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I usually pay about $3 for a blank t-shirt. I have a few that are over ten years old, and they're still fine.
I have no interest in being a walking billboard for any brand. They should pay me to wear such clothes.
I need to flex to others that I am their social superior.
Kirkland
Livin' that Kirkland life.
To the people saying it sends the signal “I can afford to buy name brand clothes” in my expeirence of this it more often signals try hards who can’t actually afford the brand but do it to give the impression that they can.
I hear you. Branding the products people buy is the reason we see thousands of advertisements/promotions on an average walk. It's subtle but my phone has a big H on it fo its camera lens manufacturer, Hasselblad.
I'm not the target demographic for your question, but I decided to voice my opinion anyway. Perhaps to feel self-important; perhaps to help others make informed choices and validate their decisions to walk away from the companies that harm society and, in some cases, destroy villages of lives.
Monologue - tl;dr
What is supposed to happen is this: Products are branded so people can know where to go to get a similar product. Word of mouth leads to a store, a logo fed to you a thousand times with the name leads to global recognition and persistent memory. To entice more customers and more money, the seller ensures high quality manufacture that appeases the customer, whether it be weatherproofing, non-scratchy material or durable seams.
Now that these clothing brands have become large companies, some publicly traded, the focus shifts. Mass manufacture leads to much quicker manufacture, if a given line assembles a given piece, such as a pocket or buttons, therefore less money can be paid in labour per item. Rephrased; more items can be made in a set time period.
Two other caveats happen to jeopardise what was supposed to be a way to know the good from the bad: the corporate groups that own the brands also learned that some materials, cheaper to source either by being easier, or by hiring in locations with the lowest available legally mandated wages, also provide a kind-of suitable similar form and function to the expensive, original materials. This is because the capitalist economy drives people insane and everyone in business management positions are groomed to consistently minmaxx their I/O. MORE money gained; LESS spent.
The second downside to this trend is that, undeniably, the overwhelming majority of consumers are more than content to continue spending their dwindling expendable money on recognisable brands regardless of quality. This behaviour -- preferring the short-life, 75% viscose, plastic and synthetic clothing at £10 a shirt over organic materials at £30+ a shirt (depending on your regional economy, prices differ) -- enables these megaconglomerates that control the corporations to exploit the workers through labour conditions while exploiting the end users through paying for the brand whose quality no longer exists.
Doc Marten, a few years back, ended their 'lifetime guarantee' range of boots. Around the same time they weakened the manufacture process, resulting in rapidly deteriorating (sometimes one month to one week) products, including the glue on the soles, the seamlines, the finish on the boots being made of a thin material that gets damaged by heat from the sun and humidity in a 60%RH climate. But at least they don't charge more money for these, what I would call experimental failures or bootlegs, except they passed QC, are original, and are mass-marketed now.
Advice: When shopping for products new or uncommon to me, I always spend at least a couple hours on the internet looking for local and national sources, researching average prices; popularity markers like reviews and ratings (though it can be skewed/falsified); and evaluating price differences in materials and feature inclusion; which companies damage or take advantage of the least lives (ethics); and finally which offers the best for the least, because while I also have to minmaxx the money my life is forced to revolve around, I refuse to sacrifice product quality, nor sacrifice the people involved in its production, and the former usually indicates the latter.
(Well, this is going in my 'Monologues' notebook.)
To conclude, I do not implicitly trust well-known brands, or the generally most popular brands, because they charge for the brand itself, but often provide lower quality. Nor do I trust the no-brands, or the Chinese clone companies on Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Alibaba/AliExpress, and definitely not Temu, Shein and TikTok, because they almost certainly do always exploit labour and use the absolute worst materials that can be used for the product - the differences being they only look for a much lower profit margin than the conglomerate brands; and instead of avoiding state taxes by donating comparatively less to charities (that they sometimes own), the no-brands avoid state taxes by dodging below the usually recommended regulatory requirements. For example, on customs labels for imported tobacco, it can be listed as "assorted vegetables"; for electrical gadgets containing batteries, "cables/small toys". I avoid ≤£2 and ≥£200, I instead stay between £10 and £100 for clothing.
I trust based on source reputation, the experiences of a handful of other people (preferably verified reviews), and finally my own experience, if I purchased in the past. I recommend others do the same instead of blindly trusting mainstream brands.. Or no-names.
But sometimes this isn't possible. For some folk their only source for a much-needed product is very expensive, corporate, and/or has to be bespoke, such as bras, packers, certain accessible shapes of clothing, or eyewear for anisometropia or astigmatism. These narrow choices down to the rare few that provide.
to be better than other people who can't afford it.
Especially for athletic gear, the ones with huge branding is cheaper when considering quality you get and how long it will last.
But I've dropped $50+ each on plain tshirts multiple times too. I've got some that are probably a decade old and some that are less than six months old but no idea which are which because that's how well they hold up.
I've also got a bunch of cheap ones for stuff like yardwork.
But for people that buy heavily branded sports clothing for it's intended purpose, the heavy branding actually makes it cheaper than competitors and everyone is aware of it.
The thing is those people tend to be in good shape and will wear that stuff out and about in town. And anything attractive people wear, is what everyone will start buying.
Like, yoga pants started being worn as regular pants by women who actually did yoga. They tended to have nice buts from yoga, so then other women just started wearing them expecting the same thing.
Or like how Carhartt made an entire new line of clothes that is nowhere near as rugged yet more expensive, just because people want the "rough" look.
It's just people who are emulating others without understanding what they're emulating, that's why teenagers and 20 somethings are always the hardest hit by this stuff.
Fifty dollars for a tshirt, that’s just some ignorant bitch sheeeeeiiit. 🎶
Those brands that have lasted for you would make a good post on Buy It For Life.
American Giant, but it's not like it's a secret.
Back on reddit there's almost definitely still a monthly post about their hoodies. I'm almost positive the original /buyitforlife is where I heard about them.
All their shit is expensive, even on their many sales. But its a ridiculous high quality, the only issue I've ever had was a zipper breaking on a 2-3 year old hoodie. They had me take a pic then sent me a new one.
Wasn't even their fault, they use YKK zippers like everyone else.
The hoodies are 100% worth it. Most people though don't want a solid color T-shirt that can last a decade, even when it's cheaper in the long run.
But their hoodies are something a lot more people would be into. Back in the day it's all they made, now they have all types of stuff.
I'm European, so I haven't tried their hoodies or quality, but from what I can tell, their hoodies are about 450GSM. The European brand Velour Garments has hoodies that range from 400 to 1000 GSM. I have two 600 (waiting for my 1000 to come in the mail any day), and considering the thickness, I believe Velour Garments' will hold for longer. And they're 100% cotton.
Not to get way too in the weeds, but GSM isnt really the best metric for quality (or warmth). I'm just a noob in all of this, but the starting staple length of the fibers, the processing (combing vs just carding), spinning (open ended vs ring spun), fiber diameter, ply, and twist, and knitting technique come into play. Then for some fabrics, you have treatments added after the fact, so you could have a 300 GSM fabric with 75 GSM of wax on top. You could even have multiple layers of fabric in the final garment.
I'd mostly just try to look at the GSM to compare between offerings by the same brand.
Maybe they're better.
But I checked my email, my first hoodie from them was 2013. I still got it, still unfaded jet black, stitching still great, cuffs still elastic.
Shows no sign of age and even tho I have more, it's still in rotation.
It'll easily make it to 15 years probably 20.
But yeah, if you're not American the fact that it's made by Americans from American cotton by a company that treats it's workers well isn't a big point.
There's not many companies like that for Americans to support tho, which is why it's one of the few products I'll bother to name or even being up on social media.
It's literally exactly what American consumers keep saying we want, it's just to make what we want is expensive.
There's not many companies like that for Americans to support tho, which is why it's one of the few products I'll bother to name or even being up on social media.
If you want some more companies like that, check my most recent post about the Crafted With Pride catalog.
After spending some time with it, I've come to the conclusion that there's actually a lot of high quality manufacturers that have garbage websites and probably abysmal SEO. It shouldn't matter, but it does. To be fair, I've mostly been looking at sites for suppliers, not necessarily the end products, though.
Between this and your other comment, I think you'll really like these channels:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheIronSnail
https://www.youtube.com/@RoseAnvil
The second one is mostly shoes/boots but they've got a good Dickies vs Carhartt video from the last couple days:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxqlHJFwS8E
But, none of those videos are "fashion", they actually break down not only which products are high quality or just good value, but also if a company is PE or if they're ethical.
The first one does a lot of history videos as well. Like, just randomly going off about 80+ year old cold weather jackets and the mechanics of how they were effective with low tech.
It's kind of weird that clothing is such a basic thing that we use constantly and most people (including myself) just really don't even know what makes something good.
They actually pay their workers? That's awesome!!
I've had my hoodies for 2 years, still looks brand new after weekly usage (cold wash only!), but now I really want to try to get a hoodie from American Giant!
https://www.ssactivewear.com/ps/tops-t_shirts-shortsleeve
It's not super easy to find, but there are stores that sell just plain clothes before they're sent to print shops.
But otherwise, it's kinda hard to find quality clothes with no branding on it. It's not like you go to a store and there's one plain shirt and then the same thing but with a big logo on it.
Some people see it as a status symbol. "I can afford to spend this much extra on clothes" is the message they want to send. In their mind, everyone wants designer clothes, but only some people can afford them.
It's also a signal to others. They want to associate themselves only with people who can afford the same things because that means they have a similar lifestyle and don't have to worry about members of the lower classes trying to leach off them.
You actually pay less for bigger logos.
I’m assuming when you say “sports equipment” you mean for players, rather than fans, but if I’m wrong about that you can safely ignore me.
I like being a big billboard for my favorite sports teams because other fans stop me and talk to me about my team, the league, and the sport. It’s like socializing on easy mode. I was wearing a Sounders jersey in Vienna and a group of guys stopped me to ask how Andreas Ivanschitz was doing for us, and it was the most genuine interaction I had with an Austrian on my whole trip.
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2026
37 points (93.0% liked)
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