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People who haven't bought clothes for a decade

theguardian.com

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Re: People who haven't bought clothes for a decade

#121

Post by Marsymars »

germinalphrase wrote: post #63
vsareto wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of my Darn Tough socks have lasted 5 years so far. Cheap retail store brands (Hanes, Fruit, etc.) have always been awful after about 6 months. They're expensive to lose though. I've yet to find the equivalent for T-shirts.

Darn Tough will also replace socks at any point if they develop holes (which is inevitable with wool socks).

Probably depends how much you walk on them and on what surfaces. I wear slippers 95% of the time indoors and none of my socks have ever developed holes. (They lose elasticity and unravel first.)

Re: People who haven't bought clothes for a decade

#122

Post by Marsymars »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #120
leetcrew wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

was this a dealbreaker for her or for you? for me, I generally don't care how the other person spends their money as long as they can pay their share of fixed costs we have agreed on. this might be in part because I don't want to invite questions about my computer budget ;)

If you're married to someone, you still separate your finances? That boggles my mind.

My parents have been happily married for over three decades with separate finances.

Re: People who haven't bought clothes for a decade

#123

Post by garrettgrimsley »

HenryBemis wrote: post #106
joostdecock wrote: post #92

I make my own clothes. Have been for a bit more than 8 years. It's a nice hobby to have. I also started https://freesewing.org/ which is the most geeky way to get into sewing :)

Shameless plug, but thank you, this looks cool! If your logo wasn't a "scary skull" I would be showing this to my kid in our "where clothes come from" lesson (we do everything ranging from pottery to NASA space missions)(buy scary skulls are a no-no)(let them figure it out when they discover my Iron Maiden albums - many years from now!)

If you use an ad-blocker you could add their logos to the blocking lists and then take the site for a test run before showing the kids.

Re: People who haven't bought clothes for a decade

#124

Post by KozmoNau7 »

clairity wrote: post #114
spodek wrote: post #33

A guest on my podcast -- Lorna Davis, the key leader behind the largest B Corp to date, Danone USA, and a c-suite executive from Danone and other multinationals -- committed not to buy clothes for a year. Within a few weeks she started getting rid of clothes she didn't wear and even relationships that were distracting her from more meaningful ones. Within months she was sending me contacts of other high-powered execu…

does she talk at all about how to patch/mend jeans? because that's a skill that'd be super-useful to learn, given how fast jeans wear out (between the thinness and the added stretchy but less durable fibers nowadays).

I've had great results with "boro" stitching, which doesn't try to hide the repair, but makes it a personal design element.

The key is to use nice thick embroidery thread.

Re: People who haven't bought clothes for a decade

#125

Post by KozmoNau7 »

dagw wrote: post #86
dominotw wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I now have 5 t-shirts, 4 sweaters, 2 jeans, 10 pairs of socks, 2 pairs of shoes I take it you don't live in place with cold winters?

Or do much in the way of outdoor activities. 2 pairs of shoes Having to decide between wearing my climbing shoes and my ski boots to work would suck :)

In my opinion it shouldn't be about the absolute number, but rather about having relatively few but long-lasting items. Obviously individual needs vary, because of hobby activities, weather and such.

So I have 8 pairs of shoes, but I still consider it relatively minimal, because each serves a distinct purpose, such as my safety boots.

I also have multiple pairs of leather boots (military surplus), because leather boots/shoes really should be aired out for a day after you wear them, especially if you've been doing anything strenous. By having a couple of pairs, each pair will last significantly longer than if I just wore the same pair every day.

Minimalism can easily go way too far and become counterproductive.

Re: People who haven't bought clothes for a decade

#126

Post by gentleman11 »

HenryBemis wrote: post #108
gentleman11 wrote: post #98

I buy pants from Costco but they always wear out after 2 years with big holes in the seat. Where do you even buy something that lasts 10 years?

I had a pair of Levi's jeans, my weight is pretty stable, so they were good on me for a decade. Someone else above also mentioned having Levi's for a decade. Treat them well and they tend to last a long time.

When you say treat them well, does that mean air drying?

Re: People who haven't bought clothes for a decade

#127

Post by KozmoNau7 »

11235813213455 wrote: post #101
dagw wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or do much in the way of outdoor activities. 2 pairs of shoes Having to decide between wearing my climbing shoes and my ski boots to work would suck :)

I've the same single pair of 20€ shoes since 5 years. Some holes, but they still work well, probably for another 5 years. The only drawback is when it rains, I need to dry them with newspaper. I do a lot of sports (mostly bike (I've no car) for all my commuting, hiking/trail, ..

What 20€ shoe will last for 10 years of hiking and trail walking?

Re: People who haven't bought clothes for a decade

#128

Post by KozmoNau7 »

irrational wrote: post #88

I didn't know that the normal way I live my life is anything worth commenting on. I still wear clothes from when I was in college 25 years ago. But this is more from laziness and a generally dislike of shopping, combined with zero fashion sense, than from any altruistic values.

I try to only buy good quality clothes that are made to last, then I wear them until they develop holes. I repair them and wear them again until they don't really look presentable anymore. At that point they become home/work/workout/concert clothes. When they can no longer be repaired, they become cleaning rags.

I did not know that this was something to be applauded for.

Re: People who haven't bought clothes for a decade

#129

Post by phaus »

From my experience all of the clothes I buy, whether they were expensive clothes from a place with a stellar reputation for longevity, or cheap clothes from Walmart, nothing lasts more than a few years.

I buy a $20-40 dress shirt. After about 2 years the cuff splits or an elbow spontaneously explodes. I could patch it, but the surrounding fabric is still threadbare and it will just rip again.

I buy a $100+ dress shirt, it wears out just as fast, it just looks nicer until it does.

I bought some $450 Allen Edmonds shoes based on numerous people talking about how they had a pair for decades and it looked brand new. I got them for far less than that, but the quality wasn't even close to worth it.

The first time a single drop of water gets on the leather for longer than 2 seconds, that part of the surface is permanently damaged and puffs up, ruining your ability to even shine them again properly.

After about 6 months of only wearing them to walk from a parking lot to my office job and then back into my house when I got home, the heels started falling off of the shoe. I thought surely something must be wrong and I contacted Allen Edmonds. They wanted me to send my shoes back for an extensive investigation before giving me a refund or a new pair. So much for their reputation for amazing quality and customer service. They also recommend I wear them only once or twice a week instead of 4-5 days. So presumably I'm supposed to have $1300 of shoes on rotation even though I'm not even putting a mile on them a day.

Probably the only thing I have had last longer than a couple years would be some cheap underwear that lasted probably 7 or 8, and some cheap T-shirts most likely from walmart or kmart.

Anyone got a source for high quality clothes that actually last?

Re: People who haven't bought clothes for a decade

#130

Post by spodek »

clairity wrote: post #114
spodek wrote: post #33

A guest on my podcast -- Lorna Davis, the key leader behind the largest B Corp to date, Danone USA, and a c-suite executive from Danone and other multinationals -- committed not to buy clothes for a year. Within a few weeks she started getting rid of clothes she didn't wear and even relationships that were distracting her from more meaningful ones. Within months she was sending me contacts of other high-powered execu…

does she talk at all about how to patch/mend jeans? because that's a skill that'd be super-useful to learn, given how fast jeans wear out (between the thinness and the added stretchy but less durable fibers nowadays).

She doesn't cover that in particular, but:

1. Here are videos on how to mend jeans: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=patch+jeans&oq=...

2. The bigger picture is that when you force yourself to live by a value, you learn all these things. When I first challenged myself to avoid buying packaged food for a week, I had no idea I'd go from emptying my garbage weekly to less than once per year. Looking back, it seems inevitable, but when I started 5 years ago, I barely knew about farmers markets, CSAs, fermenting vegetables, etc.

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