Cost of quality
Hey I was wondering while browsing some of the posts of this discord if there really was a noticeable difference in quality between pieces of clothing separated by a lot of money. Does a 1100$ shirt feels 11 times as comfortable as a 100$ one ? I feel like you're only buying the brand, but seeing how Uniqlo gets clowned on and everyone swears on Lemaire I feel there has to be something.
7 Replies
strictly in terms of utility and function, no a $1000 shirt does not feel 10 time as soon as a $100 shirt, there's a point of diminishing returns.
when you are paying $1000 for a shirt, you're not paying $1000 for that in terms of quality of material. the consideration above strict raw material (ideally) is design. the pattern making and design you're looking for simply does not exist at a lower price point because it's too onerous to produce at large quantities.
i own some $100 shirts and i own some $1000 shirts, you can 100% tell which ones are $1000 shirts.
a related question would be 'how high a standard do you have for quality in t-shirts, shirts, etc'? not relative to the price of the item, but just in general?
as bill said, high standards of quality usually doesn't exist in a vacuum, it comes from tactile feel and construction processes, what it takes to facilitate those (labor, overhead) and any tradeoffs for this (limited availability, limited color/size options, aesthetics)
lemaire in particular is a brand where i think the praise is for more than just its quality; the construction, the actual pieces/combinations of pieces, and the overall brand ethos ("vibe") all factor in imo
Uniqlo is fine, but it's not really any better than anything else at that (low) price point and pretending it's "high quality" is a bit silly. Where Uniqlo does well is consistent sizing over years, and availability of colours etc. it's reliable in a way some other brands at the price point aren't.
Diminishing returns kick in quite quickly, but as Bill said, the extra price isn't always about "quality" or "comfort" or material choice, or cut or whatever. It can be any number and combination of things. Sometimes very expensive things are "practically" worse, in that they can't be washed, are very delicate etc (but this is rare).
As a real life example, I have some t-shirts that cost £90 each. They're much nicer than my Uniqlo (£15) ones in terms of fit and feel, but they're just as prone to rips and stains. I've handled t-shirts that cost 5x times that much. They're not 5x nicer, but they were made of a pretty unique silk/cotton/linen blend and cut/knitted in a very distinct way that's incredibly time consuming that some people might be willing to pay for.
It's up to you where your breaking point is. Personally for daily wear on t-shirts, socks, etc I'm perfectly happy with Uniqlo tier basics - but I will spend far more on shirts/pants/jackets that offer me something specific, be that cut/fabric choice/design etc - I'm not that interested in basic chinos, or "normal" blazers or plain knitwear.
this is also a server full of people really into fashion. most people don't need to spend more than $100 on a shirt.
This cord is not about need
Needs can be met with a hanes tshirt from Kirkland
yes
if you want to get pedantic with my phrasing then sure
my feeling on this type of stuff, coming from both the fountain pen world and the style/clothing world, is that generally speaking there's a bit of a bell curve in terms of what an increase of price is "worth". It really depends on material and labor costs in a lot of cases—e.g., with cashmere the price of a sweater that's
worth it" for the cost for reasons that are pretty well documented (tldr harder to get material, how the fiber is spun, how thick the knit is, among other things). As others have noted you start to pay for additional details rather than what's good but not great or interesting.
Maybe a better example is jeans: there are sub-$100 jeans that are perfectly fine, jeans above $100 that will be better, and then eventually far more expensive ones up to the thousands of dollars where it's not gonna be "worth it" proportionally for quality but for other factors, be it finer details or just status
(in the pen world i would point to pens like the Sailor King of Pen that's "worth" a few hundred less than it costs, but people pay for because of how much they like it anyway. Bit of a tangent tho sorry)
Idk if that held together coherently sorry if it didn’t lol