I can't wait for the day when I can walk to my local dump and move into a mcmansion somebody threw out because the paint was the wrong color... And I am only half joking.
Go into your local thrift store and try not to gasp as you walk past $300 pair of designer jeans after $400 dress, some of them still with tags on them as they've never been worn, and most all of them in seemingly brand-new condition.
It's a consumer's dream world out there, baby.
And we can't seem to get enough.
Storage units weren't even a thing 75 years ago. Now they're ubiquitous.
The idea of paying rent to store things you'd never use to our grandparents was insanity. (It still is imho).
I'm going thrifting right now, actually.
To everybody else in the world, if you could take a break from buying more brand new clothing, to consider why you might not need to buy more brand new clothing, we would all be a lot better off imho.
Ecologically speaking maybe Steve Jobs/Star Trek respectively were onto something. A high quality minimal personal style that involves orders of magnitude less garment churn and waste with the added benefit of just not having to spend time on what to wear each day (insert pithy Jobs quote).
But seriously if I was to explore finding a personal style that I could wear as my day to day work/life “uniform”, where to look, where to source from. Are there any companies focussed around this?
Men already had that in the past, the suit. Up until the first war clothing was expensive to make so generally men had only one or two suits and they would wear them every day, and repair them as they wore down. Shirts were, to an extent, a step above underwear. Men would spice up the same suit every day with different ties, pocket handkerchiefs, and other small accessories, all of which were generally more affordable than an entire suit.
These days suits appear to be worn less often, mostly in business environments, very formal life events, and by fashion enthusiasts. But ironically, maybe one of the greenest ways to dress (for men) is to get a secondhand suit or two from a thrift store, in a natural material like wool or linen, have a tailor or dry cleaner alter it into a stylish cut that fits your body, and wear it every day. They can be altered to fit literally anybody in a flattering way, different materials can be either warm or surprisingly cool to suit your climate, and there's so much more to suits than the depressing shiny blue/black polyester business suit we all picture these days.
Want to be green and look great? Drop the Patagonia fleece and cotton t-shirt swag from last week's startup, and buy a used suit in a nice natural material!
I'd happily wear a DS9 or First Contact era Starfleet uniform all day. They look great! :).
Regarding your serious point, I'd like to know too. I'd pay for a service that would help me find a style that looks good on me, with associated supply of quality clothes in this style. My current clothing choice pattern is "random, with a pre-filtering done by my wife".
I've pretty much exclusively switched to Merino t-shirts. Various good brans out there (Woolly Co, Smartwool, Icebreaker, etc) and most can be found in simple, versatile colors. Can wear them with almost anything, super comfortable, and the real kicker is that they can be worn a few times without needing a wash. Makes packing for travel easy, and saves time/effort/water with freq laundry. Also, as someone who runs pretty hot, it's awesome having a quick-drying and wicking fabric. They aren't quite as durable as cotton shirts, but make up for it with everything else imo
You don't need any company to sell you yet another wardrobe full of clothes because the point is to consume less clothes, not more. take care of and appreciate your existing wardrobe. Switching style type of behavior is at the root of this expanded carbon footprint. Remember 85% of production ends up in the dump in a year. Unfathomable. Honestly the level of consumption right now is impossible given anything resembling normal consumption. It has little to do with cheap fashion or uniforms and everything with some people wanting to shop every weekend. Who has time for that anyways? If you still want to dress like Jobs then buy your black turtleneck wool sweater, but not five of them in one go. Don't throw anything away for it, either. After a while your bulging wardrobe will make you space conscious enough to very carefully consider any subsequent purchase.
Google Image Search "Classic men's fashion" (I'm assuming you're a guy), get some ideas there. Then find a good tailor and bring the pics to him. As a lanky westerner living in Asia, it's pretty much impossible for me to buy "off the rack" clothing in any style I would want anyway. So I've settled into infrequent purchases via western companies with granular sizes/fitment, or even-less-frequent trips to a tailor.
These days, a man can get made-to-measure shirts for ~$50/each. Ten of those in different colors will last you 5+ years and not go out of style. Four made-to-measure suits at $300-$400 each should be good for 10 years. I think Brooks Brothers and JoS.A.Bank have decent shirts and slacks, if you really wanna stick to store-bought stuff.
For casual/outdoors wear, add some Patagonia, North Face, or basically any law enforcement supplier (5.11 Tactical, Propper, LA Police Gear). Rugged clothes that will also last a decade. A fleece pullover, a moisture-wicking Polo shirt, and a pair of khaki tactical pants is the 21st-century "Plaid shirt and bluejeans" IMO...
A good place to start might be companies that supply service uniforms. In the US, per the Berry Amendment, they are required to source nearly all components and perform all labor in the US; the articles they make are consequently expensive and meant to be repaired. Other countries have similar legislation and the same result: more expensive clothing that is long lasting and versatile.
One token of this emphasis on repair is, oddly enough, the button fly. Buttons are much easier to repair than zippers.
Switch from cotton to (Merino) wool, at least for shirts. It doesn't absorb sweat and then start to smell, so you can wear it many more days before washing (and you can just hand wash in the sink, easy). They also breathe well, work great as a base layer, and feel extremely soft. It'll cost you $80-100 for a t-shirt, but I've found it worth the investment. I've gone from rotating through like 15 Uniqlo tees to only wearing a couple shirts. And you can do the same with pants and even socks.
If your in US or Canada, consider Value Village or another similar well known second hand clothing store chain. Like sibling comment said, just shop for a 'look' , e.g. color or form of garment, don't worry about BS brands etc..
Nice thing is that if you end up not liking the 100$ worth of clothing you bought (WHICH IS ALOT OF CLOTHING!), and say, return 40% of it after 3 months... would've been same as buying 1 fancy shirt at your local department store.
> if I was to explore finding a personal style that I could wear as my day to day work/life “uniform”, where to look, where to source from. Are there any companies focussed around this?
Isn't this just clothes? Just buy multiple of what sparks joy, right? Is there something I'm missing that makes an outfit a "uniform"?
It is very easy. For work you have the standard business casual. From bottom up it is black shoes (but not necessarily super shiny), black socks, slacks that are either black, grey, beige, or brown and a colorful checkered or striped button down shirt. Also, a belt. The shirt should be colorful but without too bright colors or contrasts. You can find the whole thing at banana republic. The good thing about this style is that if the pants are neutral color enough, you do not have to worry about matching shirt to pants.
For life outside of work, comfortable shoes and socks not necessarily black but subdued color, jeans and a button down shirt as well. Here the button down shirt may be of brighter colors or coarser materials, etc.
It depends how thoughtful you want to be about your style though ?
If you do consider that your style is your public API and a mean of personal expression, it needs a good amount of trial and error. The first english speaking place that comes to mind for this is the subreddit malefashionadvice .
There are also companies (that actually target engineers because it is a very engineery thing to do) that will sell you a "uniform" made of 3 times the same chino, 3 times the same hoodie (maybe some color variation), some simple tshirts and undergarment and done.
Check out Everlane. They even have a ‘Uniform’ line now, I think. They also have transparent pricing, manufacturing practices, and at least some commitment to sustainability.
One day I walked into our company’s swag closet and grabbed 10 identical company shirts that are kinda subtle about the branding and just look like some band t-shirt. I’m a couple years into wearing only these to work (plus two pairs of jeans and two pairs of shorts) and it is indeed one less thing to think about. Occasionally people notice and it’s kind of a fun conversation, and that’s about the only consequence of it.
It might sound hacky but I decided that the best thing was to just wear one combination, (button up shirt and slacks), one color (Black) and dress boots. I sometimes wear a costco waterproof shell jacket when necessary. I have one or two dressier things for funerals and weddings but those rarely come out.
I never have to think about what to wear. I never have to worry if it matches, it wears slower, I can buy fewer but more quality items without having to shop a ton.
The only downside was being "the guy in black." However that hasn't affected work performance or any other aspect that I can find that is measurable. I could have as easily picked a different color combo but didn't want to have to do separate loads of laundry.
Depends what you can wear and like to wear. The staples are a good pair of raw denim jeans, two pairs of contrasting chino pants and a mixture of tops to layer with these (wool jumper, crew top). Footware is up to you but if you want to be ecologically friendly I'd say get one pair of leather boots to last you 20 years +. Good brands are red wing and redback for starters. If you want sneakers don't wear big brands (nike, adidas etc) and buy something ethical. Try and get leather or something durable over that mesh crap which falls apart. It all depends on weather as well. Some or all of this advice is useless if you live in Northern Canada for example.
I wear jeans and a black T-shirt to work almost every single day. My wife makes fun of me and says I dress like a cartoon character, but for some reason it just removes a huge mental load knowing there is one less decision to make in the day.
And growing..."If the fashion sector continues on its current trajectory, that share of the carbon budget could jump to 26% by 2050" (from the article)
The shipping numbers are rather dubious. No way it's actually"just" that much. Reporting is lacking and even where it's enforced shippers use defeat devices (that secretly pump pollution into the water rather than spew it in the air) or a second, weaker engine.
We really need a better industry around re-use of essentially everything.
Let's say I need some X. Last week I bought a base layer because it's getting cold here.
I can order, or buy in a store, a brand new X trivially. I don't actually need a brand new X. A used X would do me just fine.
But the difficulty in doing so is ridiculous in comparison. Cottage industry eBay stuff (that you have to order online) vs. an entire infrastructure built around producing and selling new stuff.
This article has a bit of an underhanded motive. It pretends that is all pro environment but it comes out as an attack on fast fashion.
One can argue that fast fashion is bad for the environment. One can argue that it encourages people to throw away clothes, that fast fashion clothes are cheap and wear out very quickly, etc. But that does not have to be the case.
The ideal of fast fashion is that it is about putting clothes out in the stores and letting the customer decide what to wear and then quickly creating new designs based on customer demand, rather than the old system where the clothing industry would change collections only four times per year and more or less force the customer to like those collections based on a massive top down system of advertising, fashion magazines, models, movie stars, etc. A side effect of this system of making people like the new fashion is by bombarding with ads with beautiful people is that you also make people hate themselves.
So fast fashion does not necessarily have to be low quality or low durability. And having a large number of collections does not necessarily suggest low quality either. Personally I cannot say much about fast fashion darling ZARA, because nothing there fits me, but I wear a lot of GAP, Banana Republic and some Uniqlo, and those clothes have been generally quite durable.
That being said, if certain companies do make low quality clothes they should be called out.
To change the subject, one accurate thing about the article is about how bad plastic clothes are. In addition to being bad for the environment they just feel worse on your body. I would just avoid buying artificial fibers as much as practical.
I don't think this is true anymore. I am a huge fan of cotton, but for athletic activities there is nothing like a modern, wicking, synthetic shirt. The 32 Degrees brand really sold me on synthetics a few years ago. Yes, it is bad for the environment... I'm just saying that synthetics aren't like they were in the 80s.
That's interesting. I was thinking about this a lot over the past 2-3 weeks. The sheer amount of clothing lying in all the shops across the world.
Talk a walk into any Macy's / Bloomingdales / Hudsons Bay and count the number of items of clothing.
Then multiply that across that one store's chain of shops. Then realize there are multiple chains like that.
Then realize there are multiple stores not in chains.
Then realize that's just the geographic area you're aware of.
Then think about other cities, counties, regions, provinces, countries.
Then remember all the clothing you have at home already...
To me men (not all 100%, the majority) are stoic: few garments, the necessary. How many of you are the opposite to this? My GF is a machine of buying clothes. Her friends too. I don't see my friends buying that much each month. When I go to a shopping center the majority of stores are women oriented, the entire fashion industry is run for them to ludicrous levels.
Generally, it's a good article, but it lands on a sore point for me with many environmentalist articles - treating "water use" as if water disappears when used. Generally, water doesn't cease to exist - it just gets temporarily stored.
The type of water use we're talking here - saturating it with detergents, dyes, etc. -- makes it unpotable, at which point it is, best-case, going through a very expensive treatment process before it can be returned to the water cycle, which you can be certain the manufacturers are not footing the full cost of; or more likely in the places where garment manufacturers set up, is just being dumped into the environment, destroying ecosystems and the health of those unlucky enough to be stuck with its fallout. So you're right, water can't be "used up", but the amount of it being used in industrial processes is a very good proxy for environmental harm.
Whilst that’s true, it’s not how it’s experienced. Take for instance Mexico City which has been using up its groundwater at a tremendous rate; sure, the water hasn’t been destroyed in the chemical or atomic sense, but the lack of it locally is very real.
It's hard for people to find high quality clothing because evaluating quality is hard and "quality" is sold by many places and it ends up being only an impression.
It comes back to a thought I've had in mind for a while about margins.
Margins are often set as a multiple of material cost. 10x, 100x, something like that. That rather large multiple handles the materials obviously, but also manufacturing, shipping, QA, marketing, overhead, etc.
To make a price competitive product, you minimize your material cost and then use that multiple to set price.
The problems lies in that if you use 2 cent nails instead of 1 cent nails, everything upstream does not double in price. There would be a small increase in cost-of-capital, and other losses related directly to the merchandise, but many many things aren't related at all.
When your product is all the way at the bottom of the quality,price bracket, doubling your materials cost doesn't double your actual marginal cost and shouldn't double your price, but so often it does and stupid quality decisions are made which results in it being very difficult to find decent products.
You end up having to pay super premium quality prices to get things designed and built as they reasonably should be. Or you end up paying hundreds of dollars so the one part that matters is up to spec when the actual difference in cost of that one part was maybe two or three dollars.
“ The fashion industry produces 20 per cent of global wastewater and 10 per cent of global carbon emissions - more than all international flights and maritime shipping. Textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of water globally and it takes around 2,000 gallons of water to make a typical pair of jeans.
Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned. If nothing changes, by 2050 the fashion industry will use up a quarter of the world’s carbon budget. ”
Flights are currently "used" by a tiny % of the global population, whereas clothing is a necessity for 100% of the population.
What does that comparison says, exactly? Changing the habits of a few persons would have much impact on the environment as changing the habits of every person on Earth? Which change should we prioritize? Mmmh...
I don't think any sane person is proposing the future of humanity lies in nudity. But you'd have a tough job persuading me that having 60% more clothes than 20 years ago and landfilling 85% of textiles bought a year is necessary, or that extensive wardrobes replaced every season are less frivolous than transport.
This comparison can be read as saying that if one was to search for changes at the industry level, either technological or legal, then clothing looks like a high-payoff place to do that.
Bought a H&M zipper jacket by the start of this year, somehow now it's is as worn down as a Adidas one I bought in 2011! H&M mostly sells disposable clothing, and they have the never of making "conscious" fashion ads.
I'm not sure I can agree. I'll give a few examples.
"Free clothing" quality has gone up and become more fitted. Instead of 1 gender neutral size, clothes are by gender, and fabric softer. Stitching seems unchanged. I've had to purchase these for groups.
High quality clothing has more accents. Quality of fabric is secondary to aesthetics.
It's called planned obsolescence. The plan is to be obsolete by next season, so four to six months. Although I wouldn't count on H&M clothing to last ten washing cycles.
You don't even have to reuse to lower carbon emissions, just buy something durable. I have a shirt from RL that still looks new and I bought it in 2009.
I still run with a pair of Nike socks from 2012, although I bought a new pair just this summer and they had holes just after 2 months, so I guess quality went down while price went up for this brand.
Vote with your wallet for things that are durable. The market will follow. See Forever 21 going down the drain [1].
I’m glad this finally got the attention it deserves.
Forever21 went into reorganization bankruptcy because they were not “fast enough”!
That’s lunacy. Make things that last, in other words durable. Make them timeless. Bigger upfront investment, lower total cost. Lower impact on environment.
this is the reason we need carbon & pollution tax! this is like whack-a-mole, way too many industries lurking under the radar & polluting our common resources for private profit. unless we put a price to it they will not factor in the cost to the rest of us.
Money spent = Emissions generated (direct or indirect by further spending)
If you want to save CO2, then save as much money as you can in paper form. Don't spend, don't invest. Instead keep everything as cash. This also has indirect effects by slowing down the economy which reduces money flow for other people, too.
You can spend your money on digital goods which have a very tiny environmental impact. This doesn't have the result of preventing other people from spending that money but it is at least sustainable if everyone does it.
Specifically page 18:
«Together the apparel and footwear industries generated between 5 and 10% of global pollution impacts in 2016. Footwear alone represents approximately one-fifth the impact of the apparel industry, about 1.4% of global climate impacts (700 million metric tons CO2eq), while apparel represents 6.7% of global climate impacts (3,290 million metric tons CO2eq). Combined, they account for an estimated 8.1% of global climate impacts (3,990 million metric tons CO2eq).»
My gripe is with tennis shoes. Back in the day (70's), tennis shoes always had a piece of rubber across the toe to prevent your toe from wearing through the fabric.
Now, tennis shoes either don't have anything covering the toe, or even more ridiculous (Under Armor), there is a small piece of leather/vinyl on the outside edge of the big toe, but it strategically doesn't cover where your toe actually comes through the fabric after a year.
It used to be that tennis shoes could be worn until the soles were worn through. Now, the upper portion wears holes through in a year, maybe two if you're lucky, and the sole looks almost new.
And it's not just the fashion industry who are making products designed to fail: I just replaced a water heater after 7 years that had a 6-year warranty - surprise! The gas valve stopped working. Water heaters used to last 40 years! It's sickening to me that every household in America is sending a water heater and other major appliances to the landfill every 5-10 years, just so manufacturers, supply houses, and installers can make more money.
[+] [-] flyGuyOnTheSly|6 years ago|reply
Go into your local thrift store and try not to gasp as you walk past $300 pair of designer jeans after $400 dress, some of them still with tags on them as they've never been worn, and most all of them in seemingly brand-new condition.
It's a consumer's dream world out there, baby.
And we can't seem to get enough.
Storage units weren't even a thing 75 years ago. Now they're ubiquitous.
The idea of paying rent to store things you'd never use to our grandparents was insanity. (It still is imho).
I'm going thrifting right now, actually.
To everybody else in the world, if you could take a break from buying more brand new clothing, to consider why you might not need to buy more brand new clothing, we would all be a lot better off imho.
[+] [-] evolve2k|6 years ago|reply
But seriously if I was to explore finding a personal style that I could wear as my day to day work/life “uniform”, where to look, where to source from. Are there any companies focussed around this?
[+] [-] acabal|6 years ago|reply
These days suits appear to be worn less often, mostly in business environments, very formal life events, and by fashion enthusiasts. But ironically, maybe one of the greenest ways to dress (for men) is to get a secondhand suit or two from a thrift store, in a natural material like wool or linen, have a tailor or dry cleaner alter it into a stylish cut that fits your body, and wear it every day. They can be altered to fit literally anybody in a flattering way, different materials can be either warm or surprisingly cool to suit your climate, and there's so much more to suits than the depressing shiny blue/black polyester business suit we all picture these days.
Want to be green and look great? Drop the Patagonia fleece and cotton t-shirt swag from last week's startup, and buy a used suit in a nice natural material!
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|6 years ago|reply
Regarding your serious point, I'd like to know too. I'd pay for a service that would help me find a style that looks good on me, with associated supply of quality clothes in this style. My current clothing choice pattern is "random, with a pre-filtering done by my wife".
[+] [-] velp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timwaagh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CapricornNoble|6 years ago|reply
These days, a man can get made-to-measure shirts for ~$50/each. Ten of those in different colors will last you 5+ years and not go out of style. Four made-to-measure suits at $300-$400 each should be good for 10 years. I think Brooks Brothers and JoS.A.Bank have decent shirts and slacks, if you really wanna stick to store-bought stuff.
For casual/outdoors wear, add some Patagonia, North Face, or basically any law enforcement supplier (5.11 Tactical, Propper, LA Police Gear). Rugged clothes that will also last a decade. A fleece pullover, a moisture-wicking Polo shirt, and a pair of khaki tactical pants is the 21st-century "Plaid shirt and bluejeans" IMO...
https://www.propper.com/
[+] [-] solidsnack9000|6 years ago|reply
One token of this emphasis on repair is, oddly enough, the button fly. Buttons are much easier to repair than zippers.
[+] [-] Nav_Panel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abledon|6 years ago|reply
Nice thing is that if you end up not liking the 100$ worth of clothing you bought (WHICH IS ALOT OF CLOTHING!), and say, return 40% of it after 3 months... would've been same as buying 1 fancy shirt at your local department store.
[+] [-] thrwn_frthr_awy|6 years ago|reply
Isn't this just clothes? Just buy multiple of what sparks joy, right? Is there something I'm missing that makes an outfit a "uniform"?
[+] [-] hristov|6 years ago|reply
For life outside of work, comfortable shoes and socks not necessarily black but subdued color, jeans and a button down shirt as well. Here the button down shirt may be of brighter colors or coarser materials, etc.
[+] [-] on_and_off|6 years ago|reply
It depends how thoughtful you want to be about your style though ?
If you do consider that your style is your public API and a mean of personal expression, it needs a good amount of trial and error. The first english speaking place that comes to mind for this is the subreddit malefashionadvice .
There are also companies (that actually target engineers because it is a very engineery thing to do) that will sell you a "uniform" made of 3 times the same chino, 3 times the same hoodie (maybe some color variation), some simple tshirts and undergarment and done.
[+] [-] jfaat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glaugh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AndrewKemendo|6 years ago|reply
I never have to think about what to wear. I never have to worry if it matches, it wears slower, I can buy fewer but more quality items without having to shop a ton.
The only downside was being "the guy in black." However that hasn't affected work performance or any other aspect that I can find that is measurable. I could have as easily picked a different color combo but didn't want to have to do separate loads of laundry.
[+] [-] qmmmur|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xcelerate|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tito|6 years ago|reply
And growing..."If the fashion sector continues on its current trajectory, that share of the carbon budget could jump to 26% by 2050" (from the article)
Flights: 2.5% of global emissions [1]
Maritime shipping: 4.0% of global emissions [2]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/19/climate/air-travel-emissi...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shippi...
[+] [-] pergadad|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] esotericn|6 years ago|reply
Let's say I need some X. Last week I bought a base layer because it's getting cold here.
I can order, or buy in a store, a brand new X trivially. I don't actually need a brand new X. A used X would do me just fine.
But the difficulty in doing so is ridiculous in comparison. Cottage industry eBay stuff (that you have to order online) vs. an entire infrastructure built around producing and selling new stuff.
[+] [-] hristov|6 years ago|reply
One can argue that fast fashion is bad for the environment. One can argue that it encourages people to throw away clothes, that fast fashion clothes are cheap and wear out very quickly, etc. But that does not have to be the case.
The ideal of fast fashion is that it is about putting clothes out in the stores and letting the customer decide what to wear and then quickly creating new designs based on customer demand, rather than the old system where the clothing industry would change collections only four times per year and more or less force the customer to like those collections based on a massive top down system of advertising, fashion magazines, models, movie stars, etc. A side effect of this system of making people like the new fashion is by bombarding with ads with beautiful people is that you also make people hate themselves.
So fast fashion does not necessarily have to be low quality or low durability. And having a large number of collections does not necessarily suggest low quality either. Personally I cannot say much about fast fashion darling ZARA, because nothing there fits me, but I wear a lot of GAP, Banana Republic and some Uniqlo, and those clothes have been generally quite durable.
That being said, if certain companies do make low quality clothes they should be called out.
To change the subject, one accurate thing about the article is about how bad plastic clothes are. In addition to being bad for the environment they just feel worse on your body. I would just avoid buying artificial fibers as much as practical.
[+] [-] 01100011|6 years ago|reply
I don't think this is true anymore. I am a huge fan of cotton, but for athletic activities there is nothing like a modern, wicking, synthetic shirt. The 32 Degrees brand really sold me on synthetics a few years ago. Yes, it is bad for the environment... I'm just saying that synthetics aren't like they were in the 80s.
[+] [-] amacalac|6 years ago|reply
Talk a walk into any Macy's / Bloomingdales / Hudsons Bay and count the number of items of clothing.
Then multiply that across that one store's chain of shops. Then realize there are multiple chains like that. Then realize there are multiple stores not in chains. Then realize that's just the geographic area you're aware of. Then think about other cities, counties, regions, provinces, countries.
Then remember all the clothing you have at home already...
[+] [-] meerita|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghostly_s|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JofArnold|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slowmovintarget|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colechristensen|6 years ago|reply
It comes back to a thought I've had in mind for a while about margins.
Margins are often set as a multiple of material cost. 10x, 100x, something like that. That rather large multiple handles the materials obviously, but also manufacturing, shipping, QA, marketing, overhead, etc.
To make a price competitive product, you minimize your material cost and then use that multiple to set price.
The problems lies in that if you use 2 cent nails instead of 1 cent nails, everything upstream does not double in price. There would be a small increase in cost-of-capital, and other losses related directly to the merchandise, but many many things aren't related at all.
When your product is all the way at the bottom of the quality,price bracket, doubling your materials cost doesn't double your actual marginal cost and shouldn't double your price, but so often it does and stupid quality decisions are made which results in it being very difficult to find decent products.
You end up having to pay super premium quality prices to get things designed and built as they reasonably should be. Or you end up paying hundreds of dollars so the one part that matters is up to spec when the actual difference in cost of that one part was maybe two or three dollars.
[+] [-] globular-toast|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seltzered_|6 years ago|reply
“ The fashion industry produces 20 per cent of global wastewater and 10 per cent of global carbon emissions - more than all international flights and maritime shipping. Textile dyeing is the second largest polluter of water globally and it takes around 2,000 gallons of water to make a typical pair of jeans.
Every second, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned. If nothing changes, by 2050 the fashion industry will use up a quarter of the world’s carbon budget. ”
[+] [-] rcMgD2BwE72F|6 years ago|reply
What does that comparison says, exactly? Changing the habits of a few persons would have much impact on the environment as changing the habits of every person on Earth? Which change should we prioritize? Mmmh...
[+] [-] notahacker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foobar1962|6 years ago|reply
The third world often gets sold the remnants and retainers from the first world.
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nicci00|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pkaye|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] helpPeople|6 years ago|reply
"Free clothing" quality has gone up and become more fitted. Instead of 1 gender neutral size, clothes are by gender, and fabric softer. Stitching seems unchanged. I've had to purchase these for groups.
High quality clothing has more accents. Quality of fabric is secondary to aesthetics.
[+] [-] petre|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] etagobla|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aledalgrande|6 years ago|reply
I still run with a pair of Nike socks from 2012, although I bought a new pair just this summer and they had holes just after 2 months, so I guess quality went down while price went up for this brand.
Vote with your wallet for things that are durable. The market will follow. See Forever 21 going down the drain [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_21
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|6 years ago|reply
And a lot of it is zany garbage.
Plus, fashion helps promote a lot of warped body image issues.
[+] [-] mc32|6 years ago|reply
Forever21 went into reorganization bankruptcy because they were not “fast enough”!
That’s lunacy. Make things that last, in other words durable. Make them timeless. Bigger upfront investment, lower total cost. Lower impact on environment.
[+] [-] DesiLurker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] std_throwaway|6 years ago|reply
If you want to save CO2, then save as much money as you can in paper form. Don't spend, don't invest. Instead keep everything as cash. This also has indirect effects by slowing down the economy which reduces money flow for other people, too.
[+] [-] baroffoos|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timwaagh|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrb|6 years ago|reply
https://quantis-intl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/measurin...
Specifically page 18: «Together the apparel and footwear industries generated between 5 and 10% of global pollution impacts in 2016. Footwear alone represents approximately one-fifth the impact of the apparel industry, about 1.4% of global climate impacts (700 million metric tons CO2eq), while apparel represents 6.7% of global climate impacts (3,290 million metric tons CO2eq). Combined, they account for an estimated 8.1% of global climate impacts (3,990 million metric tons CO2eq).»
[+] [-] prirun|6 years ago|reply
Now, tennis shoes either don't have anything covering the toe, or even more ridiculous (Under Armor), there is a small piece of leather/vinyl on the outside edge of the big toe, but it strategically doesn't cover where your toe actually comes through the fabric after a year.
It used to be that tennis shoes could be worn until the soles were worn through. Now, the upper portion wears holes through in a year, maybe two if you're lucky, and the sole looks almost new.
And it's not just the fashion industry who are making products designed to fail: I just replaced a water heater after 7 years that had a 6-year warranty - surprise! The gas valve stopped working. Water heaters used to last 40 years! It's sickening to me that every household in America is sending a water heater and other major appliances to the landfill every 5-10 years, just so manufacturers, supply houses, and installers can make more money.