Comment by elliekelly | Hacker News Reader

Comment by elliekelly | Hacker News Reader

In high school during the summers I worked as a seamstress making vastly overpriced custom curtains for an interior designer. I learned a quick & dirty method of judging the quality of just about anything made of fabric: look at the fabric grain relative to the primary vertical seams (pant legs, jacket sleeve, shirt torso).

The angle at which a piece of fabric is cut can drastically change the shape/fit of the item but "cheap" items are often made quickly and not much care is given to lining up the pattern correctly before cutting. If you've ever had a t-shirt that always seems to twist on you, it's because of the way the fabric was cut. On the other hand, if someone has taken the time to line up the pattern with the selvage, you can just about guarantee they haven't cut any major corners with the rest of the piece.

The fabric "grain" should be parallel to the seam. Take a look at Primark seams and then take a look at Brooks Brothers seams and you'll immediately see the difference/know what to look for. Expensive jeans seem to be the biggest offender in my experience.

It’s really apparent on a striped dress shirt. A quality maker will do pattern matching (lining up stripes at the seams) and another good cheat is a split yoke[1] with the same pattern matching.

[1] https://theimagecrunch.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/split-shi...

Do you have any images that do a side-by-side comparison? Or do you have to just go see for yourself?

I haven't had much luck finding a side-by-side comparison but I hope this[1] image helps me explain it better. You can see the fabric's grainline where the thread is pulled loose. If you imagine the loose thread is a seam you can (sort of) see the other threads of the fabric run either parallel or perpendicular to it.

Now instead imagine the seam is at the raw edge at the top of the photo. Do you see how the pulled thread of the grainline isn't parallel and will eventually intersect with the line of the (imaginary) seam?

[1] https://sewguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/grainline-of...

Edit: The inset of this[2] image might help as well. See how the lines marked "warp threads" run parallel to the selvage and the "weft threads" run into the seam at a 90 degree angle? The threads should intersect the primary vertical seam of a garment the same way.

[2] https://www.thecuttingclass.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/5...

>Take a look at Primark seams and then take a look at Brooks Brothers seams

I'm not familiar with either. Which store is supposed to have the better seams?

Search results revealed that Primark is a fast fashion retailer, so probably selling the low end junk.

Primark is infamous in the UK for selling very cheap products; T-shirts that cannot survive multiple washes.

Brooks Brothers sell quality shirts.

Primark is a very cheap store - t-shirts for £2, trousers for £8 etc. It is fast fashion so stuff changes rapidly and frequently. If there is something on the catwalk at a fashion show that causes a lot of interest or someone famous wears something particularly noteworthy in a magazine photo, Primark will have something very similar to it in their stores within a week or two. Primark is hugely popular in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Tourists at the central London stores (which are HUGE by the way - the size of a typical department store of years past) literally flock there.

The shopping experience is often chaotic (clothes strewn all over the place) and quality is generally not thought to be great - stuff might last only a few washes ... but it varies - I have a generic blue hoodie from Primark that cost less than £10 but it has lasted literally years and has some high quality features like the ends of the draw strings are finished in metal (not plastic and not just tied) so have not frayed or come apart. I don't think their quality is any worse than other high street retailers though - often they charge 3x 4x or more prices for equivalent quality.

I will certainly be using this guide in the future to pick the finest Primark has to offer!

Same experience here, Primark clothes are always dirt cheap but the quality varies wildly. As I can't tell the difference, I have T-shirts from there that have practically self-destructed after one wash, and others that have kept good and comfy for years!

I am wearing their jeans just now. Not the best Jeans I have had, but not the worst either by a long way.

When you source from the cheapest vendors, sometimes you get lucky with a quality manufacturer that just happened to have excess capacity to make some stuff from Primark or whoever else.

The founder of Primark died just a couple of weeks ago. His life was touched by a family tragedy in recent years also

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Ryan

I always wondered about those draw strings (what they are really for?) and at some point decided to just take them out after buying a hooded vest. Given that I only rarely even put up the hood over my head, when would I ever pull the draw strings tighter? (except when doing a Kenny from Southpark impression)

Very rarely I leave them in (when they have a contrasting colour that looks nice in combination), but usually it's just two bits of wire that are dangling in the way a lot of the time :)

What I heard is that the cuts are laid out like a puzzle on the fabric. So some lucky t-shirts get the straight, "correct" angles vs fabric grain, while others will be wrong.

You can’t really “luck” into a long straight cut of fabric that’s well aligned much the same way a carpenter doesn’t “luck” into straight cuts. And then consider that wood is stiff while a slight movement of fabric could still result in a poor cut even when you’ve carefully measured and laid out the pattern correctly.

I assumed machines do the cutting according to CAD files or equivalent - whatever movements are there I must believe is designed and deliberate.

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