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Americans are spending less on clothing

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Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#181

Post by adventured »

freejulian wrote: post #164
randcraw wrote: post #88

IMHO there are three clear causes for this trend: 1) US business fashion is increasingly casual. Ties, skirts, suits, coordinated outfits, scarves, leather soled shoes -- all are passe, even in button down East Coast Fortune 100 companies (other than for aspiring managers or those in banking/finance). 2) Color is passe. Shades of black and grey dominate wardrobes, especially in large cities. Thus fewer accessories ar…

All these explanations are rather complicated. I think the simplest explanation is the best: people don't have the free money to spend on clothing. This is evidenced by the following facts: 1) Wages have been stagnant 2) Cost of living has been increasing well beyond the stated 2% rate of inflation.

That's refuted by the increases in US consumer spending while clothing expenditures are simultaneously falling.

You'll need to support your claims about the second item. Saying it, does not make it so.

Real disposable income is at an all-time high. Personal consumption expenditures are at an all-time high.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCE

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96

Americans are also spending less each year on soda. It's not because incomes are plunging 7% per year and they can't afford Coca Cola.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#182

Post by coliveira »

briandear wrote: post #175
freejulian wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these explanations are rather complicated. I think the simplest explanation is the best: people don't have the free money to spend on clothing. This is evidenced by the following facts: 1) Wages have been stagnant 2) Cost of living has been increasing well beyond the stated 2% rate of inflation.

I think your “facts” are more nuanced and complicated than you might be suggesting. Consumer prices have been declining since 1979 and non-wage benefits have been increasing. Suggesting clothes purchases are declining because wages are stagnant is logically flawed because we would expect declines in similarly elastic goods as well. But we aren’t seeing that. Consumer purchasing is growing, consumer confidence is up —…

> non-wage benefits have been increasing

This is codeword to say that gains are going to people of high net worth. Most of the population still survives on wages (excepts for the ones out of work). So what you're saying doesn't disprove the fact that for most people income is going down, adjusted for inflation and for costs that don't appear on inflation statistics (housing, health care).

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#184

Post by lev99 »

mozumder wrote: post #158
lev99 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When foreign companies open a factory in a third world company the companies economy benefits significantly less then if a factory owned by citizens of the same country open up. The profits leave the country instead of stay inside, where the money can exchange hands many more times. First world companies can outbid foreign companies on labor, land, resources and bribes. This makes it harder for domestic manufacturing…

This isn't a choice between foreign-owned factory or a locally-owned factory. This is a choice between a foreign-owned factory or no factory. Also, why would you expect the profits to stay inside? If Nike opens a factory in Bangladesh, wouldn't the profits go to Nike? I don't understand your "local profits" statement? And the jury isn't out on the benefits of neoliberal globalization. It's been shown to clearly reduc…

Just a clarifying statement.

In Bangladesh citizens own a factory then Bangladesh benefits much more then if Nike owns a factory. By "Local profits" I meant when locally-owned factories operate more money is kept internally then when foreign-owned factories run.

Globalization as a whole benefits most people, and this is not up for debate. I will agree with that statement.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#185

Post by JoeAltmaier »

cr1895 wrote: post #162
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All blue jeans for instance are made in the same factory in Korea. All of them.

Except for, you know, all of them that are made in the US, Japan, Italy, etc.

The tiny, tiny fraction of boutique jeans, yes.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#186

Post by dv_dt »

briandear wrote: post #175
freejulian wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these explanations are rather complicated. I think the simplest explanation is the best: people don't have the free money to spend on clothing. This is evidenced by the following facts: 1) Wages have been stagnant 2) Cost of living has been increasing well beyond the stated 2% rate of inflation.

I think your “facts” are more nuanced and complicated than you might be suggesting. Consumer prices have been declining since 1979 and non-wage benefits have been increasing. Suggesting clothes purchases are declining because wages are stagnant is logically flawed because we would expect declines in similarly elastic goods as well. But we aren’t seeing that. Consumer purchasing is growing, consumer confidence is up —…

> non-wage benefits have been increasing.

I strongly suspect this is predominantly out of control healthcare, and the non-wage benefits stat doesn't even capture the full 'tax' on shifted out-of-pocket healthcare costs via plan terms like higher copays.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#187

Post by cptskippy »

I've always had difficulty finding clothing that fit because I'm tall but not big. When online shopping started to take off in the early 2000s it made finding clothing in my size dramatically easier and actually allowed me to choose a style beyond "whatever you have in my size".

In the past 5 years however I've noticed my options for dress clothing dwindling dramatically and choice being limited to only mainly what's unpopular and trendy (e.g. ugly variants of skinny pants).

I'm in need of several dress shirts and slacks and I'm expecting to spend somewhere close to $1000 to replenish my wardrobe but I'm not having any luck finding anything I'm willing to spend money on.

I've noticed a lot of brands have been refocusing or clarifying who they're catering too and apparently I'm not it.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#188

Post by Retric »

adventured wrote: post #181
freejulian wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these explanations are rather complicated. I think the simplest explanation is the best: people don't have the free money to spend on clothing. This is evidenced by the following facts: 1) Wages have been stagnant 2) Cost of living has been increasing well beyond the stated 2% rate of inflation.

That's refuted by the increases in US consumer spending while clothing expenditures are simultaneously falling. You'll need to support your claims about the second item. Saying it, does not make it so. Real disposable income is at an all-time high. Personal consumption expenditures are at an all-time high. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PCE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DSPIC96 Americans are also spending le…

Talking about total spending misses the income gap.

The median consumer has real impact even as the wealthy consumers have an ever larger impact on the averages.

Consider housing, people that make 10x as much rarely spend 10x as much on their home as excess becomes useless. Similarly, some people spend a lot of disposable income on clothing, but plenty of rich people don't care about clothing and spend relatively little.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#189

Post by mathgeek »

johnpowell wrote: post #7

Maybe I just live in a weird place. But I see a lot less branding when I walk around town compared to 20 years ago. My sister has 17 year old twin girls and they pretty much refuse to wear anything that makes them a "walking billboard". I live close to the university of Oregon and when I was in high school it was all Nike clothes all over campus. Now I still see some but not nearly as much. It is like "Likes" instead…

I chalk this up to the culture/counter-culture cycle. When the trend is to wear logos, the next trend will usually be to wear clothes without logos (or with different logos), and vice-versa.

An anecdote I like to look back to here is how Gap once sold mostly clothes with "GAP" prominently displayed, but nowadays is somewhere you can purchase an entire business casual wardrobe.

Re: Americans are spending less on clothing

#190

Post by steffan »

mattmanser wrote: post #106
toomanybeersies wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should not be buying 2 suits and half a dozen shirts per year. I wear tshirts daily and I don't even buy half a dozen tshirts per year. I have some that are over 5 years old. Spend more than the bare minimum on your clothes, and they will last you a long time. A suit should last you at least half a decade.

Are you fairly young? One day you'll suddenly have a revelation that 5 year old t-shirts look really, really, really bad. I certainly did. The color fades, the prints fade, they look tatty. Same with suits, knees and bums get a sheen, stitching gets ratty, etc. Obviously depends on how expensive the suit was when you bought it. To quote Sam Vimes: “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because th…

> Are you fairly young? One day you'll suddenly have a revelation that 5 year old t-shirts look really, really, really bad. I certainly did.

I beg to differ. The condition of clothing is correlated to quality and amount and type of wear. I have some (plain) t-shirts that have lasted 10 or more years with no fading. Avoiding hot water and clothes dryers goes a very long way to making clothing last.

Your point stands on logo or lettered shirts - those do not usually age well from a style perspective.

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