing well beyond the stated 2% rate of inflation.

That doesn't explain why people in the poorest countries dress better than Americans. People living in the slums of India/Nigeria/Brazil are more likely to have a collared shirt and dress pants than an American going to work in an office.

This.

I see two things happening here: (1) American spending less on clothing and (2) Americans having less self-pride in their attire and presentation.

I've spent a fair amount of time in Latin American countries, and a real sure-fire way to identify tourists is to look for people poorly-dressed or those who look like they just don't care about how they look.

E.g., despite much of Mexico being quite hot, you will almost never see a local Mexican wearing shorts, even on beaches. Tee-shirts maybe but almost always a freshly-washed button-up shirt. (Or a swimsuit if they're swimming obviously.) This is true of other Latin countries too in my travels. It's really humbling to see.

It's not "self pride" its a bucking of the trend of what "looks good" .

It's not that I cannot afford to wear suits. Its that I dont like suits. Add in the marginal cost difference and I'd rather wear a tshirt. It's the market punishing the inefficiency of requiring your workers (or date) to dress in a certain manner when it adds no true value.

I was in Mexico last week near Cancun and observed exactly that. I always saw the locals with jeans and a nice shirt. There's no way I could do that in 85F weather.

This definitely isn't true in Brazil. Brazil is at least as casual as the US.

Is a vertical row of buttons the dividing line between caring about appearance and not caring about appearance? Or can we say that as a society we decide what is acceptable to wear in public? If it's socially acceptable to wear shorts and a t shirt, and I wear nice, clean shorts and a t shirt, your conclusion is that I don't care about how I look? That's some serious mental gymnastics. You could reasonably say that I look like I have different clothing preferences.

> That doesn't explain why people in the poorest countries dress better than Americans.

This is a non-sequitur: all of gp's points apply to people in the US. Cost of living, rate of change of income, fashion/dressing culture and price of clothes (absolute, and relative to income) are very different between countries - so I do not see the point of comparing at all.

"Dress better" is also subjective.

I'm from Nigeria and the idea that the poor among us dress well is news to me. If anything, dressings standards have fallen year in year for the past decade. People simply do not have disposable income.

They might all have a suit but do they have "more" outfits than Americans?

Probably fewer "outfits" (count of pants or shirts).

But in my travels the outfits are all of quality (highest that the person could afford or find) and they are all very clean.

I had an hour-long conversation with a Guatemalan woman about how she hand-washes her whole family's shirts and pants every day because they each only have two sets - one for today and one for tomorrow. She took great pride in how well-dressed and clean her family was despite them not having the resources for many clothes, a washing machine, or the luxury of not having to do hard, dirty work on a regular basis.

The article mentions that despite prices going down, not up, people are still buying fewer clothes. Not sure if they are counting skus or expenditure, my guess is expenditure, so if prices per article are going down (H&M vs Levi's), then of course total spending on clothing will go down, even while consumption remains the same.

In any case, to me it means less waste.

It seems to me that this inexpensive clothing is of very poor quality, and that quality has been declining over time.

The problem is if I can go to H&M and buy 15 T-shirts for around $100, why would I buy 2 or 3 nicer T-shirts that will last about the same amount of time if I cycle the cheapo 15 shirts properly?

It may be better for the environment?

Sounds more likely, and the causality of the effects GP observed may also be transitive through tightened finances. For example, more businesses could be encouraging/allowing more casual dress, in part, because they know they're not paying enough to expect their employees to wear more formal attire. So rather than spending habits being driven by workplace norms, workplace norms are likely driven by workers' ability to spend.

If anything, there are a lot of people in fairly low-paid customer-facing jobs who are still some of the ones dressing up most consistently.

Bingo. In a capitalist society, the better explanation is almost always an economic one. It boggles my mind that so many people find it difficult to understand this simple concept.

Not only wages are stagnant, but the population is under high increases in housing and health care costs, which are not accounted in official inflation. Add this to the reduced welfare state, and you have the perfect recipe for this situation.

Why did the "experiences" (travel, dining out) and "digital media" (software, media purchases, data plans) grow substantially, as the article mentions?

This is more a question of replacing some expenses than a real expansion in wages. For example, dining out is a necessity in the modern family because women are required to work in order to survive. This was not the case up to the 70s and even into the 80s. And online purchases are just replacing previous purchases like CDs, DVDs, movie theaters, cable, fixed phone line, etc., that have been eliminated by technology or made expensive for current budgets.

> Not only wages are stagnant, but the population is under high increases in housing and health care costs, which are not accounted in official inflation.

The US CPI does account for those, and the CPI changes are the "official" inflation rate.

Yes, rents are certainly included in CPI. For me, it's more a question of weighting. When it's not uncommon to find people spending 50% of their income on rent, are rents being appropriately weighted in the CPI?

The article seems to operate on a different premise. In sentence 2, "At a time when the economy is growing, unemployment is low, wages are rebounding and consumers are eager to buy..."

Do you think they're looking at the wrong economic data?

As always, depends on how this data is being measured.

Unemployment is low, but the labor force participation rate is also low. Are the jobs good quality?

Wages are rebounding? I haven’t seen any evidence of this. There’s many people asking if the Phillips curve even works any more. If there had been any uptick in wages it’s a very recent uptick and hardly a trend yet.

It's perfectly reasonable to expect that you (or most other people) would not personally see any evidence of wage growth if it's happening.

In essence, if there's a 2% growth in average real wages (which would be a major change), then it generally would happen with, say, 80% of people experiencing no change or even a decrease (i.e. nominal growth slower than inflation), and a 20% minority, usually disproportionally concentrated in particular industries and locations, experiencing a significant (e.g. 10%) growth. And, this growth often is associated with a change in position, level or industry - most of the impact is not by the same job paying more, but by slightly less people working the low-paying job and by slightly more people working the high paying job.

So no matter if real growth is happening or not, personal evidence of the majority would not, could not show it unless it's on a very long timescale or the growth is sudden and rapid - you have to look at the aggregates to see if it's happening.

If wage growth is constrained to such a small portion of the economy, then how could it lead to runaway inflation like they fear? Couldn't they just push those jobs to areas of the country that haven't been experiencing the growth?

But they do mention other categories growing. If clothing is semi-discretionary, travel and eating out seem like completely discretionary categories, first ones on the chopping block when the money is tight:

> Apparel is being displaced by travel, eating out and activities—what’s routinely lumped together as “experiences”—which have grown to 18 percent of purchases. Technology alone, including data charges and media content, accounts for 3.4 percent of spending. That now tops all clothing and footwear expenditures.

Anecdotally I don't think they're too off-base on travel and experiences. Airports seem busier and even with an increased number of flights the airlines generally run at higher capacity (although some of it could be explained by post-9/11/2001 slump).

This economic shift also affects the insulated, higher-class Americans by making noticeable changes on culture. In most roles, a nice suit at the office now suggests arrogance or even distrust. Instead, we venerate the "hoodie and t-shirt" CEO.

>In most roles, a nice suit at the office now suggests arrogance or even distrust. Instead, we venerate the "hoodie and t-shirt" CEO.

This is definitely not the case outside of tech, and generally not the case for firms headquartered outside the major US West Coast cities. My line of work exposes me to the senior leadership of major US and global firms across the US in a wide spread of industries (tech, energy, pharma, medicine, industrial suppliers, consumer goods, automotive), and there is an almost universal expectation that middle managers and above will be dressed in business casual attire, with one's clothing becoming increasingly formal the closer one is to the top of the management pecking order.

In the US we venerate our working class and, well, the business class kind of earned their reputation.

Labor in working overalls is salt of the earth type. Senior exec in a suit is an empty suit. When labor makes a bad decision it only affects that person. When an exec makes a bad decision they are usually the ones not affected.

The hoodie CEO is GenX/Millenials attempt to get not appear as the empty suit. To announce that they are from working class even if they are not.

People don't have the money to spend on clothing, but can spend it on experiences and travel? Either one of those seems like a free money purchase, with clothing being less of one.

I don't disagree with your assertion that wages have been stagnant and that cost of living is increasing (which should be obvious as more people == fewer resources) but even from my own anecdotal experience as somebody who is paid very well I buy fewer clothes than I used to. I buy nice clothes, but the clothes I have are clothes that don't go out of style, or even if they do I just don't care. Maybe more Americans feel this way as well?

And as others have mentioned, the work place is fortunately becoming more casual with respect to dress. I work in finance and even here we wear t-shirts and jeans. There's no reason for me to buy 10 shirts from Brooks Brothers, 3 suits, ties, dress shoes, sweaters to go with the shirts, etc. as my casual clothes are also what I wear to work.

Maybe more people are spending less on "brands" like Burberry and more on H&M or lifestyle brands (Arcteryx/Patagonia/NF) or basic colors/styles that don't require you to repurchase?

I think your “facts” are more nuanced and complicated than you might be suggesting.

Consumer prices have been declining since 1979 and non-wage benefits have been increasing. Suggesting clothes purchases are declining because wages are stagnant is logically flawed because we would expect declines in similarly elastic goods as well. But we aren’t seeing that. Consumer purchasing is growing, consumer confidence is up — pretty much the opposite of what you’re implying.

The workplace however, as the parent comment suggests, is changing.

http://reason.com/archives/2016/01/19/cost-of-living-vs-wage...

> non-wage benefits have been increasing

This is codeword to say that gains are going to people of high net worth. Most of the population still survives on wages (excepts for the ones out of work). So what you're saying doesn't disprove the fact that for most people income is going down, adjusted for inflation and for costs that don't appear on inflation statistics (housing, health care).

The non-wage benefit that's increasing the fastest is probably health care benefits, which is likely mostly captured by the middle class, not high net worth individuals.

This is a benefit that cannot be accessed as disposable income, so we are back to square one. It is just a transfer of wealth from most companies to the health care sector, masked as a benefit to workers.

> non-wage benefits have been increasing.

I strongly suspect this is predominantly out of control healthcare, and the non-wage benefits stat doesn't even capture the full 'tax' on shifted out-of-pocket healthcare costs via plan terms like higher copays.

Wages are not increasing and that’s all that matters. Just because there’s significant inflation in healthcare doesn’t mean I’m better off — it’s all price inflation that is eaten by my employer. Compared to five years ago, I am not better off even though my employer is paying 2x for my insurance.

You're explanation is not less complicated and far from the simplest, a much simpler explanation is clothes are simply cheaper.

Dunno if that's true or not, but I suspect it is just from my experience. "Fast fashion" has really taken off.

Yes, with the invasion of cheap Chinese (and alike) stuff, I calculated that you can can dressed with about 3% of the minimal wage in my country (where income is a bit below the one in the USA).

People don't have the time to spend on clothing.

This is going to sound a bit arrogant, but a person has only room for so many decisions for a day before they get burned for the day. This is why i prefer to pick a random tshirt, wear same sneakers etc every day (they are clean, yes). I tend to grab food from the same truck, at the same time - i do not think about it.

Doesn't sound arrogant at all. People are pressed for time, and the costs of spending time on clothing outweigh the benefits for many.

Isn't the simplest explanation that clothing simply costs less than it did before?

Wages have not been stagnant, in fact they have shown strong enough growth to raise scares of inflation.

I think focusing on the changing workplace as an influencer of clothing purchasing habits is spot on.

That's refuted by the increases in US consumer spending while clothing expenditures are simultaneously falling.

You'll need to support your claims about the second item. Saying it, does not make it so.

Real disposable income is at an all-time high. Personal consumption expenditures are at an all-time high.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCE

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96

Americans are also spending less each year on soda. It's not because incomes are plunging 7% per year and they can't afford Coca Cola.

I mean, my statements are pretty well documented at this point.

1) After adjusting for inflation, wages have fallen and rents have increased. They've been increasing at a pace of roughly 3% above inflation/year: https://www.cbpp.org/blog/new-census-data-show-rising-rents-...

Additionally, people aren't saving money like they use to. In fact, the savings rate is currently the lowest its been...ever: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT

This is made obvious by the fact that the amount of actual dollars Americans have saved is also at the lowest point in history: https://www.creditdonkey.com/average-american-savings-statis...

Not sure what you're trying to show with your charts. Real DPI is merely a measure of dollars left over after taxes. Several issues with the Real DPI measurement: 1) it tells you nothing about the median household. 2) The inflation adjustments are optimistic -- who honestly believes inflation is less than 2%. 3) It doesn't change the fact that most of that after-tax income is going straight to either housing or healthcare.

> After adjusting for inflation, wages have fallen and rents have increased. They've been increasing at a pace of roughly 3% above inflation/year:

Where in that link does it say per year? The text and the chart show a 4% rise above inflation total from 2007 to 2015. That rate of rise is in line with the numbers from last year[1] that show housing as a whole rose somewhere between 0.5% and 1% more than overall inflation.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/mobile/consumer-price-inde...

I wonder what is counted as soda. I've noticed, among my ageing peer group, people are switching en mass to flavored carbonated water (seltzer). Of course, that might just be due to age, but I've also noticed that more store space seems to be dedicated to these beverages, again, might just be because I'm buying them now, thus noticing.

Talking about total spending misses the income gap.

The median consumer has real impact even as the wealthy consumers have an ever larger impact on the averages.

Consider housing, people that make 10x as much rarely spend 10x as much on their home as excess becomes useless. Similarly, some people spend a lot of disposable income on clothing, but plenty of rich people don't care about clothing and spend relatively little.

Inflation includes a measure of wages. If wages don't change, inflation won't move much.

CPI does not include wages.

That's consumer price index, which is only one measure of inflation.

Agree, I think the income and wealth gap are bigger contributors to many of the shifts in consumer habits. Some is due to experiences and stuff you can take pictures of being in vogue, but given the opportunity, people will choose to show status. They just can't afford to since they have less now.

I wish there were stats showing different segments of the market, but in a simple observation, look at the declining results of mid market retailers (even online). You have luxury doing okay, like Nordstroms, but nothing else until you get to the much lower priced brands.

I'm going to add another:

4) We have more money sinks now. Just think what entertainment purchases looked like back in the '60s and '70s. You had no video games, no home video. A/V technology progressed so slowly that your TV set and your stereo system wouldn't become obsolete. The only upgrade people made was going up to a color TV (and B&W sets were much less common by the end of the '70s). So, the average person would buy one TV set and one stereo system, and they'd have a bookshelf and a record collection. Nowadays in the 21st century, there's a dizzying array of stuff you can buy for your own entertainment. As such, people are diverting their funds away from traditional lifestyle purchases (clothes, furniture, etc.) and towards modern forms of entertainment (video games, Blu-rays, Netflix and Hulu subscriptions, etc.) and upgrading our basic hardware (new computers and phones every couple of years, going from old-school TVs to HDTV to 3DTV to 4K, new video game consoles every generation, etc.).

(Also, I'll say that your point #2 applies more to men than women. Women's clothing is still very colorful.)

> Ties, skirts, suits, coordinated outfits, scarves, leather soled shoes -- all are passe, even in button down East Coast Fortune 100 companies (other than for aspiring managers or those in banking/finance).

I dunno about that. When I see someone who's wearing decent clothes, I still think, 'wow, that's someone who wants to look good.'

But I think that I'm a bit weird — I actually enjoy dressing differently for different occasions: it helps me get into the right headspace. Programming while wearing hiking clothes would make as much sense to me as hiking in a tuxedo.

Now I am curious — what are programming clothes? I actually think hiking clothes would be awesome to program in — comfortable layers, freedom of movement, durable.. a suit makes no sense for programming; restrictive collars, a tie (!!) and a propensity to wrinkle when sitting.

I think you might have sparked a business idea! Clothes for Coders. Couldn’t be any more ridiculous than when Tiesto released a shoe for DJing!

> Now I am curious — what are programming clothes?

For me, slacks & a button-down shirt with an open collar. Not as constricted as a coat & tie or jeans, not as uncomfortably exposed as a T-shirt & shorts: slacks & a shirt feel Just Right™ to me.

Varies from people. Hell i can program in my underwear provided i dont have a draft

Huh. During a recent heatwave I wrote code the way C Gods (K&R) intended - with absolutly minimal clothing.

> I dunno about that. When I see someone who's wearing decent clothes, I still think, 'wow, that's someone who wants to look good.'

Sure! But for a lot of people (especially men), roughly the same "decent clothes" are now decent for work, date night, going to the supermarket, going to your friend's rock show, going to the airport, family holidays, etc. In even the recent past, you could dress well or poorly, but you'd still have to dress more differently for different places.

I had jury duty earlier this week and was afraid I'd look like a jerk not wearing a tie. It turned out I was one of the few men wearing a collared shirt and slacks.

That's interesting! I got called for Jury duty once and actually dressed down more than usual. Figured that since I'd be sitting around all day and was legally obligated to be there (and not getting paid for it) I didn't really owe them any effort. Luckily the case got thrown out quickly. I never once felt underdressed or out of place though. It's a public duty, not a privilege, and you're not the one on trial.

Even Banking/Finance has become more casual over the past years. Nothing compared to other industries but the demand for suits is dropping there as well.

Sweat Pants should be trending up then!

Indeed, they are and have been trending up for a few years now. The fashion calls it Athleisure.

Also, healthgoth fashion

this 'healthgoth' thing looks pretty much exactly like 'darker' styles of rave fashion for the last 20-25 years..

which Is not cheap

There's plenty of cheap athleisure stuff: https://www.target.com/c/activewear-women-s-clothing/c9-cham...

Unfortunately this goes a little too far in my book. Sweatpants/fleece pants/pajamas are not suitable office attire, even in casual offices. It just makes you look like a slob, and in many cases certain anatomical details are too visible.

Not if you wear nothing ;)

Yeah also people have other things to spend money on now. Young people my age invest in fashion but also invest in experiences and food. The cost of clothing is going down as well so it's easier to acquire a fashionable wardrobe for cheap now and use the remainder on food experiences etc as far as free cash flow goes to spend on things outside of the required.

Also the internet, I can now even though it's freezing in NY, compare prices for a goosedown North face jacket from 5 different places and save $40 or so before I order one online. Competition drives price down. Clothing like so many other retail genres, is just apart of the retailpocolypse.

In addition, with the ubiquity of online persona I wonder if:

(4) Physical appearence/face to face meeting is not usually where people form their first impression anymore, and focus/effort has shifted from wardrobe to online appearance

>Apparel is being displaced by travel, eating out and activities—what’s routinely lumped together as “experiences”—which have grown to 18 percent of purchases. [..] That now tops all clothing and footwear expenditures.

I have a completely blunt theory on that. People learn that pictures of them smiling in their bathing suit in the Maldives or with that exotic plate of food attract more 'likes' than the pictures of them with that new handbag or handmade watch in their office. So they spend more time eating and traveling and posting pictures, instead of buying that bag. It's what sells. It is no surprise to me that """experiences""" sell likes better than things on Facebook.

If that was true, what determines what people spend money on depends what the dominant social network/ source of news is. Past: magazines at checkout lines: expensive bags and clothing. Now: Facebook: travels and food. Future: who knows what will be the dominant one. But here are my guesses. Pinterest: Hobby Lobby. TMZ: back to expensive clothing. /r/fi: mutual funds. Slashdot: Thinkpads. Hacker News: Tesla cars and Juicero machines. (Let's be honest here, I want a Tesla car and a Juicero machine, so if you have a job that allows me to afford those, feel free to connect, ty).

I think you've got cause and effect the wrong way round. People who enjoy hobbies are going to be drawn to Pintrest, people into finance read /r/fi, and people who are into tech read Hacker News.

It was a lame and absurd joke,... but what I meant is that the dominant one that people without any particular interest flock in. Now, it's Facebook. In the past, it was the taboo magazines in Walmart checkout lines and at gas stations, so that's why it used to be clothing. If Facebook didn't make it, I think we wouldn't have seen the shift mentioned.

The average person thinks what's popular is what makes them likable, not that he/she has found a more meaningful life in travels and """experiences""". Btw, I'm from Vietnam, the news there is changing rapidly but still have an emphasis on celebrities, so I notice that Viet immigrants in the US care about how you look & dress more than American people. Every comment on how I dress was from my Viet friends and our girls wear a lot of LV bags :)

But then again, one is more likely to try hobbies people he knows/likes do. And occasionally I get interested in things someone posted on my social network I would not even care about otherwise.

The influence goes two ways.

I actually think he/she's got it the right way. I don't think most people post pictures of food because they're dedicated 'foodies', I think they do it for the likes.

People into finance read the FT or the WSJ

>> Apparel is being displaced by travel, eating out and activities

The apparel and technology spending lines basically mirror each other. Why is travel mentioned?

Tech is the new status symbol for the masses. $600 phone instead of a $600 watch, leather jacket, etc

Travel is far more of a status symbol than tech. $600 iPhones and jackets don't compare to $5k safaris and hiking trips, not to mention even being able to have the time off to do it.

Easiest way to stratify a group by wealth is start talking about where and how often they go on vacation.

Are you suggesting that people only go on vacation for the status? Or for that matter buy smartphones for that reason?

No, I'm not writing in absolutes. But it can and does serve the purpose of signaling to others that you have achieved a level of "success". It's not necessarily explicit, and it might not be at the forefront of the mind of travelers, but it is kind of like achievements in video games.

Imagine scrolling through dating profiles and seeing someone with pictures of them self globe trotting versus someone who doesn't have exotic photos. It's not new, showing off for potential mates is of course natural. I'm just pointing out that travel is a very easy and accurate way (can't be faked) to show off than having the newest iPhone.

plus it provides lots of 'jumping in the air on the beach', 'hiking machu picchu' and 'meditating on the mountaintop' photos for ones social media/online dating profile..

I diagree. Phones only go up to about $900. But watches go up to the tens of thousands.

Laptops only go up to about what, $5k or so? But jackets go up way more.

Tech is more of a "as a bare minimum, I need to have the top of the line." Additionally, increased expenditure on tech does actually give increased utility in the form of performance. (even though it's reduced bang for buck).

However, a $50,000 watch doesn't tell time any better than a simple Casio. An $8,000 jacket doesn't keep you any warmer than a $200 one.

The whole point of demonstrating wealth is to spend money on impractical things. You're demonstrating that you have money to literally waste.

I bet my >$700 Barbour works better than a cheap one from Walmart - and as a bonus it will out live me :-)

You're just illustrating the point of the post you replied to: What do you need it to outlive you for?

Plus, you can't compare something to the cheap one from Walmart, because the Walmart one sets an extremely low bar to pass in terms of quality or even quality/price.

What about a decent Carhartt jacket? Much cheaper than $700 and will still outlive you...assuming you don't sling concrete or frame houses in it.

You might be right. However be careful, the graph doesn't suggest that all the decrease in clothing spending is siphoned into tech spending - it might be a coincident. If they draw more lines, you might see a similar increase in, say, books and education. Now what goes where? We don't know. All the graph says is that people spend more money on tech and experiences, and less money on clothing.

>/r/fi: mutual funds

*low cost ETFs

Thanks for the correction. What I really meant to say was index funds including ETFs. I totally messed up on that one.

Rene Girard comes to mind

European here: when visiting my company HQ I was surprised how casual Americans dress for work. I am not saying devs should wear suit and tie, nothing like that, but even my bosses boss* was wearing what looked like a rumpled sweater with worn out jeans. And I don't mean like fashion statement rumpled and worn out, more like the "great depression" crumpled and worn out. Jules and Vincent in their new t-shirts would fit in perfectly. Another thing I noticed was the absolute lack of color and variation in the outdoor clothing, at least in the morning at Manhattan, almost everyone - men and women - was wearing dark blue or black, no exceptions.

*EDIT: clarification - I am talking about a VP in a $1b company.

Not quite 20 years ago I did my first consulting work in Europe. I was concerned as I did not have business clothes. I had only worked for and consulted for companies in the western part of the US. I knew that European dress standards were higher than the US, and even that East Coast standards were higher. When I visited my sister's then-Big-Five company she had me change my socks as I apparently wasn't dressed up enough.

So I went out and bought some new clothes. Not business shirt/jacket/slacks/etc. but still a button down shirt instead of T-shirt or polo shirt.

Now, this was Sweden, which I visited for a couple of years for this consulting project. Towards the end of the years, I talked to one of my co-workers about me having to buy new clothes. He was quizzical. "But in Sweden we dress down compared to other countries."

My reply - "Exactly. And I had to dress a step higher than I usually do."

As you can tell, I'm not an East Coast person. I visited NYC once in fall, and was surprised that I was the only one wearing a white T-shirt. The same sister commented that it was after Labor Day, and in that part of the country they don't really wear white once summer ends.

> I visited NYC once in fall, and was surprised that I was the only one wearing a white T-shirt. The same sister commented that it was after Labor Day, and in that part of the country they don't really wear white once summer ends.

This isn’t really a thing. Plenty of people wear white sweaters, coats, etc. in winter.

That visit was 15 years ago.

Style do change. As https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/labor-day-white-fashio... writes (in 2016):

> More recently, fashion magazines have moved away from the rule and regularly put out suggestions on how to wear fall and winter whites. A 2011 People poll shows nearly 60% of respondents would totally wear white after Labor Day, and 30% would consider it, depending on the outfit. That means only about 10% of people thought white was totally verboten.

That poll shouldn't be taken as anything more meaningful than to get an idea that it was a thing for some people, even recently.

Do you have a better explanation for why I didn't see anyone wearing white in early October in NYC?

> "But in Sweden we dress down compared to other countries."

That's very surprising to me. To me, the Swedish think more about their looks than any other country.

I don't think they are contradicting statements. My impression is that Sweden is more casual, but also more calculated, while continental Europeans are more formal but just throw on a suit and are done with it.

In a business environment.

Compare https://duckduckgo.com/?q=sweden+business+office&t=ffsb&iax=... with https://duckduckgo.com/?q=germany+business+office&t=ffsb&iar... .

The people in the Germany pictures are more likely to be wearing a dress shirt. The people who wear a business jacket in the Sweden pictures are less likely to be wearing a tie.

My experience is also that people (or at least managers) in the UK also tend to wear suits, with ties, more than in Sweden.

I wish Germany was like that. I work as a IT consultant in a financial institution and we all have to wear suits here, even though most of the people have never seen a client in their life - they just sit behind their desks and do their daily work on a PC. So they do so - in a suit. I really don't know why Germans do this to themselves.

That's how it was when I started in the U.S. But the last 25 years have seen a huge shift in workplace dress codes in the US. Organizations that resisted discovered that it had an effect on retention -- in part because there are pocketbook implications, and perhaps in part because it is just more convenient to be able to use the same wardrobe for everything.

I just wanted to underline the phrase "effect on retention".

In North America, lots of talent (i.e. new grads) would straight up not pick companies with dress codes. Pay also tended to be not different, and "prestige" of working for X is not really a thing.

So everything changed. Also, even in the dressed up companies, they had "dress down days". People liked them. So they had more.

> I work as a IT consultant in a financial institution and we all have to wear suits here, even though most of the people have never seen a client in their life

I had to wear a suit at a place that it would be illegal for the client to interact with me. Logic and dress codes aren't always friends.

Our auditors tend to wear large orange lanyards and badges.

> I really don't know why Germans do this to themselves.

It's not Germans that do this to themselves, it's people working in financial institutions. I work for a non-financial software company in Germany and nobody wears suits here unless you have an important client visit.

My boss was wearing a t-shirt to my interview. Some of the corporations (without customer facing roles) don't care for non customer facing roles. I'm in Germany, too.

> I really don't know why Germans do this to themselves.

Yes, wearing a well-fitting, tailored suit made out of fabric with a good hand appropriate to the weather is a horrible (horribly comfortable) experience to subject yourself to. Having plenty of functional jacket pockets for all of your belongings is a special kind of hell.

I think you need to readjust your lens. In general, people simply cannot afford a well fitting suit as their regular clothing. Some people fit into a cheap 2-piece suit from Macy's for $300 with some tailoring. Many don't. For those, the cost jump is at least to $500 for a made to measure. At which point, you're going to have to spend a lot of time trying to get the fit right and it'll take some time. And if you really want it to fit "right" then it's $3,000 per suit because you have to go bespoke. If you don't live near a very popular and fashion conscious city, you probably won't find a bespoke tailor.

Compare with $25 jeans and a $10 t-shirt that people will wear everyday, it's pretty easy to see why they go with that. Lotta sizes and fits that will eventually fit you in that price range. You can have ~7 pairs of jeans and t-shirts for the price of one very cheap fused low end fabric suit. Enough to have something different for every day of the week. You can have about 15 pairs of jeans and t-shirts for 1 made to measure suit. You can have about 70 pairs of jeans and t-shirts for the cost of one bespoke suit. That's enough jeans and t-shirts to last you over a decade.

We didn't even factor in the cost that nicer dress shoes cost and the cost of fitted dress shirts or all the accessories that can go with suits. (Belts, pocket squares, ties, bowties, tie clips, cufflinks, etc.)

I've yet to see a suit with anything approximating “plenty of functional jacket pockets for all of your belongings”; suit pockets tend to be between decorative and merely very low capacity, to avoid breaking up lines. “plenty of functional jacket pockets for all of your belongings” is something I'd only use to describe a jacket with military-style cargo pockets.

You could wear comfortable and weather-appropriate t-shirt/sweater and jeans for about $50. A comparably comfortable and weather-appropriate suit will cost >$1000. I don't think it's hard to see why so many people don't want to wear a suit every day.

How about having the CHOICE to do this?

Ordnung muss sein

The neon ski jacket colors seem to have some amount of popularity with tech types.

I do think that there's some deeper truth to your "great depression" comment. As an older millennial, the last major recession left some scars. Most of the outfits I wear cost well under 0.10% of my annual income and I rarely replace anything unless it literally has holes in it.

> The neon ski jacket colors seem to have some amount of popularity with tech types.

The only one that was -40% on sale, sorry.

Where in Europe are you? In the UK people dress in darker tones in winter. I think this is partly because coats are expensive, so most people only have one or two and thus choose colours that are easy to match. I think it is also partly because the landscape in winter is quite dark. In summer you'll see much more colour about. IME the US does tend to be more conservative in terms of fashion than Europe.

Personally I dress in darker tone because I have got to known myself as extremely clumsy and always have stain of foods on my clothes. Having Dark clothes means they dont show as compared to a white T-Shirt.

Maybe it's because I work in small companies, but New Zealand and Australia seem to have the world beat for casual dress codes.

I frequently turn up to work wearing flip flops and shorts. The way I see it, and the way the company sees it, is that if I'm not interacting with anyone outside the company, it doesn't really matter what I wear. If I'm talking to customers or other companies (very rare), I'll put on chinos, boots, and a shirt.

Here in Oregon some people wear sandals and shorts to work in winter. Hiking boots at work are also sorry common.

I lived in the fashion capital of the world and most of the cities workers, outside the fashion industry, wore pretty conservative clothing; blacks, blues, browns. This came as a shock to me, an American, who expected bolder fashion choices. Coming from the tropics my fashion sense were bright colors. And over the next decade of living there I was slowly subsumed by those conservative colors.

This sounds like the typical dress in most tech companies in the UK too.

At least the ones I've worked for. Out of my friends and I, none of us care in the least what clothes we wear.

Somewhat related, but I went to Europe (I'm American)for the first time in December (Prague, Zurich, Munich, Florence, Rome) and kept noticing how much more well dressed people were on average compared to Americans. Not to suggest everyone was balling out of control in designer wear, just more "put together", so to speak.

I considered the fact that I was visiting major cosmopolitan cities, but it was true even in the airports and train stations, where you tend to see a more general slice of the population.

I noticed the opposite when I visit the US, adults wearing clothes that I normally consider for children (baseball caps, running shoes) seems pretty common, especially with men.

That could be a factor. Casual office clothes (closely related to post 90s tech culture) probably halves apparel costs for a lot of people. In a suit and tie company, the average person probably buys 2 suits and a half dozen shirts/ties pa, in addition to their casual clothes.

You should not be buying 2 suits and half a dozen shirts per year.

I wear tshirts daily and I don't even buy half a dozen tshirts per year. I have some that are over 5 years old.

Spend more than the bare minimum on your clothes, and they will last you a long time. A suit should last you at least half a decade.

Are you fairly young? One day you'll suddenly have a revelation that 5 year old t-shirts look really, really, really bad. I certainly did.

The color fades, the prints fade, they look tatty.

Same with suits, knees and bums get a sheen, stitching gets ratty, etc. Obviously depends on how expensive the suit was when you bought it. To quote Sam Vimes:

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

I never had that kind of job. Estimates based on people I know. Most suit people I know like to have 4-5 at any given time. They also like to have the crisp look of new clothes, more noticeable in formal clothes than hoodies and t shirts. Also suit fashions tend to be fairly specific. My old suit (11 year old 3 button pinstripe that everyone had then) that I haven't worn for years looks ridiculous now, being 2-3 generations old.

I'm sure this could be optimized with better quality, better laundry, etc. Everything about clothes could be a fraction of the average costs, if we go based on first principles "what's possible." But generally, people who wear suits to work spend over €1k pa, in my circle.

*I'm not sure what the implications are for women's office clothes.

Yes. Not mention I hated wearing neckties. (I'm 55... things were different 30+ years ago.) That alone makes the more casual dress environment a huge boon.

It's the paradox of fashion. We want to look different, but other people want us to look the same (that's why people in uniform are considered more attractive).

A janitor's uniform is not as attractive as a Sergeant. I reckon sameness is not the attractive quality.

I asked a friend once, do you prefer men in uniform because you see men as basically interchangeable? Nah, she replied, because they’re employed and clean. Make of that what you will...

Everyone wears black in New York and London. That black winter wool coat is a UK thing.

I think it's great. Let people dress as they want and feel comfortable. The last think I need is an employer telling me how to dress.

a) american culture values rebelliousness, not 'being presumptuous' and has lost the 'proving our moral superiority to others' slant that it used to have when americans dressed up, hence huge casualness these days

b) nyc and east coast fashion has largely been about dark colors / clean lines and 'chic' since at least the 50s/60s and probably since the 20s or earlier.. things will be hugely different color-wise outside of the northeast (dc up through boston corridor)

I was due for a new real winter coat this year, and black and drab are as common as vehical and pedestrian collisions this time of year. Fortunately, Moose Knuckes: https://www.mooseknucklescanada.com/bomber-ballistic/

Does the VP deliver value for the company? If so then it doesn't matter.

tbh you'll find a similar culture of casual dress in the UK too, depending on what industry you are in. Corporate IT and finance companies can mostly be "business casual", but venture into the media/creative industries, along with the usual tech companies and startups, it's mostly wear whatever you want.

So long as you fit in, of course. Many a tech company recruiter has shot a great candidate down for wearing a suit instead of a pair of shorts and a t-shirt with pizza down the front.

it's mostly wear whatever you want.

Whatever you want that’s deemed fashionable by your peers. There’s still a dress code, and it’s strictly enforced, it’s just not written down anywhere.

How many people use “suit” as a pejorative?

venture into the media/creative industries, along with the usual tech companies and startups, it's mostly wear whatever you want.

Sure, but most of the people there wearing whatever they want are pretty well dressed.

The first time I ever left this country(except for say Canada) I went to Athens- and if you've ever been to Athens you know it's kind of a shithole. Awesome- I love Greece- but Athens is fairly gritty. Anyway, I was shocked by how well everyone dressed.

Go Banana Slugs.

This is a pretty sloppy article, with a bunch of conventional-wisdom-as-evidence and no critical analysis of potential cause and effect. H&M as a stand-in for "cheap clothes", ignoring any number of other cheap clothing retailers that have come and gone for decades. Using only three datapoints for Levis 501 prices going back only to 2009 when claiming trends that go back 30 years, and when Levis 501s have been available under that name for 130 years and have been a common fashion for almost 70 years.

I do think some of the trends they call out are contributing for sure, but I don't think this piece really explains anything. They never really discuss whether people actually have fewer clothes or whether it's just that the clothes are cheaper. There's no real analysis of how fast fashion is changing.

And the whole idea that we _should_ be buying more clothes because "the economy is growing and wages are rising" is delusion. Wages have only just started to show signs of rising after decades of near-stasis, and the Fed reacted with big interest rate hikes that sent the stock market plummeting. A "growing economy" doesn't help an individual buy more clothes. Only rising wages can do that, or cheaper clothes prices. In the absence of wage growth, it's no wonder we've had a long-term decline in clothes spending. And because they overlooked this, the article also fails to consider that the fact that people feel they can't afford to spend as much on clothes is more likely a driving factor in the increasing casualization of work and society than the increasing casualization is a reason why we spend less on clothes.

"the Fed reacted with big interest rate hikes that sent the stock market plummeting."

Wat? We're still in of one of the longest bull runs in history. The S&P 500 jumped 80% in the last 5 years. Even incorporating the minor market correction in the last week (2/3rds of which has already recovered), the stock market has done the reverse of what you suggest.

The hysteria over what amounts to a blip in a seemingly endless run-up of the markets has kind of surprised me over the past few days. Not sure what to make of it, but it has been interesting to watch.

Maybe I just live in a weird place. But I see a lot less branding when I walk around town compared to 20 years ago. My sister has 17 year old twin girls and they pretty much refuse to wear anything that makes them a "walking billboard".

I live close to the university of Oregon and when I was in high school it was all Nike clothes all over campus. Now I still see some but not nearly as much. It is like "Likes" instead of logos is what makes the kids cool now.

In the UK wearing branded 'designer' clothing is a kind of status signal people with a low status tend to gravitate towards.

People of a higher status are more likely to dress conservatively since they don't have anything to 'prove'.

/*generally speaking

A lot of the really expensive high end designer clothes don't really have any logos on them or if they do they are very small for this very reason. Due to this what they wear might look conservative but could be expensive as fuck ;)

That exactly. Which is probably the same thing that several others have pointed out.. A 100$ shirt will have huge logos all over the place because the market segment it targets are people who can "just" afford it and want to signal other people who can't. A 1000$ shirt will have little to no logos and will be distinguished only by "others" who can spend as much, because if you wear 1000$ shirts why would you care signalling to the person who can "just" afford 100$ shirts that you have so much more? You may care to signal this to other 1000$ shirt owners but then maybe you just don't care about signalling via clothing ;)

A lot does but it's subtle and only those "in the know" can identify a particular designer.

Funnily enough, proper serious money can be spotted in Mayfair/South Ken etc by how tatty and casual their clothes are. For the British it is usually an aristocratic type. Middle eastern princes and billionaires are often in the most expensive restaurants and clubs wearing tracksuits among the suited crowd.

I chalk this up to the culture/counter-culture cycle. When the trend is to wear logos, the next trend will usually be to wear clothes without logos (or with different logos), and vice-versa.

An anecdote I like to look back to here is how Gap once sold mostly clothes with "GAP" prominently displayed, but nowadays is somewhere you can purchase an entire business casual wardrobe.

Think you might be on to something. When I was growing up, the counter-culture was liberal. Now, liberal is mainstream and the counter-culture is conservative. Never thought I'd see the day when a suit and tie would be the daring, non-conformist thing to wear! :)

> My sister has 17 year old twin girls and they pretty much refuse to wear anything that makes them a "walking billboard".

I'm about twice as old as these twins and I made a similar decision back then. If I wanted to be a billboard, at least let me be one I think is worth while.

In Ithaca, Canada Goose is all the rage.

I went to Chicago and was really surprised. Nice coats with a huge patch. I thought everyone had added them themselves.

Depends a lot on the scene. Supreme and others are quite successful with some hyper dominant logos.

I bet they wear Lulu lemon.. that’s the trend now.

One thing the article missed but for me personally is an important point: the rise of minimalism

I'm not the type of minimalism you write about, but clothes last for ages now & I just don't want lots of stuff. Especially here in Japan we do laundry every day, so I just don't need very many items. Just some comfortable layers, enough to have a little variety, I'm all set.

(I'm leaving in the morning for 2 weeks in Florida. My wife was laughing at how tiny my suitcase is - really just a carry on.

I informed her it was only half full.)

Oh, I'm feeling just opposite on your phrase "clothes last for ages" if you speaking about its quality. 10 yr old jeans looks ugly but their endurance is much better than modern ones has.

And if you wash your clothes so often, it should last few months before became completely garbage.

I think drying is harder on textiles than washing. I hang dry my clothes and am baffled by how long they last vs. when I used to use a dryer. This could be personal experience.

Same experience. Also fabric softeners will extend clothes life IME.

That'd be survivor bias. My average jeans a decade or two ago would start tearing off at the buttonhole or taint seam after a year or so.

"Taint Seam" you put hilarious words to something we all know haha. Especially those of us prone to blowing out the crotch of our jeans.

Are you talking about product of same manufacturer?

clothes last for ages now

They can do (as indeed they always could) if you pay for it, although in my experience the majority of clothes bought don't last ages; modern materials (from the sixties onwards, I would say - polyester and related), manufacturing techniques and the easy attitude of consumers in buying clothing that doesn't last have all contributed. Certainly anything you buy in a high-street chain, be it the low end of the market or the more middle offering of Gap and chums, don't last long. It seems odd to me to say that clothes last ages now; they used to last ages, and now (on the whole) don't last nearly as long.

They never lasted ages. People just repaired them because it was economically a better choice. And most of them did not mind using clothes which were not perfect.

My winter coat is US Navy peacoat, over 50 years old. It weighs about 5 pounds and is very warm and comfortable. It's definitely made better, and will last longer, than any department store peacoat, although you can still buy a new Navy-spec peacoat from Sterlingwear or Schott that'll probably last you a good long time.

You can buy similar coats, although I still prefer the feel of the kersey wool on my old peacoat to the newer melton wool.

Let me tell you a secret - it’s the drier. Clothes last far longer when you hang dry them.

You’re right that fast fashion has reduced overall quality, but you can still get more wear out if them if you avoid the drier.

"Drier", eh? I've seen them. I aspire one day to own such a thing :) A little over 50% of UK households have one, compared to 85% in the US, so they're common but by no means ubiquitous.

Even reducing the heat 1 step on a dryer helps immensely. Between that and washing your stuff inside out, you can double the life of most garmets.

Could you please elaborate on why washing your stuff inside out helps? I would think what's inside rubs against the other side of the inside, and wears out just the same.

Assuming a heterogenous mix of clothes where some of them have external features that are more damaging to other clothes in a washer, and some have external features more prone to damage, inside-out helps even with front-loaders.

Of course, much of this can be addressed by separating different types of garments, but that can be a lot less resource and time efficient to do really well.

Washing inside out doesn't help with front loading machines. Top loaders with agitators will damage the fabric though, and washing inside out will help there.

had never thought about that - I've lived in Japan for 14 years where we hang dry, and yes, I have some pretty old stuff that is still in fine condition

We have a clean-out-day once a month, were we throw stuff out or give to Oxfam if possible. We decided some years ago we have too much stuff.

With the exception of shoes and jackets I buy all my clothes at Goodwill. It's awesome! Every couple of months I spend around $20 dollars and I always have nice new tee shirts, button ups, pants etc. You wont believe how many nice clothes people simply give away.

Plus it makes me feel great knowing I'm contributing to reuse and giving money to a company that helps employee less fortunate people.

I wish I could build a wardrobe using thrift stores, but I live in a smaller town and thrift stores rarely have anything worth wearing.

Yeah I live in a pretty big city and I live in a part of the town that is sandwiched between two very wealthy areas so it can make for very good thrift store shopping. It is still a very hit or miss thing though. Sometimes you find tons of stuff, other times you find nothing.

For obvious reasons, it is always worth the extra drive to thrift shop in a wealthier area. They give away the best stuff in unused condition.

you're lucky it fits you. the only sizes i see at thrift stores are L-XXL

Sizing is often my issue as well, except that it's usually more about either "outdated" cuts (baggy where now more tailored/fitted is fashionable) or where decent looking stuff in my fairly average size is often snagged, leaving only the very small or very large sizes behind.

Still, I occasionally find some decent stuff and I still hit up the Goodwill anytime I'm out running errands and pass near one. It's just a matter of luck so the more often I look, the better my odds.

I tend to have less luck with the common stuff like nice wool pants or well-fitting button down shirts but I've gotten some really nice jackets and at three pairs of Allen Edmonds shoes ($250-350 MSRP) for $20-25 each with only a cleanup and polish needed.

It's nice because even though I'm still buying the occasional $20-40 shirt, I've got a few pairs of shoes that are much nicer than anything I'd be able to justify buying at retail.

Large is pretty standard size for tall men. Pretty much required over 5'11.

I'm 6'2" and 180lbs and large still fits baggy on me most of the time. Which is annoying for gifts because most people think the same way and gift large or extra-large clothes without gift receipts so I end up having to drive them over to the salvation army.

Large, non bespoke shirts off the rack, are longer. Which is required for taller people. I have the same issue, which is why I look for fitted shirts in large. 6'1 175lb.

Depends where you are? I'm in the UK and 189cm tall and I always wear medium.

Then somehow your mediums are very long. Medium is just way too short stateside. While it fits the chest, it doesn't lengthwise.

Yeah it is lucky. I have a odd body type, I'm 6'3" but only weight 170 pounds, so I really wear a XL-Tall but a lot of the XL clothing works pretty well. It's also a hit or miss every time I go in. Sometimes I will find 10 things that fit and are great, other times I leave empty handed.

Buy the big sizes then get the shirts tailored to fit for roughly $20-$25. You'll be wearing nice brands that fit perfectly.

I really admire that. There is stigma attached to second-hand clothes, at least in India. If you can afford it, it is almost unacceptable to wear second hand clothes, especially outside family and friends.

There is a stigma also in the USA, but mostly amoung the upper middle class and up. The trend of 'vintage' clothing tore through the stigma to a large degree in the last few decades I think. There is now a positive 'hipster' appeal to reusing or repurposing things, as well as 'they dont make it like that anymore' sentiment.

Many people born poor, now take perverse pride in procuring sneakers they didn't get as a kid, and collect them, often at a high cost. Staying 'clean' in a dirty area is almost always a popular signifier of 'class'.

I wish more people follow your lead.

Have you been to thrift stores lately? They're pretty crowded, at least a lot of the time. I think a lot of people are doing this. Income inequality might also play a role; 20-somethings unable to get a good job are much more likely to buy used than new.

Thrift stores in one option but folks can easily find used clothes on eBay.

Hypothesis I'm considering, don't know if I believe it yet: a lot of clothes were once bought at the mall, not so much because they were wanted, but because you were at the mall and it seemed like the thing to do. Now people are at the mall less, and only buy clothes when they actually need them, so fewer clothes get bought that sit in closets unused.

Article neglects to mention that healthcare spending per person doubled between 2003 and 2010 (before decelerating after the ACA). Soon all of our money will go to healthcare and housing.

This may be a relevant point, especially if the segments experiencing increased basic cost of living costs (rent, healthcare, housing, education..) are the same segments that spent a lot of clothes.

Remember that averages are averages, and increased rent (for example) only affects renters, and affects new contracts faster. Some people experience housing cost inflation more than others, more than average. For an unqualified guess/theory, it's possible that young, single, middle class people renting in large metros (eg NY, London) represent a major segment of the fashion industry. They're facing the full wack of housing cost inflation. Possibly amounts to reduced discretionary spending, which for some people means mostly shoes.

The deceleration in healthcare costs preceded the ACA, and can mostly be attributed to a slowdown in economic growth (1,2,3).

1 . https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25092842 2. https://economics21.org/html/sorry-nyt-medicare-cost-problem... 3. https://economics21.org/html/obamacare-not-making-healthcare...

I think a major contributor that isn't pointed out in the article is that clothes can last forever. I haven't needed to step into a department store in over two years not because I don't want to but because I don't need to. I wear the same clothes year-round and they have worked for the last 3-4 years before they even start to show wear. The only thing I need are new shoes and socks. Heck now with microfiber underwear those last forever too.

Flip side I’ve been trying to buy new clothes but everything out there seems to be poorly cut or nothing but slim/althletic fit. If I go big and tall they’re also disproportionate. These games shirts I have from a couple years ago are perfect. The ones they sell now are horrible.

Go custom.

Depending on your preferences you can go made to measure online, or old school fly-to-southeast-asia and get them tailored in person. Either will be approximately as expensive as reasonable off the rack wardrobe and will fit 100% accurately.

If you fly, be sure to take enough time in one location so that they can do a second and third measure. Also get enough suits at once to offset the cost of the flight.

I love the clothing by Rapha - while they are known for their high quality athletic cycle wear, they also have a city range, that looks exceptional off the bike. I'd categorize it as fucntional fashion and due to their athletic roots it will fit very well for slim bodies. [1]

Another alternative is Outlier - a small brand that focuses on high quality, durable fashion. [2]

For more afforadable basics I like Uniqlo - say what you want, but I think it's very worthwhile clothing for the price. [3]

[1] https://www.rapha.cc/us/en_US/

[2] https://outlier.nyc/

[3] https://www.uniqlo.com/us/en/home/

Rapha and Outlier make some good clothes. The most interesting new category of clothing is coming from outdoor technical apparel retailers who are moving into more urban/city clothes, and reinventing everything using better fabrics and technical features, and, in keeping with the conventions of the technical apparel industry, everything they make is field tested up the wazoo.

I bought these cycling pants from Arcteryx, they're the best pants I've bought. They're Teflon coated, presumptively to shed road splatter, but they shed everything else as well, they don't get dirty! I've worn them 20 times, they haven't been through the wash yet. I spilled flour, spaghetti sauce and coffee on them, there's no visible evidence that any of that has happened.

https://arcteryx.com/ec/en/shop/mens/A2B-Commuter-Pant

I agree. I do buy clothes towards the higher end of the cost spectrum, but they routinely last 4-5 years, after which the old T-shirt’s simply get cycled into the “wear at home and for sleeping” set.

Higher end clothes last longer. However, what is availably priced for most people are poorly made clothes that will last a year if they don't fall apart in the wash before then.

Take a look at what's available at Kohl's, Walmart, Old Navy etc and you will see what I mean.

It's all in what you buy, though. I have clothes from Walmart I've been wearing daily for nearly a decade - they're Carhart and Dickies jeans and sweatshirts however. That's better runs than I've gotten out of higher-end pants that cost 5x more. But I'll admit, I've no idea how women's clothing compares; men's clothing is blessedly simple and robust and fashions change at glacial paces.

Women's clothing is generally terrible - fragile, thin fabrics that snag way too easily and pill up after a few machine washings. Oh, and random shiny things and frills sewn on.

On top of that, we get to pay extra for the privilege.

I want simple, unornamented women's size and proportioned tops and trousers made out of the fabrics men's clothes are.

My mom noticed this in the 1950s, and started wearing dress shirts from the mens or even boys department. The only difference was the orientation of the buttons. She got a reputation for it, but it didn't actually seem to bother anybody.

My impression, as a husband and father who admittedly doesn't shop very often, was that lots of women's clothes on sale - obviously not high-end ones - are all the things you said, but relatively inexpensive and supposed to not be used a lot of time, with the idea that you buy many and change them often.

Also women build outfits. So a new dress requires a new purse and jacket sometimes.

I think that higher end clothing tends to be higher quality, but higher quality is not the same thing as lasting longer.

You can spend tons of money on a S200s suit, but it won't last as long as a cheap poly-wool blend. At a minimum I would suggest that you get two pairs of pants.

I've found this to be true in a limited sense if I buy clothes made from better fabrics geared toward what I would call semi-athletic or outdoorsy style. For instance I have some hiking pants that are made from a synthetic fabric, and they are greatly outlasting jeans or khakis. One thing is that the synthetic material doesn't seem to take on permanent stains as easily.

There's a sweet spot between expensive and designer though. The best quality often comes from rather obscure brands.

I agree. However, a $5 shirt from Walmart certainly isn't in that sweet spot.

tl;dr: They buy less in quantity and value expensive brands less.

This is in line with the "spend money on experiences not stuff" trend we're watching rise in popularity, particularly in the younger generation. People aren't flocking as quickly to flaunt their status via possessions, particularly in clothing. The right $20 shirt can look great and last you forever.

I found a $8 t-shirt and $20 pair of pants that I like. I have a handful of them. They last a while and a topic-specific t-shirt drifts in here and there. I replace socks/underwear every couple years. I already have a suit from past experiences in case I need one. I replace my daily shoes ~annually. I wear the same thing to work and at home. (Disclaimer: I'm a software guy with no interest in fashion.)

Per the stereotype: I'm pretty sure I spend more on streaming services per year than clothes. (Even if you don't count a slice of Prime for the video streaming).

About five years ago my mom offered to do my laundry. I lived in a little studio apartment and I had to walk about 10 blocks to the laundromat. She did my laundry all the time since she has a washer and dryer in her house.

So I had six bags of laundry I carried down to her car. I put them on the passengers side but the doors are locked. So I go around to her in the drivers seat and we chat of a bit. And then she comes around to the passengers side to get some groceries for me out.

I run the groceries up to my apartment and look out my window and she is gone. I assume she grabbed my clothes. She did not. She drove off with nearly every article of clothing I owned on the side of her car.

It was pretty much the most devastating thing I have ever experienced. She called me about six hours later and asked where my laundry was. I pretty much only had what I was wearing. Tons of band t-shirts that were 20 years old and can not be replaced.

I am poor...

But for 300 bucks I got going again. 7 pairs of Dickies in different colors. 14 white t-shirts and four different colors of hoodies. And some socks and underwear.

Got the stuff on Amazon so shipping took a while. I was washing my only pair of boxers in my salad spinner. Which actually worked well. The salad spinner is still in use. Some bleach cleaned it right up.

Why didn't she just drive the clothes back?

She left the clothes on the sidewalk and they were immediately stolen, I assume.

>I replace my daily shoes ~annually. I wear the same thing to work and at home.

If you mean to say you have one pair of shoes that you wear daily, you should buy a second pair and alternate. This will allow your shoes to dry out between use which will increase durability and reduce smelliness.

tl;dr: 1 pair : 1 year, 2 pairs : 3 years.

I found a $8 t-shirt and $20 pair of pants that I like. I have a handful of them

I was sure I (and Jack Slater[0]) couldn't be the only ones.

[0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107362/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_34

> This is in line with the "spend money on experiences not stuff" trend we're watching rise in popularity, particularly in the younger generation.

The irony is that vacations ARE the exact same thing as buying stuff. It's just you're buying stuff for your time. The worst part is that these vacations are commodity items. It's not like people are having new adventures and unique experiences - they're doing the same shit millions of other people do, the way people buy the same shit millions of other people buy. Nothing interesting in that...

It's not the same in the important way: research shows we enjoy experiences more than owning extra things. No one's saying "I'll go on holiday to Spain because that's unique, whereas a $500 handbag isn't" - they're saying "I'll go to Spain because I'll enjoy it more."

I think this is very good news. Fast fashion leads to resource and people exploitation. This is great that people use their old clothes and refrain from buying new ones for no other reason than the old ones have become unwearable. (edit: typo)

> I think this is very good news. Fast fashion leads to resource and people exploitation.

Not a fan of fast-fashion, but what does "people exploitation" mean?

Should a Bangladeshi factory worker go back to begging in the streets instead of working a job at a factory? They provide value in terms of making a product that you buy.. what's the problem with that?

When foreign companies open a factory in a third world company the companies economy benefits significantly less then if a factory owned by citizens of the same country open up. The profits leave the country instead of stay inside, where the money can exchange hands many more times. First world companies can outbid foreign companies on labor, land, resources and bribes. This makes it harder for domestic manufacturing to start.

The jury is really out on if foreign manufacturers help third world economies or hurt them. One major benefit that is hard to quantity is that foreign manufacturing is a sign of a stable government and can increase the stability of the government.

This isn't a choice between foreign-owned factory or a locally-owned factory.

This is a choice between a foreign-owned factory or no factory.

Also, why would you expect the profits to stay inside? If Nike opens a factory in Bangladesh, wouldn't the profits go to Nike? I don't understand your "local profits" statement?

And the jury isn't out on the benefits of neoliberal globalization. It's been shown to clearly reduce poverty among the global poor. It's why Bangladesh went from 41% extreme poverty to 14% extreme poverty over the last 25 years...

Just a clarifying statement.

In Bangladesh citizens own a factory then Bangladesh benefits much more then if Nike owns a factory. By "Local profits" I meant when locally-owned factories operate more money is kept internally then when foreign-owned factories run.

Globalization as a whole benefits most people, and this is not up for debate. I will agree with that statement.

Those factory owners are stashing their money in Dubai, not Bangladesh

This has definitely happened for me. In the dot-com boom I was a big clothes horse, and enjoyed it. Since then I've worked from home, and my biz wardrobe has dwindled to fairly crappy Jos. A Banks items I don't mind cramming into a suitcase for my rare business trips.

I still keep a suit or two for nicer social functions, but my everyday wear is increasingly casual. Since I lost a bunch of weight and became more active, it's also increasingly outdoor/athletic in nature -- turns out, Prana pants are super comfy, and cost a shitload less than Zegna.

My job requires me to travel to US (from India) almost every six months. On most weekends I just buy clothes for my family. It is interesting that half of those clothes are usually made in South Asia, but are cheaper and better in the US.

What? Didn't they answer the question themselves?

You cant measure clothing in terms of Dollar Value. Or Revenue, and it is less would means people are buying less. That is I think so far from truth. People are buying more from Uniqlo or other much Cheaper brands that offer better value.

We all know the manufactured cost of any clothes is absolutely minimal. It is the design, marketing, and Retails Rental that covers vast majority of the expenses. It also enjoy very good economy of scale.

Material improvement means T-Shirt that are cheap today are likely to be much better then cheap T-Shirt 10 - 20 years ago. It comes to a point where these cheaper alternative are good enough.

The suit is dead except explicitly formal occasions. The global financial crisis killed it. Basically every person commuting securities fraud in the oughts did so while wearing a suit. Think about who you now see wearing suits - bankers, salesmen, and politicians. Occupations that trigger a range of responses from general mistrust to downright loathing.

Suits have become a liar's uniform. Whenever I encounter anyone in this mode of dress who isn't an obvious dandy, I'm immediately on the watch for tactics to squeeze as much money out of me as possible.

This leaves business casual and casual. As the article points out, most of those haven't seen substantial change for years. People don't get rid of clothes these days because they're out of style. Given these trends, it would amaze me if clothing sales weren't down substantially.

The suit is dead except explicitly formal occasions.

Depends on the crowd with which you hang out, I suppose. I dress smarter on holiday than in the office. I'll typically take a cream linen three-piece suit on holiday to wear when the occasion presents (surprisingly versatile - minus the jacket and with shirt sleeves folded up to the forearms, it's basically "smart casual", yet put on the jacket and cufflinks and you're ready for a formal event at an embassy), and the last holiday I took - a week of language lessons in Tokyo interspersed with the usual tourist stuff - I wore a three-piece suit minus the jacket (so the waistcoat and a bright but tasteful tie). As you surmise, you get a different response; the response I get generally isn't "this guy is a liar out to steal from me". Maybe you spend too much time around liars who happen to wear suits.

I've always had difficulty finding clothing that fit because I'm tall but not big. When online shopping started to take off in the early 2000s it made finding clothing in my size dramatically easier and actually allowed me to choose a style beyond "whatever you have in my size".

In the past 5 years however I've noticed my options for dress clothing dwindling dramatically and choice being limited to only mainly what's unpopular and trendy (e.g. ugly variants of skinny pants).

I'm in need of several dress shirts and slacks and I'm expecting to spend somewhere close to $1000 to replenish my wardrobe but I'm not having any luck finding anything I'm willing to spend money on.

I've noticed a lot of brands have been refocusing or clarifying who they're catering too and apparently I'm not it.

Same boat here - 6'6" with 27" sleeves and skinny (albeit increasingly less so with age). Finding a good local alterations tailor has changed my sartorial life - as long as a shirt fits in the neck and sleeve then the chest can be taken in for about $10. Same with slacks - there's usually a few inches of extra fabric for waist or hem increases that cost maybe $20.

I also looked into online made-to-measure services like Indochino ($60-120 per shirt for full custom) but I find I get higher quality buying off-the-rack on discount and having it tailored.

I am not even tall, just a normal healthy build. Even slightly overweight. But everything 'my size' fits like a tent. I get it, americans are fat. But the other side of the coin is just as bad, if I want fitted jeans, they think I have no calves, or huge boots, with no in between.

Clothes are now made for the new 'normal', which appears to be 245lbs and 5'8, size 10-E.

I have the same problem.

For pants, try Bonobos "athletic fit".

For everything else, I got nothing.

I think that one of the explanations for this is that clothing purchases are often driven by in-person retail shopping, usually at malls and department stores - both of which are becoming barren, lifeless wastes.

When I was a kid, we'd kill time hanging out at the mall. My parents did too. You know what would happen when we went to the mall? We'd wind up shopping, sometimes buying stuff, often clothes.

I think that as large marketplaces such as Amazon push their own brands. They really do a tremendous job on the marketing value of these clothing companies because essentially they're saying" hey why pay more when you can get essentially the same exact thing for this price coupled with extremely fast shipping. Sounds like a recipe for disaster for a clothing brand.

A perfect example of this is under armor. Why pay 40 dollars fora t-shirt when you can get 5 for that price?

Other thoughts:I wonder if the lack of size standardization has anything to do with it, coupled with the abundance of cheap clothing.

> A perfect example of this is under armor. Why pay 40 dollars fora t-shirt when you can get 5 for that price?

You've always been able to buy a five-pack of perfectly good T-shirts/socks/underwear for less than one fancy name-brand item, though. That's not new with Amazon.

> A perfect example of this is under armor. Why pay 40 dollars fora t-shirt when you can get 5 for that price?

Because they suck and their sizing is way the fuck off.

I wonder if changes in washing machines are an issue, actually. America was really keen on top-loaders for a long time, and those damage clothes far more than front-loaders. As the US finally adopts front-loaders (and high-efficiency top-loaders, which use a different mechanism to the old ones), clothes will last longer.

Clothes are in a sense more "disposable" than ever though. Who's going to bother darning a shirt that cost less than ten bucks?

Me, it's less work than buying a new one.

(Unless the reason for the hole is that the fabric has aged too much - the next hole will open in about a week, so I don't bother.)

Well, OK, but, in general, I think most people don't even know what darning is anymore, let alone how to do it. I've never known anyone to not just throw out socks with holes in them, for instance.

Socks almost always fall into the too-old category though. And they are really easy to buy.

I remember the thrift stores in the US are full of second hand clothing that might as well have been all new or maybe worn once. And as a Dutch person I was amazed how much perfectly fine clothing was disposed of. Especially since I usually wear things till they break in some manner.

Actually there was a lot more well fitting clothing (mainly shirts) in the thrift places than in the actual clothing stores. Not to mention pants... for a Dutch person looking for pants in a US store is a no go apparently, it's all far to tiny...

Thrift stores sort and sell. The best stuff goes on to their stores the rest is graded and sold. You see the same thing here in NL charity shops.

True, but quality wise it's far lower in the Netherlands than it is in the US from my experience. Plus now a days it seems most people buy from the Primark, as it's ridiculously cheap...

English does have phrases that tend to stereotype Dutch people as frugal (or sometimes even stingy)

E.g. "Dutch treat": taking someone out for a meal but only paying for yourself, not also for the person you invited.

There are always macro trends going on in fashion and clothing tastes change every few years, however what I found interesting is that they compared technology spending vs clothing spending, but this isn't the right comparison.

We are spending more on technology because it is essential for modern day life. First with the computer, then laptop, then ipod, and now the smart phone.

From a limited budget increasing spending in one area will decrease it in another, but the other big question is how have spending habits changed over the past 30 years.

Technology went up, clothing went down, but I'm certain other areas of spending also increased.

Rent as a % of income most likely went up.

Certainly debt as a % of income went up when you consider what's going on with school tuition, and that is a fairly recent trend of dramatically increasing rates over the past decade. Which would time well with many people who have graduated, with tremendous debt, now in the workforce earning money, but having greater expenses.

So when you look at all of those factors combined I think essentially what you end up with is less disposable income.

Then you consider how we decide to dispose of our income and you realize that the networked social world that is instantly available to you via a smartphone allows us to lifestyle shop from other people. Where before we did window shopping and focused more on our small community without access to global information, we are now life style shopping on instagram and so this has led to an increase in disposable income being spent for those other experiences.

What's the data for Europe and Asia like?

I'm wondering if this might be cultural.

Another possible cause could be drop in average price of clothing. Fast fashion chains like h&m, uniqlo, Zara, etc have high quality, very affordable clothing. So people are buying same or more clothing but for smaller absolute $ amount.

Also, at the extreme end, Primark is literally cheap enough to throw away after a couple of wears.

To quote Scott Galloway: "An iPhone is saying to the opposite sex, or a potential mate, 'I have good genes. You should mate with me.'"

Ain't gonna happen with those $800 Common Projects sneakers.

Some people from Europe say: You can see that from time to time ;)

My guess: fast fashion came with very cheap prices per item, keeping overall spending stable or rising through increased consumption. Now the novelty of ridiculously short wardrobe replacement intervals is starting to wear off, but the prices are here to stay.

Expect retail area dedicated to cheap (formerly known as fast) fashion to shrink accordingly. Probably not a big loss if the continuous network of direct sightlines between H&M stores is getting a few gaps here and there.

The 'Fighting for your dollars' mouse over, infographic thing is a great example of significant effort being put in to do a good job implementing a stupid idea.

You know this is a special pet peeve of mine. I have stopped myself several times from complaining about this very

For a period of a few years, a few years ago, I started shopping very frequently for pants, shirts, etc. I once caught myself wondering why that was the case. The answer surprised me: I was not happy with the stuff I was buying. They would not fit comfortably after the initial wear.

Then I noticed what was really the problem:

1) Pants are getting shorter, mostly in the inseams - the distance from the belt loops to bottom of the zippers. (In other words, pants now "sit below the hip", there is no more those that "sit at the hip").

2) Shirts are getting shorter too. They don't go as far down under your belt as they used too.

So, just these two combinations leave a good part of my lower belly exposed quickly and easily, something I do "not" like.

3) It is quite hard to find pants with basic options, like pleats and cuffs. Everything is flat fronted, it seems.

So, it is easy to see why no one is shopping any more unless they really have to.

Just my 2 cents :-)

Maybe people are slowing down the fashion cycle and keeping their clothing longer and not tossing them after a season.

Buy quality and keep them for years. Except of course for those items from the 2000s.... The oversized fashion, even Hollywood could be embarrassed by those ridiculously oversized outfits.

>Apparel is being displaced by travel, eating out and activities—what’s routinely lumped together as “experiences”

Am I the only one who's coming to a different conclusion from looking at the graph? It looks like the decline in apparel is directly correlated with the rise in tech.

Besides whatever the data is, starting the graph "Share of personal consumer expenditures" for "technology" from 1977 seems to me a lot like graphing railways starting on 600 BC:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_railway_history

If you zoom in on the last ten years, I see substantially constant expenditure for both "technology" and "apparel", with only a slightly increase of technology and a slight decrease of apparel.

I'm used to this, since I went to Catholic school for 12 years. I wear jeans, a polo shirt, a 1/4 zip pullover, and sneakers to work. Every day. Same thing, different colors. It's work, not a party, who do I think I'm showing off to?

i’d rather buy a small number of high quality, versatile items i love, than buy lots of cheap stuff i don’t really like to wear.

this plus being able to wear whatever i want to work makes my decisions simpler so i can spend time on other things.

> i’d rather buy a small number of high quality

See, something I've noticed too is that "high price / high quality" brands seem to not be so anymore. Recently I bought a handful of Carhartt pants, pricey-but-quality, or so it used to be yet the quality seems to have been driven downhill and all those pants quickly fell apart in various ways.

I've found the $20-$30 lesser-known brands ended up being of higher quality, oddly. It seems the "premium" brands have taken to abusing their name's mark of quality by removing that quality in favor or cheap materials and temporary higher profits.

Some things are worth the money, the hard part is finding out which ones.

My Zamberlan boots were nearly $300 are 5 years old. Other than some scuffs they are in great shape. I'll have these for many more years.

Carhartt let me down. I'll never touch them again. It only took a month or so for a hole to form in the pants, the cargo pocket is tearing a hole in the leg. My wallet isn't that heavy. So much for tough pants than can stand up to real work. I've since tried some from 5.11 and they are holding up to abuse the Carhartts didn't live long enough to see.

i agree high price brands are often not worth it.

i meant high quality independent of price. lots of brands let you “try before you buy” nowadays. if i’m shopping for a new t-shirt, i’ll get a bunch of them and return what i wouldn’t want to wear every day. (i’ll return all of them if i have to!)

All blue jeans for instance are made in the same factory in Korea. All of them.

Then why did they put "HECHO EN MEXICO" on the label of the ones I'm wearing right now?

The blue jeans I'm wearing made in Lesotho disagree with you.

Except for, you know, all of them that are made in the US, Japan, Italy, etc.

The tiny, tiny fraction of boutique jeans, yes.

So, I think about this but it just doesn't make sense.

1. Most people outside the bay need seasonal clothing. Winter is different than summer.

2. Unless you're running your washer half full, you'll need more than 10 shirts.

3. Then there's occasional wear.

At this point, you're looking at a reasonably full closet, no?

Americans are increasingly buying experiences instead of things. That’s great

Ref: Underlying data for this article via the Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://www.bls.gov/cex/

Because the quality is just no longer there for the price. Why pay $60 for a shit shirt when you pay $20 for a shit shirt.

Don't forget that these days people aren't just dressing themselves, but also their online avatars, yet these numbers would not be reported under 'clothing' expenses.

https://dotesports.com/league-of-legends/news/league-of-lege...

European here, pullover from the thrift store for €5,50 five-pocket pants from the sale for €29,99 same for the extra-long sleeves shirt, the socks were 30% off but at €7 still pricey, my sailing shoes (I'll just pretend it didn't just start snowing outside) are the most expensive thing I wear.

congratulations on supporting child labor

Expensive brands produce their clothes in the same factories. They just make higher profits.

Even if they are the same factories (if talking about genuinely expensive/quality stuff, not something that just has celebrity name markup on it) the process and quality control are quite different.

The vast majority of clothes are made in low wage countries because economics. Putting others down because they dared buy inexpensive clothing is sanctimonious claptrap.

Maybe I'm too poor to update my clothes since Im paying all those student loans and ridiculous rents?

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