I just read a very good article on the Etsy blog called The History of a Cheap Dress about the ever-increasing consumption of cheaply made, low-cost clothing. It raised a lot of really great questions to think about-- and I had a few thoughts of my own.
I'm 22 years old, and I have a very poor-quality wardrobe. At a young age, I took the offensive and made simple clothes chic, because I couldn't afford to dress in anything else. My hand-me-downs were not cute, and a lot of my shoes had been worn for years before I did. I still have this hard-to-shake mentality of only owning 1 or 2 pairs of jeans, and a rotation of 5 pairs of shoes, TOPS (and that's including my winter boots). Again, I took this and convinced myself that it's because I can hold my own- that I didn't need clothes to make me who I am. This is absolutely true, but for years now, it's been bothering me that the clothes I buy don't last past three washes.
While I was living at my mother's house after a particularly bad breakup, I got a new job and didn't spend any money for a while. Those paychecks stacked, and months later, I had a very respectable amount of money. I took it, and I went into a very fancy, downtown store and bought a pair of $250 jeans and a $400 jacket.
Flash forward 8 months, and those jeans were literally in shreds. The stylish chaffing in the knees turned into full-blown holes. My faith in expensive jeans evaporated. The jacket, on the other hand, is still in one piece, though, if I had to do it over, I would have bought a few jackets instead of one very expensive one. I don't think jackets wear out the way that jeans do.
Anyway-- the reason I say this is because there's no balance between the two. It's either super cheap, or super expensive-- AND there's no insurance of great quality just because you're spending a lot of money on something. Quite frankly, I don't have the income to support much experimentation.
To sum up the thought-
In this horrible economy and so many people struggling to find work, most of us (including myself) don't have the luxury of spending hundreds of dollars on "well-made" clothing.
I know, I know, there's vintage... But I like modern stuff that fits modern bodies, and unfortunately, when it's between Forever 21 at $15 or Bodin for $300, it will mostly be Forever 21.
I would really love to start building up a more adult wardrobe with "investment" pieces, but when it comes to actually throwing down the cash, all I can think about is how that money could have gone toward my student debt or car repairs or hell- a SAVINGS ACCOUNT.
How do you guys deal with that kind of disparity? And what are your thoughts about this whole thing?
