The 'Fighting for your dollars' mouse over, infographic thing is a great example of significant effort being put in to do a good job implementing a stupid idea.
Americans are spending less on clothing
81–90 of 344 posts
Re: Americans are spending less on clothing
#82>Apparel is being displaced by travel, eating out and activities—what’s routinely lumped together as “experiences”—which have grown to 18 percent of purchases. [..] That now tops all clothing and footwear expenditures. I have a completely blunt theory on that. People learn that pictures of them smiling in their bathing suit in the Maldives or with that exotic plate of food attract more 'likes' than the pictures of th…
>> Apparel is being displaced by travel, eating out and activities
The apparel and technology spending lines basically mirror each other. Why is travel mentioned?
Tech is the new status symbol for the masses. $600 phone instead of a $600 watch, leather jacket, etc
Re: Americans are spending less on clothing
#83i’d rather buy a small number of high quality, versatile items i love, than buy lots of cheap stuff i don’t really like to wear. this plus being able to wear whatever i want to work makes my decisions simpler so i can spend time on other things.
> i’d rather buy a small number of high quality
See, something I've noticed too is that "high price / high quality" brands seem to not be so anymore. Recently I bought a handful of Carhartt pants, pricey-but-quality, or so it used to be yet the quality seems to have been driven downhill and all those pants quickly fell apart in various ways.
I've found the $20-$30 lesser-known brands ended up being of higher quality, oddly. It seems the "premium" brands have taken to abusing their name's mark of quality by removing that quality in favor or cheap materials and temporary higher profits.
Re: Americans are spending less on clothing
#84European here: when visiting my company HQ I was surprised how casual Americans dress for work. I am not saying devs should wear suit and tie, nothing like that, but even my bosses boss* was wearing what looked like a rumpled sweater with worn out jeans. And I don't mean like fashion statement rumpled and worn out, more like the "great depression" crumpled and worn out. Jules and Vincent in their new t-shirts would f…
I wish Germany was like that. I work as a IT consultant in a financial institution and we all have to wear suits here, even though most of the people have never seen a client in their life - they just sit behind their desks and do their daily work on a PC. So they do so - in a suit. I really don't know why Germans do this to themselves.
That's how it was when I started in the U.S. But the last 25 years have seen a huge shift in workplace dress codes in the US. Organizations that resisted discovered that it had an effect on retention -- in part because there are pocketbook implications, and perhaps in part because it is just more convenient to be able to use the same wardrobe for everything.
Re: Americans are spending less on clothing
#85European here: when visiting my company HQ I was surprised how casual Americans dress for work. I am not saying devs should wear suit and tie, nothing like that, but even my bosses boss* was wearing what looked like a rumpled sweater with worn out jeans. And I don't mean like fashion statement rumpled and worn out, more like the "great depression" crumpled and worn out. Jules and Vincent in their new t-shirts would f…
I think it's great. Let people dress as they want and feel comfortable. The last think I need is an employer telling me how to dress.
Re: Americans are spending less on clothing
#86European here: when visiting my company HQ I was surprised how casual Americans dress for work. I am not saying devs should wear suit and tie, nothing like that, but even my bosses boss* was wearing what looked like a rumpled sweater with worn out jeans. And I don't mean like fashion statement rumpled and worn out, more like the "great depression" crumpled and worn out. Jules and Vincent in their new t-shirts would f…
That could be a factor. Casual office clothes (closely related to post 90s tech culture) probably halves apparel costs for a lot of people. In a suit and tie company, the average person probably buys 2 suits and a half dozen shirts/ties pa, in addition to their casual clothes.
Yes. Not mention I hated wearing neckties. (I'm 55... things were different 30+ years ago.) That alone makes the more casual dress environment a huge boon.
Re: Americans are spending less on clothing
#87European here: when visiting my company HQ I was surprised how casual Americans dress for work. I am not saying devs should wear suit and tie, nothing like that, but even my bosses boss* was wearing what looked like a rumpled sweater with worn out jeans. And I don't mean like fashion statement rumpled and worn out, more like the "great depression" crumpled and worn out. Jules and Vincent in their new t-shirts would f…
The first time I ever left this country(except for say Canada) I went to Athens- and if you've ever been to Athens you know it's kind of a shithole. Awesome- I love Greece- but Athens is fairly gritty. Anyway, I was shocked by how well everyone dressed.
Re: Americans are spending less on clothing
#88IMHO 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 are needed, since all shades of gray look OK with all sheens of black.
3) More people are working from home several days a week, so nobody cares how you're dressed. I'm astonished at how fast this has changed here (outside Philly). Probably 2/3 our cubes are empty on most days. Five years ago, they were full, because upper management insisted we be physically present and that we follow a dress code (no jeans). But now that management is no longer physically co-located with staff, and almost all meetings are online, nobody cares where you are or what you wear.
Re: Americans are spending less on clothing
#89i’d rather buy a small number of high quality, versatile items i love, than buy lots of cheap stuff i don’t really like to wear. this plus being able to wear whatever i want to work makes my decisions simpler so i can spend time on other things.
> i’d rather buy a small number of high quality See, something I've noticed too is that "high price / high quality" brands seem to not be so anymore. Recently I bought a handful of Carhartt pants, pricey-but-quality, or so it used to be yet the quality seems to have been driven downhill and all those pants quickly fell apart in various ways. I've found the $20-$30 lesser-known brands ended up being of higher quality,…
All blue jeans for instance are made in the same factory in Korea. All of them.
Re: Americans are spending less on clothing
#90European here: when visiting my company HQ I was surprised how casual Americans dress for work. I am not saying devs should wear suit and tie, nothing like that, but even my bosses boss* was wearing what looked like a rumpled sweater with worn out jeans. And I don't mean like fashion statement rumpled and worn out, more like the "great depression" crumpled and worn out. Jules and Vincent in their new t-shirts would f…
Not quite 20 years ago I did my first consulting work in Europe. I was concerned as I did not have business clothes. I had only worked for and consulted for companies in the western part of the US. I knew that European dress standards were higher than the US, and even that East Coast standards were higher. When I visited my sister's then-Big-Five company she had me change my socks as I apparently wasn't dressed up en…
> I visited NYC once in fall, and was surprised that I was the only one wearing a white T-shirt. The same sister commented that it was after Labor Day, and in that part of the country they don't really wear white once summer ends.
This isn’t really a thing. Plenty of people wear white sweaters, coats, etc. in winter.