Comment by zer00eyz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zer00eyz | Hacker News Reader

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Today I can buy a t-shirt for less than an hour at minimum wage (in the USA).

The reality is that the loom, for as amazing as it is, is only a small piece of why that item costs so little.

Tunic, possibly wool or linen. Both of these items still come at a massive premium today when compared to a cotton or a synthetic. We have made changes and massive progress in the production of the base materials.

We have transport issues, it is unlikely that your typical tunic was an imported good. It was probably made and sourced much more locally. Today, due to the nature of production and the structure of tax and tariffs on garments it is likely that your t-shirt is fairly well traveled, with it crossing the ocean more than once (cotton to Asia, woven in one place, made into a garment in another, possibly printed on in a third before even making it to you).

There is a LOT more to the story, sewing machines, zippers (YKK is a fascinating company), elastic, pattern making, fabric cutting. The boxes that your products are shipped in, cardboard and steel, the packaging plastic - the inks for it. Dye is a whole field of science and research that has made so much progress in the last 50 years never mind going as far back as a "tunic".

The point is there is a massive iceberg under that loom, one you barely see or think about.

I've recently become an instant fan of Bernadette Banner, historical clothing recrations specialist, with video and Pinterest channels.

In a piece I'd submitted to HN a few days ago, she discussed the matter of a cheap Chinese knock-off of a 15th century gown. Somehow an item made of wool-blend, silk, and other fabrics, constructed over 250 hours, was being sold for $40.98.

Short-cuts were taken.

Aside from a host of other aspects (ownership of ideas, fraud, misappropriation of likeness, etc.), the segment is a tour de force of textile and garment techniques and technologies. As is virtually all of Ms. Banner's video archive. I've virtually no interest in the topic itself, though I'm somewhat aware of the historical significance of clothing technology and its role in the Industrial Revolution. She herself is must-watch Web-V, based on knowledge, wit, charm, diction, geek-out nerdiness, and sheer enthusiasm for her topic.

In the dozen or so videos I've watched to date, she covers many of the elements you describe (possibly excepting zippers).

In overall impact, I'd compare her work with Primitive Technology. Much of the framing is different, but the end result, someone captivated by and exceedingly competent in what they're doing, sharing it with the world, is quite similar.

https://invidio.us/watch?v=J80J4oaGVnY

This one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21611950

BTW, I notice that you also have an interest in printing. Don't know if you've ever taken a class in it, but I did (semester-long "Introduction to Printmaking" at a local art school at night) and it was an amazing experience. I was way outclassed by everyone else who knew at least how to draw, paint, etc, but I still had a lot of fun learning about various printing techniques, types of paper, etc.

Yes.

I have numerous interests. There is a madness to the method, I swear! (Or vice versa.)

History of print and media is a somewhat recent interest, though I've had numerous relevant prior experiences. Little by way of formal instruction.

You talking undershirt or an actual tshirt? That’s disposable clothing at that price.

The miracle of textiles is an artifact of the past. In order to make the insane supply chain make sense, the product is cheapened to the minimum viable level. Most of what happens today is financial engineering.

My old ring-spun champion sweatshirts from the 80s:90s are a much better and cheaper product than most stuff on the market today. All made (farmed, spun and sewn) by US labor in South Carolina or New York.

Actual t-shirt. Not uncommon under $5, sometimes $1, at Walmart. Yes clothing can be disposably priced if you search a bit.

JC penny printed t-shirts $6 us. But, to your point, they are "terrible".

You can still find high quality fabrics that have been turned into garments but it is rare and costly. I, as someone who is tall, am mostly locked out of these markets. Interestingly however I am more often then not forced to buy more expensive and better formal items (suits in particular).

Those markets for quality textiles are often now, as they were then, bespoke. Your height is just more fabric.

Decent t-shirts can be had at most department stores for around $10 where I live. Minimum wage here is around $7ish. It's not quite an hour after taxes, but it's comfortably two hours of labor per shirt. Sometimes a lot more if you can score a good deal at a discount outlet store.

Granted, you can also buy very cheap quality shirts at Wal-Mart for around that price, but those won't survive much longer than a year with regular wear and washes.

Undershirts are much cheaper; at least the last ones I bought were like 6 for a few dollars.

You can pick them up in bulk from a wholesaler for under $2/3 a shirt (that is premium ringspun).

Tbh, if you get from a decent supplier then the quality is usually fine. I am not sure why there is a stigma around non-US products. A lot of third-world countries have very skilled labour. And most of the "US-branded" t-shirts today are of very variable quality...but that is the only product these days for certainty that your clothes weren't made by a child.

>That’s disposable clothing at that price.

I have not found price to have much basis on the lifetime of a tshirt. The design/mass production of the design seems to be most of the cost. You can buy a high quality tshirt for very cheap its just the same design has been sold 500,000 times already.

I bought a 5-pack of T-shirts from ASOS in April, they go through the washing machine weekly (low temp, hang dried) and are still perfectly wearable. Nothing particularly eye-catching, but don't fall apart either.

The price was $6.72 per shirt and the same pack is currently on sale for $4.27 per shirt.

Based on previous experience, I expect them to last around 100-120 washes. Worn every other week, this translates to 4-5 years.

Well, there are still very high quality t-shirts being made. Namely Velva Sheen in the US and Merz b. Schwanen in Germany. There do cost the same as a proper shirt.

Interestingly, I haven't found pants that I like that are manufactured in the recent era, even with a reasonably large budget, compared to a laborer. (though I guess thatching is moderately skilled labor, so maybe you would compare it to my computer-technician work?) I love my old Australian army surplus wool cargo slacks; manufactured in the early '50s, I can only find them on ebay. They are super nice; the wool is harsher than smartwool (and they need dry cleaning) but they are super comfortable, and come with a pocket for my reading device. The pockets are lined with thick, heavy cotton that keep stuff from falling out way better than the polyester of most modern wool slacks, and they don't have the lining that most modern wool slacks have, either. (I.. have issues with the feel of a lot of kinds of polyester against my skin, especially when sweating, and most of the wool slacks I've seen have polyester linings down the front to change the way the pants hang or soemthing) and these pants are about a thousand times better in the rain than cotton pants.

But I don't think this is primarily the cost of the wool: Contrast this with shirts, where I can buy a really nice modern wool blend shirt for about a day or maybe day and a half of minimum wage, one that has all the moisture management and skin feel properties of wool but that holds up in the dryer pretty okay. I mean, I guess the same company makes some nice tights which make great undergarments for a Californian visiting a place that snows, so the problem is actually, I guess, that I'm unwilling to go out in public in tights without pants over them, and I live in a place where pants over tights is just too warm.

Army surplus energy cargo pants that need dry cleaning? I assume these are dress uniform or something?

most wool pants are dry clean only. I actually don't know anything about the actual context of these pants when in use.

https://go-armynavy.com/military-surplus/collectibles/austra...

(I'm not vouching for that vendor, but I'm pretty sure that's what I've got. I got mine from ebay)

What you want are boiled wool pants. They don't shrink. I have an old pair of ~work pants like that. I think that they were originally part of a suit.

Thanks for the suggestion. That does sound exactly like what I want. I'll be ordering a few pairs to see if it works out as well as it sounds.

Cool.

Boiled wool blankets are also great. Very warm. And very durable. Much like felt.

Prior to the rise of synthetics, wool was in fact among your best outdoor-wear options. Military uniforms and mountain climbers would wear it. Even swimsuits and cycling shorts were made of wool, the latter through the 1970s (though spandex Lycra nylon was being introduced).

The transition point came in the 1950s and 1960s with the mass-marketing of synthetic fabrics and outdoor-wear, principally rip-stop nylon. Even then, a natural product, goose down, remained the preferred insulating material in parkas.

Until the 1880s, the only clothing materials that existed were cotton, linen, a few other plant fibres (jute, woven grass), wool, leather, silk, furs, and (generally for military use) metal.

In the 1880s, the first synthetics appeared: viscose rayon and cellulose (generally only used in collars and cuffs). In the decade of the 1930s, virtually all modern synthetic plastics were introduced, virtually all at Du Pont. Some of those saw introduction during WWII, though most didn't make widespread appearance until afterward.

The seismic shift in fashions from the 1940s-1950s to the 1960s wasn't just due to the everyday adoption of what had been working-man's clothing (denim blue jeans and cotton tee-shirts), but synthetic fabrics and dyes.

During the industrial revolution, it was thread-handling characteristics as well as cost which drove the adoption of cotton. Wool was too elastic, and tangled in machines (and was expensive). Silk was prohibitively expensive. Flax threads are insufficiently elastic, and would break.

Cotton threads were just right, and could be spun, spindled, and woven on early mechanical equipment. Cost was relatively low, and England / Britain has ample supplies from its colonies in Egypt and the Americas.

Same with a lot of the famous, longer lived brands. Seems to tie in with the brand rather than the product becoming the important thing. Quality craters. Often the product(s) that build the brand in the first place, e.g. Craghoppers Kiwi outdoor trousers, been around since before me, but the quality seems to decline every couple of years. Now the only ones worth buying now are old ones on eBay and are unrecognisable compared to the ones sold in the 70s and 80s. The once cheap copies are now often better. Loads of other examples.

I think that most of this effect is just how cheap precision is, and the fact that the cost of raw materials hasn't dropped; I mean, compare my ikea shelves to my parent's heavy metal furniture from the '60s. at first glance, the ikea stuff looks super cheap; but the tolerances! in many ways, my ikea furniture is a marvel of engineering. It's essentially a bit of cardboard encased in a very thin layer of whole wood, and it works!

But I do like the feel on the older stuff that consumed more material.

I think that may be part of the story, and I suspect heavily that overall we are using far more materials than in my parents or grandparents day. I still have a pair of Craghoppers I bought in the 1980s, and a good ten years of life was to be expected. When I eventually stopped buying two-three years was nearer the mark. Having aged 40 years, I suspect if anything they get lighter use today than way back when. :)

Same for furniture - the cardboard+wood miracle of engineering may work for a while, but have kids or move home once and it'll be beyond its limits. The bookcase my great-grandfather made as part of his cabinet maker apprenticeship is doing fine... One joint is a little sloppy and probably needs a little maintenance, but it's moved house (and family) dozens of times...

One thing I am sure of though - for brand profit, trousers that are worn out under five years are far better than those that might last fifteen. Especially if you can trade off retained customer belief in a maker of good quality - which few of them are any more.

For ~dress, I wear oversize black raw silk women's tai chi pants. With the tight bottoms cut off, and hemmed. So they're loose, with a little flare.

For heavy pants, I wear black cotton gi bottoms. I've tried to find heavy raw silk, but it's not readily available.

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