[OkayPhysicist]

Labor-intensive products. Custom suits, leather jackets, etc., are so, so much cheaper in places with lower costs of living. For individual items, flights might make it a toss-up, but on the scale of an entire wardrobe, flying to Turkey, having a bunch of tailored clothes made up, and then flying home would definitely work out.

[whynotmaybe]

I used this but inverted, the tailor flew to a few European cities and we met him in a hotel room.

He then flew back to Thailand and send the suits.

[ghaff]

That certainly used to be the case. My dad used to get his suits made in Hong Kong all the time although that became less economical relative to other locations. I don't really wear any of that type of clothing any longer.

Akihabara in Tokyo also used to be a bargain for electronics but I'm not sure that's really true any longer that I've noticed.

[delfinom]

I was in Akihabara in Tokyo and other places end of 2024. Prices were nearly US priced but in Yen more or less. No real bargins. Only thing they had going was unique stuff you can't find at all in the mass market garbage we got going on in the US

[snapetom]

As late as 2012-2015 it was still extremely cheap to get suits in HK, but I'm sure that's no longer the case.

The last time I did it, I bought fabric for $60 USD at Joann's, flew to HK, and gave a guy the fabric for a suit. The suit cost $45 USD to make.

[bobthepanda]

Luxury fashion also tends to have large price differences based on exchange rates and tax.

Before the Great Recession, Europeans, particularly Brits, were flying into NYC with empty suitcases. It helps that NYC has a sales tax exemption for clothes items under a certain amount specifically to facilitate this.

[JasonADrury]

A lot of it is tax fraud, with the new clothes in that suitcase not being properly declared when imported.

[JasonADrury]

> Custom suits, leather jackets, etc., are so, so much cheaper in places with lower costs of living

Even in places like Bangkok a basic bespoke suit with decent construction is going to be starting at $1000, with the slightly better places charging significantly more.

The actually cheap custom suits are cheap because the quality is laughably bad, you're basically getting H&M/Zara quality for higher prices. The reason these products don't really exist in the west is primarily a lack of demand.

[pseudohadamard]

Anything where a single importer for an overseas product has been granted a monopoly and can charge whatever they want for it. In the late 1980s/early 1990s the cheapest way to buy an Apple Mac in this country (some way from the US) was to fly to the US, buy it there, and bring it back.

[a_t48]

India, too! The suit I got for my wedding was custom, way cheaper there than here. I need to go back and get a second jacket some day.

[ryandrake]

Yea, same here. I was already in India for other reasons, and I thought--hmm let's see what a tailored suit costs. I ended up decking myself out with a sweet wardrobe for what what so cheap I thought it was an English language mistake.