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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

#301

Post by ctvo »

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…

You're so confident about this.

> There are 5 genres of men’s clothes - business (pressed shirts, suits), casual, workout, skater, and comfort (hoodie).

Only 5 of them and one of them includes "skater"? I mention confidence because you name them off with some authority when it looks like it should be "There are 5 categories of men's clothing for me".

You leave off streetwear [1] which is a gigantic category in men's clothing and reinforces the personal / arbitrary nature of the list.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetwear

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#302

Post by virtualritz »

paule89 wrote: post #269
virtualritz wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You get custom made clothing cheaper than store clothing? If you get it made in India or Asia this is the norm. Long sleeved shirts from a good tailor in Saigon or Bangkok are 15-25 EUR p.P. for the tailoring. Then add 3-20 EUR for fabric – depending on what material you choose. Once the tailor has your measurements on file you can either send your fabric of choice there and have the shirts be in your mail three we…

Where can i find such a good tailor? PM please, both the indian and the berlin one if possible.

My Berlin tailor is Vianko Mode[1]. Don't be fooled by the chaotic look of the place. :)

The owner is a bit all over the place but the work he does is outstanding. Also for ladies. If you need a tailored evening dress or costume: this is the guy.

Make sure he writes down any instructions and after agreeing for some pieces, you confirm them again yourself with him, written, by WhatsApp.

My Bangkok tailor is Dino Suits[2].

Dino is one of the few real tailors in Bangkok. Most 'tailors' there are just fronts for tourists that sell fabric with a suit pattern that gets adjusted to your body. That's a pattern of /their/ choice "made to measure" which is not the same as a pattern of /your/ choice "tailored".

Usually it's a sweatshop in the countryside doing the labor. In that place you have a 1-2 dozen half-trained people doing the grunt work and 1-2 real tailors checking on them/doing the occasional difficult section. That's why they can only do the one pattern.

Dino is known in Bangkok because if one of these other 'tailors' fucks up the last resort to fixing/saving a piece is often Dino. ;)

This is always a good litmus test for a new 'tailor'. Ask if you can bring your own fabric and ask if you can bring your own pattern. If either is a no look for another, real tailor.

In Asia/India in general: if you want a jacket w/o padding in the shoulders (Napoletanean style/pagoda shoulders) be sure to bring a well fitting (better: fitted/tailored) sample jacket from home for them to copy from.

[1] https://goo.gl/maps/cGaepP3FWYGdMWE37

[2] https://goo.gl/maps/oSuJi8KhtNM5snU36

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#303

Post by cagenut »

apozem wrote: post #164

The way this article frames it, all these fashion companies are going direct-to-consumer (DTC) as their business model salvation, but that is only good for Facebook. > Here is the problem for DTC companies: Facebook really is better at finding them customers than anyone else. That means that the best return-on-investment for acquiring customers is on Facebook, where DTC companies are competing against all of the othe…

fwiw this is basically what happened to "media" or "the news". facebook middle manned the distribution chain and then peeled off most of the value/ad-revenue. moving on to consumer-goods/e-commerce is just "whats next" after news.

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#304

Post by ubercow13 »

coldtea wrote: post #178
magic_beans wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't be dense. Whether you admit it or not, most people judge others based on appearance.

Don't be denser, judging others by their appereance is shallow. The fact that people still do it doesn't mean that when you change your clothes that's any kind of expression proper. It's just a cheap way to signal something that you might or might not be, and only superficially at that.

What's a good way to judge people?

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#305

Post by dade_ »

clusterfish wrote: post #214
dade_ wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but men’s fashion cycles run far longer than women, so we can buy higher quality clothing that lasts much longer. This also means custom clothing is very practical. I deal with a guy, his family has a factory in India. All the grades of fabric, styles, etc, all made custom based on my measurements. A few weeks later, it arrives. Most comfortable clothing available, and looks killer. He travels to me, or I go to…

You get custom made clothing cheaper than store clothing? That doesn't seem to be the norm pricing wise.

It is, if you choose average fabrics like the department store. You can choose the highest end fabrics and you can easily spend thousands on a suit. Retail margins on clothing are outrageously high and obviously use average quality fabrics. However, after their costs of running the store, discounting/liquidating rack items haven’t moved, their operating profit isn’t very high. Custom menswear operations don’t have this waste hitting their bottom line.

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#306

Post by coldpie »

wyclif wrote: post #236
purple_ferret wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I barely buy jeans now because it's hard to find a pair that isn't 10% spandex

Even Levi's is doing it. I was amazed to discover while shopping that they have an entire line of skinny jeans that are part spandex. Whatever happened to practical, well-wearing clothes for gold miners?

They're still around. Two MIUSA brands are L.C. King and Round House (I prefer King's styling), and there are probably many more made overseas.

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#307

Post by blueline »

Larrikin wrote: post #71
taurath wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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

Depends what you’re looking for, but there are some pretty good boutique shops like notre and gallery aesthete. those cater to pretty particular styles though.

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#308

Post by wreath »

doix wrote: post #260
xeromal wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends. I buy levis which are the some of the cheapest decently quality jeans you can find. I'm not big on raw or selvedge denim so I mean decently trendy and ready to wear jeans. I can find a pair for around 100 or less depending on sales and those pairs can last me about 3-5 years. I think 100$ is a fair price for something that will last me that long. I have squatter's legs so the inner thigh grinds to…

> I have squatter's legs so the inner thigh grinds to a pulp on most brands but levi's lasts the longest. My quads aren't even that big and yet I seem to have this problem. It only started after lifting for a few years and it drives me crazy. I seem to go through jeans every 3 years whereas before it felt like they would last a life time.

This is the thing I wish I knew before lifting - most of my wardrobe had to be changed within months, from underwear to winter coat.

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#309

Post by foldr »

kristofferR wrote: post #295
piva00 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only in the US, that is pretty typical for the whole American continent, even worse in Latin America as it's seen as a "gay" trait to be into fashion. As a straight man who is into fashion for quite a few years now and who moved out of Brazil to Sweden: that culture is pretty stupid, I feel so much better and more myself when I'm able to express my personality with my clothes without the fear of being judged by s…

Is it very different in Sweden than the Americas? I'm a Norwegian guy, and I love how tolerant we turned weirdly quickly. Even the anti-abortion Christian™ Party walks in the Pride parade now. Frankly I think most people here would still think of the random guy in a dress as non-straight, but since "nobody" cares about that here anymore, nobody cares about clothing in a negative way either.

A guy in a dress seems like a strange example. Outside of drag, it's not common to see guys wearing dresses (gay or straight).

Re: Sweatpants Forever: How the Fashion Industry Collapsed

#310

Post by mumblemumble »

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…

> Women have an expectation to express themselves and their personality.

I think that men have the same expectation. What's different is: Men are working with a relatively stable means of expression. They're working with clothes that are naturally more multi-season (both in terms of utility and in terms of aesthetic norms.) And it's more socially acceptable - even required in some contexts - for them to wear basically the same thing every day.

Whereas women are expected to take part in a sartorial red queen's race where everything is changing so rapidly that the statement you make by wearing a particular piece of clothing in summer 2018 might be markedly different from the statement you make by wearing it in winter 2019 or summer 2020, so it only serves to express your personality in the way you intend for a desperately short span of time. Worse, even within summer 2018 it might make one statement on June 18, and a completely different statement if you dare to wear it on June 25, because, even if nobody at your office actually will notice and judge you for wearing the same outfit on two consecutive Mondays, you've likely been conditioned to expect it to happen.

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