I usually notice clothes that are well-cut and made from nice fabric. I can also usually spot a Prada or Coach bag or Blahnik (sp?) shoes, but only 'cause my mom wears 'em. Heck, if she can afford them and likes to wear them, good for her. As far as I’m concerned, she deserves to spend her money wherever the heck she wants. Plus, I often get her cast-offs, so I encourage her to spend it wherever the heck she wants.
Still, it doesn’t matter to me what people wear or where it’s from as long as they’re adequately covered. I think it’s important to look neat and clean, but I also have been guitly of running out in a pair of sweats to get milk from the store.
And as for being a label snob, I love shopping at Neiman’s, but I’d be much more likely to shop at Target, Kohls or TJMaxx. If I had all the money in the world and was presented with my choice of places to shop, I think one store would be as good as the other as long as they had well-cut, nice clothes. Although, sometimes I think that you’re more likely to find better-fitting clothes at the more expensive places because sometimes the manufacturers that sell to those places pay more attention to cut and fit (though I have to admit that a lot of those places pay more attention to cut and fit for model-type figures rather than people with rounded figures like me).
I tend to notice fit rather than quality. One thing I have noticed is that when I gain weight, it’s harder to make cheap clothes fit properly. When I’m at my thinnest, I can look professional in Target clothes. When I’m at my heaviest, I need well-tailored skirts and jackets. The cheap clothing doesn’t hang properly on heavier figures.
I notice if people are wearing good quality, nicely cut clothes. If I see someone once, and they’re wearing something nicely cut, that suits them, then I have no idea what they paid. Sometimes I see someone in something I know cost a lot of money, just because of the beauty of the cut and fabric, but generally it’s a case of distinguishing between very cheap and shoddy, and not cheap.
My clothes range from cheap and cheerful (I’ll probably wear them for one season, and that’s it), to expensive (financial optimism, sales, thrift shops, or rich friend’s cast offs). I’ll spend more money on my wardrobe staples because I expect them to last me a good few years, within the vagaries of fashion. On the other hand, I have got rid of perfectly good clothes, in good condition, simply because I’m sick of seeing them whenever I open the wardrobe, year after year.
It’s very subjective, though: the two teenagers who have just swept out of my apartment look better than I ever will, whatever the cost of what they are wearing. Being young, beautiful, with perfect figures and an unerring sense of style gives them a head start: that and the fact that they know that everything looks good on them, so they carry it well. All that and the unfair advantage of being Italian…
Which brings me to another point: while I can’t necessarily tell what someone’s clothes cost, I can quite often tell their nationality by their clothes.
Yep, I notice. Probably because I spend a lot of time pining away for expensive fashions and settling for the cheaper knockoffs. haha.
I think it’s vnoticeable on men more than women. We’re lucky, we can find knockoff bargains that look pretty darn good. On the other hand, it’s obvious if a guy got his suit at the Suit Wearhouse or if he spent more money on something nicer and had it tailored to his body. Huge difference.
Yep, I notice; however, I suppose everything is relative.
I can’t spot the difference between a $50 pair of pants and a $100 pair of pants, but I don’t consider either to be expensive. Spotting the difference between a $50 pair of pants and a $300 pair of pants - no problem. $50 pants and $1,000 pants - yeppers.
In my experience it comes down to the details. You can get a perfectly servicable pair of pants that will cover your body and keep you warm and dry for $50. For $500, you get fabulous details that will make the garment last for years, fit the body perfect, wear well, and look FABULOUS.
When I see someone who looks FABULOUS their clothes pretty much always play a role.
I notice the difference in quality (when price actually indicates quality) because of fit, but also in how the clothes stand up. I live in an area where you can hardly buy anything but knockoffs and lemmee tell ya, most of those look like hell after more than a couple of wearings. Fading, pilling, easily stained, dissolving stitches, shrinking; you name it, I’ve seen it and it isn’t pretty or a bargain.
Re: the Salvation Army (or other charities) and ‘raggy’ clothes.
I always used to bin my really worn looking clothes and only donate stuff that was in great condition to the SA*, but then I found out from my husband that his company pays the Salvation Army for ‘industrial rags’, which is what they do with the clothes they can’t sell for wearing. Basically, they tear them into big pieces and sell them to companies as a disposable cleaning rag.
So now I donate everything that’s acceptably useful, since I know they can make money out of what I’d have otherwise binned. Obviously anything with holes would still go in the bin, since holey rags aren’t much use to anyone, but stuff that’s merely badly faded but otherwise intact gets donated.
they did really well out of me during my yo-yo weight years.
I only buy books at the SA. I can never find decent clothes there. At the Goodwill, however, I can find good stuff. As I said in my previous post, last spring they were trying to get rid of their sweaters to make room for more summer stuff, and were selling all of them for $1.00 each. I got about 7 or 8 sweaters, but I took at least 15 into the dressing room to try on. A couple had pulls, and one had a stain that I didn’t see till I got it on, and the others just didn’t fit right.
The Liz Clairborne sweater looks brand-new, and looks like it’s never been worn. No pills under the arms (usual wear spots) and is nice and smooth all over. It’s a soft wool and is in perfect shape. The others are simple cotton knits and are in great shape, too. Believe me, I checked them over carefully before I bought them.
You just have to look - the good stuff goes quickly.
Yes, I’ve noticed that too. Very cheap to medium cheap clothing has shrimped on what I would call the “frame”, the seams and the quality of the lining fabric, that uphold the shape of a garment.
zephyrine, yes, that’s another reason why I’m reluctant to buy expensive clothes. What’s the point if you tire of them long before they will have worn out? OTOH, that phenomenon probably causes the gems in the thrift stores, so you won’t hear me complain.
Ashes, ashes, what’s the price of these bad-quality knock-offs? Do they fall in the cheap range or in the moderate range?
And alice_in_wonderland, I’m curious, do you also notice these clothing details if you just notice someone in passing? Or only if you’ve looked at him or her up close (meeting, date, subway) for five minutes or more?
UrbanChic, what a cool scientific experiment, to compare pictures of jackets in the catalogs of JC-penney’s and Nordstroms!
I wonder at what pricerange norinews “price/quality bellcurve” takes a sharp incline when it comes to clothing. Dutch prices don’t compare really to American ones, but I guess that for a lined jacket (the top jacket of a ladies business suit) anything over 70 dollars can be good quality, depending on the store.
The advantage of really good clothes is that they can be recycled, if you have the space: in my teenage years, I often wore a skirt my mother bought just before she was married. If I had had the space, I would probably be wearing it again now.
I have a loose white linen shirt that cost a lot of money: I wear it a few times a year, it launders beautifully, and there is no reason it will ever go out of style: I expect to have it for a good few years yet.
As I get older, I notice that I tend to gravitate towards labels that I know suit my shape, and a couple of local shops in particular. If I end up paying more, so be it; at least I know the stuff will get worn (advice for shop assistants everywhere: your customer will spend more on clothes if you are honest - I’ll go back to somewhere they tell me something doesn’t look right, because then I’ll trust them to tell me when it does).
As has been posted, a more expensive garment usually has a higher quality fabric.
Another thing that can give away a quality item is the fabric color/print. For example, a nice quality will usually have a true woven plaid and not a print of one. Along the same lines is the print itself. One of my favorite designers is Pucci. There are a ton of knock-offs, but none seem to have that same look his prints have.
What else tends to be a dead give away is the hardware (I don’t know what exactly to call this). I am referring to the buttons, the zipper, etc. Lower quality items tend to cheap out in this area. This is especially true in handbags. Perhaps in some items that won’t matter, but in others it is really noticable. I have two coats: one was a Gap coat and the other is one I recieved from my mother-in-law. The buttons on the Gap coat are wearing away (they are some sort of ‘silver’ that is rubbing off) while the other coat still looks mint.
I think that fit also is important. I think you are more inclined to have something tailored to fit if it cost you a lot of money.
The easy way to notice how expensive something is too look at the pattern. On cheap clothes the pattern doesn’t match up along the seams. It takes a lot of fabric to match seams, so you only find it on expensive clothes. This is why none of my clothes have a pattern. Also check the hems. The hem should always be straight.
I wear a suit to work everyday. It is painfully obvious to me the difference between a Men’s Wearhouse suit and even a moderately-priced one bought from Macys, not to mention Brooks Bros and better brands (not much Armani around here, we’re a bit more conservative dressers in my circles).
I’m sure I’d have trouble figuring out the difference between a $150 jacket and a $500 one from a web page, but in person, it’s obvious. Perhaps the biggest difference is that people actually have a professional tailor the whole suit to them, not just the cuffs of the pants. Yeah, maybe by pure chance 5% of cheaper suits will fit a person very well, but 90% of more expensive suits are altered to fit someone perfectly. (And I have no idea why someone would spend $100 to have a real alteration job done for them on a $200, $300 suit.)
And I’m not clotheshorse, either. On weekends I usually wear ratty t-shirts that I got for free somewhere.
Okay, so there are a lot of details that indicate, to the careful observer, the quality/price of the garment. But, given the distance with which most people watch each other, aren’t such details for 95% overlooked? Even by the people in this thread people who look critically at such details when they are buying clothes for themselves ?
Ok… then answer me this: Which looks better, a $200-300 suit that’s been altered to fit properly, or a $300-400 suit that hasn’t?
It’s a judgement call, but I’m betting way more people will notice that the suit doesn’t fit right before they notice that it’s a 200 dollar suit vs. a 400 dollar suit.
It is really true, fit is the most important thing. that said, somebody whose body is in good shape really shows off nice clothes…a Brad pitt wearing a $5000 Brioni suit will look great!
But, your average overweight, out-of-shape middles aged guy makes that $5000 suit look like a bag of onions (if it is not fitted properly).
For me, it doesn’t matter if that skirtsuit cost $50 or $500. If the person wearing it is very fashion-conscious, they’re not going to wear it beyond next year and if that perfectly good skirtsuit sits in a closet for the next five or ten years, then that person has wasted money, expecially if they paid the $500 for it.
I have tops that are over ten years old that I still wear regularly. They’re still in good shape, with plenty of wear in them, so I can’t see giving them up. I’ve never been fashion-conscious and will wear what I like.
There’s a regional chain of thrift stores here called Value Village. My Dad knows a couple who get all their clothes there and they always look well dressed. The wife looks for the big name brands and may pay $12.00 for a Donna Karan, etc. Maybe even less with her senior discount.
I like Value Village because it’s brightly lit, with clean clothes and aisles. They take the time to sort clothes by size and even color range. They don’t try to sell you clothes that are in bad shape. Yes, you pay a little bit more but I think it’s worth it.
My Dad, on the other hand, likes his Salvation Army. I don’t like it because even though the front of the store is all windows, it seems dim and dingy in there. I’ve never even looked at their clothes there.
I’m style, fashion and trend conscious. I have skirts and pants for which I’ve paid what some might consider to be a handsome sum of money. I’ve worn the items once every few months for years. They’re basic items (wool gabardine pants and skirts come to mind) of very high quality that will not go out of style. At least until we’re all wearing that one-piece suit with the silver V-shaped front.
