[e-dant]

These were three pants from Lululemon, figured they’d be good.

None of them lasted more than 6 months.

Admittedly, I bike and walk a lot, so probably I put more strain on them than I should have.

But, come on, that’s why I got them, and surely if I can bike 20 miles in $30 pants from target, those fancy lululemon pants should also have worked.

[lurking_swe]

Lululemon is fast fashion junk, from a textile quality perspective. Live and learn. :) It is fashionable and i own a few things from them, because they genuinely look and fit well. But i don’t expect them to last.

As a general rule, ANYTHING that is 100% cotton will last the longest. Cotton blends can be OK, but they have pros and cons (polyester helps with wrinkles and can add some elasticity, linen is good for hot weather).

And then there is general construction. Mass manufactured clothing will not be made to high standards, that should be clear. If you want something high quality, buy a brand where it’s hand made. Or buy a custom designed suit from a private business, preferably local (places like SuitSupply don’t count). There’s quite a few in NYC, not sure about other cities.

That’s high level guidance. If you want to learn how to judge clothing quality, there are extensive videos online that show you how to inspect stitches on fabric, etc.

[curioussavage]

Yeah lululemon is your problem there I’m guessing. I just did the reverse. For the last decade most of the clothes I wore came from target and they were ok. I felt like the fits worked for me so I mostly stuck with them.

That said I found some nice small brands and they blow target clothes and all those mall brands out of the water. The mall stuff is often exactly the same as target.

Relwen is my favorite brand right now.

[troutwine]

My wife has a sense of fashion and I do not. When we go out she's always dressed precisely and, left without guidance, I look like a hike might break out at any minute.

Relwen's excellent. Sturdy clothes with utility -- my concern -- good looking for a variety of semi-casual to formal occasions. I wear their hunting jacket as a general purpose blazer.

[hardwaregeek]

Lululemon is tech wear so that’s somewhat surprising. I’d say that if you’re biking, you probably don’t want formal slacks. But more expensive clothes are not inherently more durable. It’s a good way to sell clothes to people who need an objective justification to spend more, but it’s not always true. You spend more because you want a specific aesthetic, you want clothes that fit a certain way, you want stuff produced ethically and not in sweatshops. Sometimes they’re more durable but not always. Linen for instance is always fragile, no matter how expensive.

[alabastervlog]

Oh god. Yeah, you were in JPress pricing territory so I was really surprised you had that experience, those clothes should have been tanks. I had no idea lululemon was that expensive, I’ve never shopped there because I thought it was fast fashion and associated it with athleisure.

Find your sizing in a few not-even-that-good but ok brands that sell enough for used stuff to be pretty common (not JPress, they’re too low-volume—brooks brothers, jcrew, that kind of thing) by shopping at thrift stores. Those brands (right now—both are slowly getting worse) have more consistent sizing than most, so the super power you just unlocked is buying their clothes used on eBay/Poshmark/et c., and shopping their sales online (these brands are down-market enough that they do have meaningful sales sometimes)

Note that these sorts of places don’t just size shirts S/M/L, but also have fit modifiers like “slim” (only slightly fat) and “trim” (not fat—these are jcrew) or, for brooks brothers, names like “regent” or “Milano” that you’ll need a chart to translate (but then you just remember the one or two that fit you well and forget about the rest). Also, in shirts sized by collar, get it right so you can button that without discomfort or a too-large gap, and know that you may need to get the sleeves tailored if you intend to wear it with jackets—this is a fairly easy adjustment, a cheap local tailor can do it, 99% chance it’ll be an Asian woman, if it’s a guy you’re almost certainly somewhere too pricey for that alteration.

Don’t shop “outlets”, they’re mostly not discounted clothes, but worse clothes made for the outlets.

You can do something similar with nice (leather) shoe brands by getting cheap beat-up ones on eBay to dial in your sizing (if you don’t have a store close by—if you do, you try on shoes representing multiple lasts, buy one new pair if you feel bad about wasting the clerks’ time, then buy zero more new pairs from them again), then buy seconds (slightly defective, barely noticeable from good brands) and nicer ebayed pairs.

[edit] oh and measure yourself. Neck, chest, natural waist, high hip, low hip (if something only has one hip measurement, they mean low). If buying jackets, measure the jackets on a crappy one you thrifted that fits well. There are guides for this.

It seems like a lot of work up front, but it unlocks lazy fashion forever. I have great luck blind-buying used and even new pieces from good brands I haven’t tried on, based on measurements (anywhere remotely worth buying from will provide measurements). I almost never shop in person these days unless it’s a thrift store.