I don’t, and I thought no-one outside the fashion-world did.
Sure, I notice a huge label flaunting an expensive name if it’s attached. But I always thought that was kind of a admission of weakness. Why need the label? Shouldn’t the cut and fabric speak for itself?
If I get complimented on what I’m wearing, or if I notice other people being particularly welldressed, it’s always because the clothes fit the person. Never because the clothes themselves are better “quality”. (Notice how vague that term “quality” is?).
In a welldressed person, everything fits. The colors fit each other. The colors fit the hair and skincolor. The cut and make of the outfit fits the age and build of the person wearing it, accentuating best features and masking faults. Some creativity and personal style is nice, but not required. And finally, the outfit fits the occasion, whether that occasion requires a suit, teeshirt and slacks, a glamour dress, the typical grunge outfit, or any of the myriad subtypes thereof.
All of this can be accomplished with clothes from ordinarily priced shops, if the wearer puts in a little effort to find out what looks good on him/her and spends some attention to choosing and combining clothes.
My point? I used to think expensive clothes have no added value besides giving the buyer a false sense of “being dressed well”. Which is fine if one equates being “dressed well” with being dressed expensively. I don’t. And I always suspected no-one outside the fashion world did.
I used to think everybody thought like this. But recently I talked with a coworker who actually did notice if someone wore expensive clothes. "You can tell X (another coworker) always shops at <posh local shop> " she casually remarked. I was flabbergasted, because X’s outfits never struck me as particularly flattering, or even fashionable.
So, am I the one who’s got no sense of style/quality, or is my attitude as common as I thought it was?
I don’t. But I know some people like your coworker who can easily tell apart high quality and poorly made clothes. One of them (a coworker too) could identify any detail in the fabric, notice the flaws in the cut/sewing/whatever, but it’s quite uncommon in my experience.
It’s like anything else, really. Some people can tell the difference between a great cheese/painting/knife/show and a so so one, and a lot of others can’t except if the differences are absolutely blatant.
Funny you should mention this…This past weekend, I purchased hundreds of dollars worth of very stylish and fashionable clothing for work. Matter of fact, I’m wearing one of the outfits right now, and already I’ve had two compliments on it, and I’ve not been dressed but two hours. The cut and the quality of the fabric is wonderful, the fit and color are complimentary and I really, really, really like the outfit. However, I bought it at the Salvation Army–along with the “hundreds of dollars worth” of clothing I purchased this weekend. Yes, the outfit I have on probably would have cost upwards of $150 if I had purchased it in a major department store where they sell the same label, however, I don’t have the money to shell out in department stores when I can hit the consignment or second hand stores for clothing. Most of the clothes in my closet have been accumulated in a similar manner, but they are “expensive” label brands anyway. I don’t buy them for the label, but because of the way they’re cut and the fabric, and because I know which colors and styles compliment me. A skirt from Wal-Mart will fit my body style very differently than a skirt from Sag Harbor or Talbots, and the fabric and colors (not to mention the quality) will be far inferior at Wal-Mart. (I have wool skirts that I’ve worn for many seasons, that are of high quality, and there’s no way I could do that with one bought that was cheaply made.)
It’s not necessarily the label, but the style, cut, fabric and color, as well as overall quality, of label garments. Plus, if “everyone” is wearing the same blouse they purchased at K-Mart, how individual would that appear? I, for one, do not want to look like everyone else, wearing the same thing.
----Oh, and for my weekend shopping spree, I’d estimate I got about $550 worth of clothing (including a removable lining silk trench coat–$7.99 at the Salvation Army) for $56.
Your local Salvation Army charges money for clothes?
Hmm.
As for me, I don’t pay attention.
I’ll see people every day that look nice. The only time I can ever remember being way impressed with somebody’s clothes is this lawyer I saw walking down the sidewalk one day. Big huge black guy in this blazing white shirt and suit that probably cost about $5,000. I did a double take. It wasn’t the suit, I think it was the colors he’d picked, the way he carried himself, etc.
I don’t really notice unless the name is plastered on the outside, like a Louis Vuttion or Kate Spade bag, and even then I always wonder if it’s a knock-off or counterfeit.
I have a co-worker who is a huge clothes-snob and I know for a fact that she only shops at high-end places. She’d never be caught dead buying clothes from Target. She’s very tall and slim, so her clothes tend to fit very well (she’d built like a fashion model), but I don’t see where they’re necessarily better.
Like phall0106, I often hit the local thrift stores and can get some pretty good deals on things that have “name” labels. Last spring the Goodwill near me was having a sale on all their sweaters. $1 each. :eek: I got about 7 or 8 of them. One was a Liz Claiborne, two were Talbots, and one had a Nordstrom label. I can’t wait till it gets cooler!
Sorry, it’s the Salvation Army Thrift Store. Yes, they charge for their clothing in the thrift store, although they do assist those from low incomes with household items for free. This, however, was not the case when I went shopping on Saturday.
I’ve never heard of a Salvation Army store that doesn’t charge for clothes, Abbie Carmichael. I’ve never had good luck finding very attractive, well-fitting clothes at thrift stores, but that maybe a combination of where I live, my body type, and my very limited patience for shopping. More power to those of you who can do it!
Notice the quality of clothes? Sometimes I’d barely notice if people were even wearing clothes. I have zero interest in that sort of crap… except for famous people at award shows, at which point I become one of the world’s leading fashion critics and slam all those foolish celebrities who fail to live up to my idea of style.
I think most people who know us get that we’re not into clothing except as a multipurpose skin-shielding, weather-protecting, modesty-maintaining system. If we started showing up in name-brand clothing, our friends would think that we’d been abducted and replaced by aliens.
As a person who absolutely adores good clothing you can bet I notice. I don’t make a bit deal out of it but I can tell poorer quality pieces from their better quality counterparts.
I’m not going to treat anyone any differently because they buy their clothes from Fashion Bug or Wal*Mart but I do notice and I can tell. It’s your money, though, and you can spend it however you please.
Pardon me, but I have never seen any good clothes at my Salvation Army-they all look like they have been well-worn, to the point that they have holes, patches, etc. Nothing there that looks remotely unused! I cruise my local SA thrift shop (I buy old table lamps) which I break up for parts (to fix broken lamps). Believe me, the stuff I see looks like it is ready fro the ragbag. You do see some interesting stuff though…where else can you buy 8-track tape decks, old PCs and 33 1/3 LP records!
Medium priced/quality clothes and cheap clothes are usually easy to tell apart. But I honestly can’t see the difference between a 500 dollar suit and a 5000 dollar suit. Or miniskirt.
**Urban Chic ** (Juanita Tech, right?), like clairobscur wrote, most people can see if it’s an Armani or a Wallmart.
But could you tell the difference, between say, a 50 dollar jacket from Sears or a 250 dollar one from Nordstrom? If the wearer didn’t give off clues by her other clothes, the way she was groomed or her acessoires?
It seems there are products where you get what you pay for, tools being a good example. In other products, there doesn’t seem to be such a link.
A Dutch consumersmagazine i subscribe to, Consumentengids, often organizes taste-sessions where top of the bill culinary experts have to guess the brand and price of f.i. champagne, cheese, or smoked salmon. They usually agree on the blatantly worst choices. But in the medium range, all correlation between price and quality is lost. And although the experts usually have some agreement on the top ten best brands, the most expensive brands are underrepresented in them.
I suspected clothes were a product with the same lack of correlation between price and quality in the medium priceranges. And I thought that was kind of important, because the average household has to buy a lot of clothes in their lifetime.
I’m a guy and I notice. To make it even more bizarre, I’m straight and look just fabulous in Gucci shoes. I love shopping in Nieman Marcus (the final sale rail at the outlet store to be exact).
OTOH, there’s nothing wrong shopping in WallyWorld as long as you buy stuff that actually fits, but that’s another story :rolleyes:
Actually, I find that second-hand clothes are either rags, or actually better quality then average. With second-hand clothes you can see how well they’ve withstood washing and wearing. With new clothes, it’s always a wager how they will come out of their first cleaning.
That’s another drawback of expensive clothes: they often claim to need such outrageous and expensive care (dry cleaning being the least fussy!) that the con’s rather outweigh the pro’s. I mean, if you claim to be such good quality, why can’t you stand the same treatment as medium price clothing? I’m not talking moiré-silk, leather, fur, delicate embridery, angora and lam-wool here, but plain cotton, good synthetics, and wool.
Good question, Maastricht. I went online to JCPenny.com (Sears told me most of their stuff is only available in their retail stores) and pulled up a jacket and did the same at Nordstrom.com. Judging by the front view, which didn’t give much detail in the way of the weave of the fabric, I was unable to tell the $50 jacket from the $250 jacket.
And, yes, I am the poster formerly known as JuanitaTech.
In fairness, our local charities ask for old stuff too, because anything that’s not good enough to sell is torn up and sold/used/given away as rags for cleaning, etc. That’s the only reason I donate some of my oldest, trashiest clothing instead of dumping it in the trash. I don’t know how good their quality control is, so maybe some of the stuff I’d have thrown away makes it on to their racks?
I believe it was this boards’ very own Sam Stone who, in another thread, pointed out something he called a “pricing/quality bell-curve”. The point of it was that the quality of any given product rises in proportion with it’s price, up to a certain level; but past that level, the quality fails to keep pace with the pricing. I think the example he used was hand cream. The $5.00 hand cream may well be 5X better than the $1.00 hand cream, but the $50.00 hand cream is definitely not 10X better than the $5.00 hand cream. I think the same rule can be applied to clothing. A $50.00 jacket is much more than twice as good as a $25.00 jacket, but a $500.00 jacket is only marginally better than the $50.00 jacket. I think he probably did a better job of explaining it than I’m doing.