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Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

nytimes.com

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Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#71

Post by Larrikin »

taurath wrote: post #18
kazen44 wrote: post #5

The collapse of the fashion industry does not mean the clothing industry will collapse. People still need clothing obviously (cheap and of good quality preferably). Also, what do we consider the fashion industry exactly? Most long term clothing trends seem to be dictated by a couple of factors. Consisting of: - practicality. Jeans are good example of this. It's cheap and practical clothing that lasts a long time. - c…

(All comments on culture US centric) - This thinking is why the men’s section is 1/4 as large as the women’s in most stores. Culturally for men clothing is supposed to be above all practical. There are 5 genres of men’s clothes - business (pressed shirts, suits), casual, workout, skater, and comfort (hoodie). Contrast this with the women’s section. Women have an expectation to express themselves and their personality…

This kind of thinking is why I tend to buy as close to a full years worth of clothing whenever I make a trip out to Tokyo. Even in Chicago relatively fashionable men's clothing shops are few and far between

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#72

Post by quickthrowman »

aries1980 wrote: post #41
foobiekr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fast fashion, which was the dominant trend, has nothing to do with dressing up or looking one’s best.

High-end fashion is not fast fashion. I wear high-end shoes daily, some that have been resoled twice, having a 10-year lifespan each. I feel I stand out from the crowd when I appear in my don't remember-when-I-bought Hackett blazer and Liberty shirts. If you are a man, whatever looked good on Steve McQueen in the 70s would still give you the look today.

> High-end shoes

When you say this, do you mean Loakes, or Trickers/Church’s, or Edward Green/John Lobb? Just curious what you mean by high-end, US would be something like Allen Edmonds, Alden, (?? Not sure for top-tier US makers)

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#73

Post by monktastic1 »

jariel wrote: post #59
mthoms wrote: post #8

I'm saddened by the job losses, but the fashion industry (esp. the high end) seems nothing but a toxic drain on society and the environment. New "trends" dictated by celebrities and designers every year do nothing but sow personal insecurities and environmental destruction. Good riddance.

??? Every pound of vehicle mass that you've purchased beyond what was absolutely necessary to 'get from A to B' and every unnecessary bit of travel or vacation has produced considerably more 'waste' than anything a the 'high end' of fashion. Seriously - this moral concern coming from the 'land of a billion not-necessarily-even-useful plastic gadgets'? The 'high end' of fashion is mostly art and artisanal, paid for by…

Source? As a counterpoint:

www.businessinsider.com/fast-fashion-environmental-impact-pollution-emissions-waste-water-2019-10

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#75

Post by user_501238901 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #58
the8472 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They knew that there was a continuous risk of a pandemic and prepared for one happening eventually . Just like we know there's a low risk of an entire server room going up in flames/water damage/lightning/getting hit by a truck driving into a building and that's why we have offsite backups even though we won't know when something is going to happen.

> They knew that there was a continuous risk of a pandemic But I think so did every country. Wasn't global pandemic at the top of almost every country's national security risk register? They knew it was likely, and they knew it was high-risk. I know for a fact it was at the top of the UK's public national security risk register. You're perpetuating a silly myth that major western countries didn't know this was coming…

There basically wasn't a proper "modern day" pandemic before this. The previous one was the spanish flu in 1918 which was very quickly forgotten due to a much larger pointless massacre (world wars)

Air travel increase is a big factor why it got so bad so quickly, even in the past two decades basically everything has changed. We have hundreds millions of people basically teleporting between continents every day.

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#76

Post by alchemism »

chrisseaton wrote: post #28
kazen44 wrote: post #5

The collapse of the fashion industry does not mean the clothing industry will collapse. People still need clothing obviously (cheap and of good quality preferably). Also, what do we consider the fashion industry exactly? Most long term clothing trends seem to be dictated by a couple of factors. Consisting of: - practicality. Jeans are good example of this. It's cheap and practical clothing that lasts a long time. - c…

> Jeans are good example of this. It's cheap and practical clothing that lasts a long time. Mainstream jeans brands seem astronomically expensive to me.

I worked a good number of years doing tech in fashion.

Figure that there is a 100-1000% markup for a garment at retail. The jeans that cost $3 to make versus the ones that cost $13 will sometimes be durable, but you are basically buying the quality of the seamstress beyond materials at the higher price point.

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#77

Post by mthoms »

jariel wrote: post #59
mthoms wrote: post #8

I'm saddened by the job losses, but the fashion industry (esp. the high end) seems nothing but a toxic drain on society and the environment. New "trends" dictated by celebrities and designers every year do nothing but sow personal insecurities and environmental destruction. Good riddance.

??? Every pound of vehicle mass that you've purchased beyond what was absolutely necessary to 'get from A to B' and every unnecessary bit of travel or vacation has produced considerably more 'waste' than anything a the 'high end' of fashion. Seriously - this moral concern coming from the 'land of a billion not-necessarily-even-useful plastic gadgets'? The 'high end' of fashion is mostly art and artisanal, paid for by…

I could have been clearer in specifically condemning "fast fashion" rather than the high end (though I think the condemnation of that segment was also implied).

The reason I called out high-fashion is that it sets the trends and expectations for the rest of the industry. H&M and the like model their lines based on what the high end fashion industry says is in-vogue. They change this every season for no good reason other than to drive (false) demand at the mid and high end.

Other than that, nothing you wrote contradicts anything I wrote. Automobiles, travel and single use plastics are also valid issues but that's not the focus of this thread.

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#78

Post by hombre_fatal »

okamiueru wrote: post #33
colmvp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Couldn't agree more. High end fashion is woefully overpriced items that predominantly largely priced on their brand rather their functionality and material. While yes, you could make the same argument with technology, I can at least get a lot of value out of premium I've paid for Apple products like my seven year old MacBook Pro or five year old iPhone. And after working briefly in the fashion industry as a developer…

To be fair, and you even bringing it up, apple products is to some degree the fashion equivalent in tech. I recently had to buy a MacOs compatible hardware for the first time in years, and I had really no idea how large the difference has become. Apple products truly are "way of life", more than anything tangible. And when choosing to upgrade components, I really couldn't believe it. It was more than twice the compar…

> In what other industry are people willing to pay at least more than twice, for the same hardware?

Just about all of them, from cars to ski equipment.

But that's not what's happening here.

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#79

Post by cma »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #62
okamiueru wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, and you even bringing it up, apple products is to some degree the fashion equivalent in tech. I recently had to buy a MacOs compatible hardware for the first time in years, and I had really no idea how large the difference has become. Apple products truly are "way of life", more than anything tangible. And when choosing to upgrade components, I really couldn't believe it. It was more than twice the compar…

> In what other industry are people willing to pay at least more than twice, for the same hardware? The whole premise is incorrect, so the conclusions are incorrect. The hardware is not the same, and even if it was, clearly the software makes a difference to the user. The whole Apple fashion status trope is tired and has never been true. The amortized cost of an Apple device in my 15 year + experience with them has a…

Upgrading an ssd on them costs 3-4x as much as on a normal laptop.

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#80

Post by nemothekid »

mthoms wrote: post #52
pembrook wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, human “culture” and it’s “trends” are such a waste. Why can’t everybody just spend their entire lives staring at screens while dressed in tshirts, like us software engineers do? Those thousands of years of human history spent on emotionally-driven aesthetic pursuits like art, fashion, music, culinary tradition and architecture...what a waste of time and resources. If only we could be more robot-like and efficien…

Besides being a reductio ad absurdum [0] argument that ads nothing to the discussion, I'll address your comment. Music, Art, Food, Literature and Architecture generally don't go out of style every 6 months (although companies are trying harder and harder to make it so). Nor do they have the same toxic effect on the environment (possible exception: food?) and personal self esteem as high fashion. [0] https://en.wikipe…

You are conflating high fashion and fast fashion. High fashion doesn't go out of style every 6 months. Louis Vuitton still sells the same Monogram purse that they did 10 years ago, likewise my aunt has several $1000+ handbags she has owned for 20+ years. Your comment about high fashion going out of style every 6 months is just untrue, and to the other posters point just highlights the myopic lens in which software engineers view fashion.

Also, the NY article is not about fast fashion (Zara, H&M), it's about high fashion (Marc Jacobs, Balenciaga, Alexander Wang).

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