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Comment by pclark | Hacker News Reader

> An orange notebook, filled with intricate time lines for “The Peripheral,” was decorated with a sticker bearing the logo of the niche techwear brand Outlier—a black swan.

Outlier makes amazing clothing: https://outlier.nyc

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$395 for a hoodie?? I quite like my made-in-America hoodie from American Giant, which retails for $108. What extra value would I get if I shelled out an additional $287 for the Outlier hoodie?

Art.

If you get into the whole don't use resources, paying money for products that have a lot of artistic thought put into them makes sense. Artistic thought uses nothing from the planet, the person has to eat anyway.

I personally have no issue with using resources, but if someone else wants to spend it on art, cool, I still get to view it.

If it's made with proper merino wool then that would explain the price. I've bought merino jumpers in that price range before, and they're well worth it since they're warm but also light-weight.

Check out the prices on Arc’teryx Veilance, also mentioned in the article. $2299 for a hoodie.

Insanity, sheer insanity.

It's techwear. Outlandish prices are practically part of the aesthetic.

Go figure his fashion sense was ahead of the time. He is wearing Acronym in the article's photo, which if you ask me, is the most compelling fashion brand on the entire planet.

Remember all that stuff about the Cayce Pollard Units :P

I always liked Acronym from a design perspective, but $2,000 for a basic jacket? Seems to me like minimalist street wear should be affordable by design.

i wouldn't call it basic - the materials and fixings are very very very expensive, and the actual patterns of the clothes are ungodly complex. cobrax buttons are ~$5 each for example.

Having watched a bunch of videos about their clothes out of curiosity, I have to say they do seem to make use of decent-quality materials, with the caveat that Gore-Tex never lasts as long as it's supposed to, and it's completely impossible to repair once it starts delaminating.

As for the cut and features, yeah they have a few cute tricks and features, but nothing to justify the hype and pricing.

You have to understand that our perception of fashion pricing is completely skewed by fast fashion. It is payed by slave labour and extremely poluting processes.

The 2000$ jacket is not wierd. The 50$ is.

I am not saying Acronym is super ecological or ethical (i dont know them). But with that pricetag there is atleast a chance. There is so much suffering behind new cheap clothes it is scary.

They are both weird IMO. Well-made, ethically-sourced jackets with high quality materials can be bought for like $200-$500. I understand the branding, exclusivity etc. that $2000 will buy, but saying that jackets need to cost that much isn't accurate.

You are right. Especialy if you are buying classic styles where there is no need for research/development than you can find quality + ethics + reasonable price (100s usd range).

Classic Australian-style oilskin jackets and dusters can be had for under $300 for a really nice model, or under $150 for an ordinary one, made in Australia from high-quality 10-12oz oilskin fabric. The fabric and design with a rain-shedding cape have proven themselves over generations of people making their living outdoors.

It will be heavier than a modern Gore-Tex design, and perhaps not quite as breathable. On the other hand it won't delaminate after a couple of years and become useless for bad weather, which happens to all Gore-Tex jackets I've owned, even nice rainjackets from Helly-Hansen and similar brands. You can repair and re-impregnate oilskin/oilcloth/waxed cotton with new wax yourself, and keep it for decades.

If I was going on a serious trekking/hiking/mountaineering trip, yes I would buy the modern lightweight technical clothing. But for use in ordinary rain and snow and everyday life, I'll stick with the oilskin coat and hat.

> The 2000$ jacket is not wierd.

It is weird. There has never been a time in the history of man where paying the equivalent of 2000 in 2019 dollars for a single jacket is normal, outside of the most elite members of society. Yes, "fast fashion" is at the other extreme, but there is a huge gulf between the cheap, low quality $50 jackets and the absurdly priced $2000 jackets.

From what iknow it was true forever before mid 19th century when mass industralization started.

Before that time every garment required fitting and people had very few of them because they were very expensive. They were used often times for decades thanks to care and repairs.

Jesus. You can get a bespoke suit made by OECD-state labor and with decent materials for less than it'd cost to put together a jacket + trousers combo from Acronym. Granted, yes, you could also spend way more than that if you want a particular, famous tailor shop to make it, but still.

You can, but Acronym don't sell bespoke suits. Those are relatively well understood in terms of design, while a lot of the Acronym stuff looks like it would have required quite a bit of RnD. Factor in a very niche target market, plus that the price is probably more of a selling point than a downside in that segment, and I guess you get that kind of pricing.

I'm certainly not buying myself, but I also don't think they're just selling regular clothes at a spectacular markup. Whether their garments are any good, I have no idea.

Well, it's sort of a truism that you pay more for less when it comes to fashion (and minimalism of other kinds, too...) But I'm glad Gibson can afford Acronym (and/or his connections are enough to swing him a free coat as an 'influencer'). Probably no single author has had such an impact on me, in hindsight.

It is a bit of a dystopian wet dream styling. No wonder the guy behind it helped doing fashion for Death Stranding.

I personaly think high tech fashion looks already a bit outdated but i would surely love to have some Acronym stuff. Unfortunately its way off my price range.

At $198 for a button-up short, I sure hope it's amazing.

actually quite affordable considering it's merino. not comparable to regular cotton shirts.

Maybe it's affordable for merino, but I disagree that it's not comparable to regular cotton shirts. A shirt is a shirt.

I posted it elswhere. Cheap clothes are travesty payed by unhuman labour and environment. Most stuff should cost 10x more. Probably 30x if you want to make it last long and be ethical. (we you should)

How do you arrive at those numbers? If clothes cost 10x what they do today but fabric costs didn't change, I'd most certainly be sewing nearly all my own clothes. Give that I'm a software engineer in the bay area, this strongly suggests to me that 10x is too high.

Fabric is also way too cheap.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/dyeing-text...

I closely know people working for some high end brands. It is common knowledge. A dirty secret. The worst part is most of them dont give a fuck. Its just money grabbing.

Unfortunately you also have no chance of knowing if your 1500usd hoodie was made well or by kid payed 12usd week.

Its hard to expect other outcome since many brands are regular startups with investors. There are few monopoly megacorps like LVMH and Kering that act much like Facebooks and Googles and just squeeze anything for their investors and demolish/buy competition.

You completely failed to answer my question.

Sorry but i said i just know this from people in the industry. Obviously you will want some concrete math so you believe stranger. Well I cant give it to you.

Do you consider Everlane [1] to be ethical? They're based on the premise that the workers — in countries like Vietnam and Sri Lanka [2] — should be fairly compensated, and they're completely transparent about how much of the retail price goes to the factories. And yet their clothes, which in my experience are of high quality, are not expensive; they're certainly not 10 times the cost of similar clothing from, say, Uniqlo, Zara or H&M.

[1] https://everlane.com/

[2] https://www.everlane.com/factories/

Never heard abou Everlane. Looks nice. The question is how do we know what they claim is true? There are some certificate authorities for example but i am not sure we have this stuff figured out as society.

I used to work there, I can confirm that they are legit about their standards. They visit their factories constantly.

I'm old enough to remember when American t-shirts and jeans were largely made in the USA. I still have some of the t-shirts. They were more expensive but no where near 10x, much less 30x.

For that matter, I still buy boots made in the USA and they're less than 2x over boots made in Vietnam.

> For that matter, I still buy boots made in the USA and they're less than 2x over boots made in Vietnam.

Same, if someone can point me to ultra-cheap leather shoes from the developing world that're anywhere near as good as the ones made in the US and Europe I'm absolutely mercenary enough to be all over that (aren't lower prices supposed to be the main way normal non-capitalists benefit from globalization, after all?). Savings seem to be at best ~40% vs. comparable products made by much more expensive OECD labor.

I said it in different comment yes i inflated it a bit but..

Made in USA is just part of it and it doesnt strictly mean it was ecological process.

For example where was the cloth made? Coloring is where lot of the worst stuff happens.

I don't really like sensationalist documentaries because it's never accurate but try "True Cost" or "River Blue".

I believe that you are correct about the environmental damage done by producers in poorly-regulated countries. I believe that you are incorrect about how expensive it would be to do it cleanly instead.

Dumping untreated wastewater back into the river will always be cheaper than treating it, but dye residues in particular are fairly easy to treat so that the waste water is again safe to drink. Dyeing enough denim for a pair of jeans with proper post-treatment for wastewater is only slightly more expensive than doing it by dumping the untreated wastewater. But if there are no laws or weak enforcement, a lot of companies (individuals for that matter) will behave destructively to save less than a dollar per unit.

I thought denim is particuraly bad. Especialy if its not raw denim it uses immense amount of water for washing to make it less stiff.

Also while it might relatively be cheap to treat water like this in US.. in under developed countries it would be more expensive. So pick your poison i guess.

It's really expensive to make clothes if you're making a niche product.

I've got no problem at all with expensive clothes, I'm just saying that if you're going to charge a lot, the product better live up to the price.

The newer stuff these days with Merino wool is pretty amazing. It's thinner and softer than normal wool. And has all the same benefits. Wicks away moisture and sweat so you have to wash it less.

i have some t-shirts from Taylor & Stitch that are merino. I can wear em multiple days without any smell. Totally worth the price.

https://www.taylorstitch.com/collections/mens-the-civic-coll...

Those photos look like a promising direction for GAN researchers to explore. No need to hire any models or photogs. Just order your parameterized virtual hipsters from the Cloud, like angels on demand.

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