I do wonder if this is an inherent "craving" or just tied to the reality that Americans cannot really afford things anymore
The middle class being eaten means that most people have much less discretionary spending, so every single purchase must be a bargain
They are never actually equivalent goods though
They are cheaper goods
Yes, there is "cheap" clothing. No, the more expensive clothing isn't necessarily better. A bog standard t-shirt is a bog standard t-shirt. With a minimum of quality control, and anything on top of that is not adding to the utility of it.
The machining revolution really hurts a lot of the idea that labor in is indicative of quality.
"Cotton fiber quality is shaped by a mix of genetics, growing conditions, and field management techniques. High-grade cotton relies on precise measurements of fiber length, strength, and micronaire, along with maintaining proper color and cleanliness throughout its growth. These elements play a key role in determining processing efficiency and market value across the supply chain."
At the most basic, if one farmer harvests his cotton with no consideration of the above issues, whereas another farmer carefully studies, prepares, tests, etc based on the above considerations, wouldn't there be added value and added cost of production?
I personally believe that in a past era, farmers intuitively learned these factors and competed with each other to make their best harvests, and the bog standard t-shirt got a quality buff as a fringe benefit.
Whereas nowadays, the farmer has to drop quality for quantity to compete with digitally-connected markets.
https://cottongins.org/blog/ultimate-guide-to-cotton-fiber-q...
And, indeed, if you look into high quality cotton supply, you find there are relatively few names.
Unfortunately the inverse is not true at all
Higher cost on a good is not at all a reliable indicator of whether or not the good is high quality
There is a pretty big incentive for producers and sellers to produce low quality goods and convince consumers they are high quality, so they can sell them for a high margin
This is unfortunately very common in clothing
I can say that if you wash cottons with synthetics, that will shorten the life of the cottons. If you use any "stretch" or "no iron" clothing, you almost certainly have a synthetic mix. It isn't that they are lower quality. Nor are they designed to not last as long. They are designed for that stretch and to look flat as their main goal.
The primary reason for the tendency of clothing to wear out faster is the textile manufacturing processes allow for the production of thinner fabrics at a cheaper cost per yard. As anyone who sews or knits can tell you, thinner fabric wears out faster. It allows companies like Zara, H&M, Walmart, Rack, et al to sell their product at marginal cost increase for higher YoY profits with a faster replacement cycle.
Furthermore, it's a plainly stated business strategy of fast fashion that fungibility and the production of disposable consumables is core to their business. As that type of fashion cannibalized market share from more traditional brands that banked on quality more than affordability in the 90s, those same brands responded by creating separate imprints ( Off Fifth, Rack, et al ) or just wholesale adoption of the approach ( e.g. H&M ).
Fast forward to 2025 and we're having a conversation about whether or not the quality delta in clothing is real or a Mandela Effect. The reality is unfortunately the more banal "number go up by any means necessary" explanation.
https://slate.com/business/2024/12/white-t-shirt-quality-dec... https://www.thecooldown.com/green-business/sustainable-cloth...
And clothing has always been a consumable. Always.
A lot of dumb "just so" tales in economics are willful miscategorization of desperation as choice.
This is a great way of describing it, I like it
Incidentally, I'm starting a new business model to capture this market opportunity, I call it "DAAS", desperation as a service
It's where people pay me their excess money and get nothing in return, increasing their desperation
Wait, isn't that called 'campaign finance'?
The problem with competing with entrenched market interests is they can use their economic advantages to make the market impossible for newcomers to enter leading to de facto monopolies.