How do you count socks? Because I need to buy like five pairs a year just to stay in socks.
A big question mark here is the type of activities you do. I have 8 pairs of yoga pants because for many years I did hot yoga nearly every day, and those clothes have to be washed after each use. But those pants are now 6+ years old and at conservatively 25 wearings/year I'm up to at least 150 wearings per pair of pants.
But I can never wear those pants to work. So I also have 5 pairs of work pants (some of which can double as casual weekend wear) AND 3 pairs of hiking pants (two all-season, one winter).
Similarly, I have dresses I've been wearing at least once every two weeks for the last 10 years (!). I am not a particularly stylish person and I tend to buy classic-ish clothing, so it doesn't look dramatically out of style (I don't think). But once you split wardrobe into winter and summer, I have at least 15 dresses per season.
1: The greatest thing about working from home is that while I still dress in my office clothes every day (because I personally like to have a separation between relaxing clothes and work clothes, and also because I'm often on Zooms with higher-ups), I wear my Darn Tough socks all the time. They are THE BEST. So comfortable (in all seasons)! So long-wearing! And US-made.
I have too many hiking pants. One softshell, one Swedish, three others in various weights.
3: I don't usually wear the Darn Tough around the house because I have softer ones.
5: When I wear softer ones my toes poke through in no time. It's very expensive, hence the Darn Toughs.
I'm willing to pay for my feet to be coddled when I'm sitting at home.
A closely related question is how many tents/tarps you should own. I think 7 is a good answer.
I don't usually wear the Darn Tough around the house because I have softer ones.
Darn Softs?
I'm just now realizing the pun inherent in the sock brand name. Those scamps.
It really is a very tough fabric, which isn't a problem for feet, but the part on my ankle always seems to rub too hard for me to want to relax in them.
This year I did not buy an alpaca-wool hoodie. But really, it's just a question of when.
I love that they included one statistic (40 garments per person in Paris in the 60s) and wish they'd followed up with what people currently do own instead of what they should own. Sort of like how for my parent's generation it was normal to bathe once a week, I like thinking about how things have or have not changed. We're all so bougie now - what does that mean for wardrobes? [For values of "we" that may exclude a lot of immigrant communities whose norms I know nothing about].
The climate arguments are...not very strong or well thought out, but kudos to Vogue for publishing something implying that their readers should not buy new or fashionable clothes.
for my parent's generation it was normal to bathe once a week
They didn't have the internet or even TV, so they could waste time on that stuff.
The climate arguments are...not very strong or well thought out, but kudos to Vogue for publishing something implying that their readers should not buy new or fashionable clothes.
Well, the phrase "second-hand clothing" quoted in the post is hyperlinked in Vogue to this other Vogue piece.
The wears/garment thing seems difficult for me to estimate. Mostly, I wear the same sweaters* and shorts all winter, so those get hundreds of wears. But I have other things that get worn once or twice before I forget I have them and then throw them away years later.
* One really warm sweater for in the morning or late at night, one standard sweater of wool, and one lighter sweater of cotton for when I get hot because I drank too much coffee.
Here's the actual think tank report they're working from, for folks to pick over.
Although it looks professional, it doesn't seem to explain why it only analyzes the relative impacts of five different "consumption-oriented solutions" - e.g., precisely how to nag people, as opposed to policy tools.
That doesn't count my outside the house sweaters.
Which are mostly fleeces, except I stopped buying fleece because of microfiber in the waste water from washing. Which is why I am in the market for an alpaca hoodie. But for a few years, I think I can get away with just wearing the fleeces and not washing them.
It does mention some non-consumption-based tools in section 5, which include regulation, though as many of the tools are feel-goods like "Collaborate with clothing producers to include credible social justice and sustainability messages on clothing." And then there's a big inset in that same section "Reducing purchases of new clothes is the most effective action to reduce the carbon footprint of fashion consumption," even though they only made that finding comparing to other consumption-based actions.
I own:
Around 25 pairs of identical gray cotton socks.
Around 25 pairs of boxer-briefs.
Around 25 pairs of hand-knit wool socks.
Around 6 pairs of jeans.
Around 25 t-shirts with various designs, often animal-related. Two or three have the longer baseball-style sleeves.
Slightly too many hoodies of various heaviness. (I think 8?)
One Johnston's of Elgin cashmere zip-up sweater (on discount at the factory store)
Two pairs of summer shorts.
One pair of khakis
One summery button-down shirt
Threeish dress button-down shirts
I think a blazer of some sort?
One hand-knit sweater.
Two ties, one with constellations and one with Winnie-the-Pooh characters.
One knit hat, one pair of knit mittens.
A rain-jacket, a puffer jacket.
Two pairs of swimtrunks.
Two pairs of flannel pajama bottoms. Can't remember if I still have a flannel pajama top.
Four pairs of shoes: Allbirds wool mizzles, Allbirds wool regular, Merrell's winter mocs, and Keen's sandals.
To combine 19 and 20, my understanding is the the public policy solution there is to require washing-machine manufacturers to add a better filter, which is allegedly a cheap thing for them to do and would dramatically reduce the amount of microfiber that is released into the wastewater. But of course instead we have individuals being hectored to feel bad because we buy clothing with microfibers in them. Grrrr.
I'm debating whether the return of overalls means I should get a pair of overalls, or if I just think they look cute on women.
22 reminds me of when I cleaned our filter on the washing machine. I found a toonie and the worst smell I'd had since an unfortunate incident with a refrigerator in college.
21 seems alarmingly short of outerwear.
I have a regular raincoat, a hiking raincoat, a wool raincoat (very innovative, but not alpaca wool), and three rain ponchos.
26: Hoodies, puffer jacket. What else do you need?
Having multiple raincoats is pointless, you have to keep one in your bag at all times, and just use that one when it rains. It's literally impossible to remember to check if it's going to rain.
Two of my rain ponchos are also tents.
The thing with coats is, you need different weights. I have two puffers because when it gets below 20, my usual one isn't warm enough. Even with a fleece under it. And for raincoats, you need one with pit zippers for hiking and one without for not looking ridiculous.
I really hope Utpegi is at work and produced 21 from memory.
I should get a second lighter puffer jacket, just haven't gotten around to it. There is an awkward range in the 40s where it's a little cold for my hoodies and a little warm for the puffer. Though the cashmere sweater with a hat does fine in that range too. Oh and I forgot one very key piece of clothing! Voormi ultralight river run hoodie. It's an outer layer in warmer times and a middle layer in colder times.
32: Yes, if by work you mean a coffee shop where I'm working.
I've looked at those, but I'm disappointed by the lacka alpaca.
I wonder if my tuxedo still fits? My suits are from the last century but I still wear them.
Not if you're willing to pay through the nose. But since both my mom and I are sentimental about such things, it was easy.
You're sentimental about paying a lot?
16: You wear shorts all winter?? I live in LA and even I stopped wearing shorts in like October.
I have way too many clothes. I did a drastic and painful cull about six months ago and now my closets look reasonably tidy, instead of burstingly overstuffed.
A distressingly high percentage of my clothes are things that I never wear, but which have accrued sentimental value over the years and are now impossible for me to throw away, including a lot of hand-crocheted items from my mother, or dresses from twenty years ago that remind me of the person I was back then. (I guess I take out my prom dress occasionally, and I wore my 2002 Team Korea World Cup t-shirt last fall. But even in these instances the garments function as novelties more than clothing.)
Because it's so much emotional work to throw things away, I resolved some years ago to stop buying things in the first place. This has mostly not worked, because I love clothes, but in the past year I probably did limit myself to around fiveish items. (This number excludes home-sewn clothes, which surely don't count because sewing is a hobby that takes the place of other wasteful and environmentally-destructive hobbies I could be doing instead, like stunt flying and collecting beanie babies.)
I wonder how many garments I own? If we aren't including underwear, I'm definitely under the 70-ish from the OP. I typed out an Upetgi style list and then deleted it.
I like clothes, but because it's a bit of a struggle to find really nice clothes in my size,* I tend to consolidate on finding a few things that I like from shops like Uniqlo and then having quite a few of them. But I don't own that much stuff, because we don't have a lot of storage space, and I never have time to shop.
I've spent the last two weeks just trying to find: a pair of jeans that fits, and a puffer jacket that fits and is a bit less scruffy than the ancient one I wear at the moment. This was multiple online shopping orders and several store visits, and I just don't have the time.
* I expect this would be easier in the US. I'm not even that hugely fat but most high-street brands here seem to top out about 1 size smaller than I usually want for trousers unless you order online.
In terms of storage for clothes I have:
1. About a quarter of a wardrobe for hanging clothes (jackets, jeans, etc) (maybe 8 inches of rail space)
2. 2 x shelves in the other half of the wardrobe for everything else (t-shirts, sportswear, etc) (maybe each shelf is about 3 feet wide)
3. a couple of hooks on a rail for outdoor coats, etc.
That's about it. I could pretty easily fit every piece of clothing I own in a holdall or duffel bag that I could check on a plane.
but which have accrued sentimental value over the years and are now impossible for me to throw away, including a lot of hand-crocheted items from my mother, or dresses from twenty years ago that remind me of the person I was back then.
Just keep your mother away from these items, please.
I definitely buy more than 5 things a year, though, as I wear shit out. Every year or so, bin about half a dozen identical black Uniqlo t-shirts that have gone grey and stretched out, buy half a dozen more. Repeat for underwear, socks, etc.
41.1: In the house, yes. Because other people in the house were experiencing cold stress, the house is now heated to 68.
My house is currently 68, and I'm wearing leggings under sweatpants and a hoodie.
It's about 69F in here, which is fine. Slightly cool for just a short sleeved t-shirt, but comfortable with a long-sleeved t-shirt or a light cardigan/hoodie. I don't really feel the cold that much, though, I wear shorts outdoors until late autumn, with no problems.
kudos to Vogue for publishing something implying that their readers should not buy new or fashionable clothes.
Conspicuously reduced consumption has been highly fashionable for years now! Once manufacturers build "conscious consumption" signaling into the marketing and packaging, they can charge more per item and consumers still will lose the battle to stop buying more crap, as they always (in aggregate) do.
Bragging about how few clothes I own, how infrequently I shop, and how threadbare my wardrobe is seems like the single most shameful thing I could do with the next five minutes. Just bloodcurdlingly bad. Hey, does anyone need any secondhand white ice skates? Or black roller blades?
Moby is preparing to run for the US Senate! Maybe just needs to grow a few inches taller.
49: Would it help if I sent you some clothes?
I can stuff some of the clothes into the other clothes and create a rollerblading golem, I guess?
Only if it will help you feel more comfortable bragging.
If I could train it to rollerblade around singing that Macklemore "Thrift Store" song....... okay, no, I wouldn't brag about that either. It's hopeless!
Hypothetically, though, which of your cast-off t-shirts would furnish the best face for a shambling clothes monster? I don't think I have a single garment with anything resembling a face on it. I kind of hope I'm not misremembering here.
44. Early in the pandemic my mom made me a crocheted lace vest. It's absolutely exquisite, and absolutely not the sort of thing I would ever wear or ever have an occasion for wearing. My face must have betrayed my distress, because she immediately said, oh, just wear it once or twice and then throw it away! It's like she's internalized the ethos of fast fashion to the point where she applies it to the most precious of heirlooms. (She also systematically devalues her own time and skill, but that bums me out too much to think about.) Anyway, she's a maniac.
If garments means overclothes, I think five would be the upper end of the range for me. Especially if shoes aren't included, but I probably by one pair of those every three years or so so not a huge difference.
Last year I bought three t-shirts and a pair of trousers, I think. I do need a new sweater though, and a winter hat.
56: I definitely have a shirt with Whitney Houston's face on it, but I hesitate to condemn Whitney to shambling clothes monster status. Unless it wants to dance with somebody, I suppose.
I feel like the right teenager channeling 90s vibes could wear a crocheted vest over a sleeveless ditsy-floral slip dress with some docs and a choker, and look cute as a button.
> Around 25 pairs of identical gray cotton socks.
This is brilliant. I have black socks and I have white socks, but I could just have gray socks.
A big question mark here is the type of activities you do.
Definitely. When we moved house I realised how much space my various uniforms took up - they'd been sort of scattered around before, but get them all in one place and it's a lot.
I think 30 wears is a very low estimate for lifespan. That's like, if you buy a pair of jeans and wear them every day, they're dead in a month. If you wear a clean shirt to work every day, and you have five shirts, then you need to buy a new shirt almost every month. Doesn't sound right. I wear jeans pretty much every day, and, though I have several pairs, I think I would notice if they were dying after 30 wears.
The article is sort of chaotically written, but I think the big point here is buy clothes that last - they hint at it but don't make it clear.
It really isn't about the number of garments you own, but about the burn rate of garments per day. Your wardrobe is ANALOGY WARNING the petrol tank of your car. Every day you consume some of its contents by wearing them - and thus wearing them out a bit. The key to cutting emissions from your car is not "have a smaller tank", it's "burn less fuel per day" - which you can do either by increasing your fuel efficiency (in this analogy having clothes that last longer, and/or doing things like washing them at cooler temperatures to make them last), or by using your car less (in this analogy, I suppose, habitually wearing fewer clothes?)
Basically they miss the chance to make a robust argument in favour of skimpy clothing and/or nudity.
Working from home helps. I definitely take advantage of home days to get more use out of my tattier/more faded clothes.
I assume that you still dress appropriately for the purposes of Unfogged commenting.
I am keen to learn what type of clothing is considered appropriate for Unfogged commentary.
Same as it was in the year 2000:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9eAiy0IGBI
Comfortable socks are the key. Durable socks are for walking.
re: 66
I guess a lot of fairly traditional approaches to clothing manufacture: tweed, high quality denim, wool, good quality cotton, etc were all about building clothing that lasts. But that's perfectly compatible with good quality synthetic garments--which are probably what you want for sports and some outdoor activities--being made to last.
That's Nigel Cabourn's thing (among many other designers). His stuff looks great, but I'm too fat and too impoverished to spend £250 on a pair of trousers.
re: 65
Yeah, that fits with my experience.
That said, I'd be surprised if I get more than 40 washes for some garments. Plain black cotton t-shirt, I probably get a year or eighteen months out of one. I have quite a few of them, so each one might only get washed about once every week or so, so probably they get about 40 or 50 washes and then they go into the "working from home" pile as they are too grey and/or stretched out to look acceptable for work or social stuff. I don't have any really expensive/high-quality* t-shirts to compare, though, to see if they last more washes without looking tired.
* I'm not equating the two. You get expensive but cheaply made tat, and you get high quality stuff, but, generally, high quality stuff isn't going to be £8-12 quid for a t-shirt.
re: 74
Yeah, the prices are ridiculous for some things.
Is clothes lifespan more affected by "time worn" or "number of washes"? (With cars it's mileage, but with aircraft it's cycles, because landing and takeoff are what really put strain on the airframe). If it's number of washes, then you could cut your carbon budget a lot by wearing your clothes more before washing them. (isn't yesterday's shirt clean enough to wear today, really?)
Also washing less often. People don't sweat much in cool weather, shirt worn with undergarment is OK for a bunch of wearings. The whole problem is letting clothes carry feelings, who cares what you wear as long as it's not actually alarming is a fine mindset.
buy the best quality that you can afford but buy it used - those garments already exist as a sunk cost on the planet. take care of them and make 'em last as long as possible. v heartening that so many here wear their clothes right out.
underclothes and swimwear of course are the exception to the only-used rule and there just buy the best on sale - i'm always following empreinte and prima donna around the internet sales. except for this summer when i went to the empreinte shop in paris and had some fun but that was on vacation and that bikini is going to last for years as i don't wear it to swim in the bay except for during august and september which is actually a bit silly as my tyr one pieces aren't actually keeping me any warmer than a bikini i'm still completely immersed in the bay ...
for work - day dresses, wool skirts & slacks, silk shirts & cardigans for office & work from home; more polished day dresses and jackets for client, counterparty and regulator meetings; suits for hearings and court appearances; cocktail dresses for evening events. have switched footwear strategy as working from home my feet assumed a less constrained shape and on re-encountering heeled pumps the fleeting nature of life asserted itself so i'm collecting var iterations of the only pump i'm still willing to tolerate (classic square toed r vivier mid heel), but exclusively via resale so it's taking some time. i let a fuchsia patent pair slip through the net months ago and i'm still kicking myself. snagged a snakeskin (effect?) pair in pale neutrals that is super versatile, and lovely violet patent, super useful olive patent and boring but v useful black. not sure i can justify an excellent pale blue patent i've got my eye on in light of the violet although they are quite different shades, waiting to see if the price declines further (although dithering like this lost me the fuchsia pair ... ).
v occasionally i'll buy a new d v furstenberg dress on deep discount sale, as i know from prior experience that i'll wear them for years and years and years until they fall apart and are no longer mendable. if you buy well from them those garments wear like iron and travel like a dream. also i've had a small number of pieces sewn for me (dress suit and skirt, blouse to go with). that's more like coming out of the art budget tho as the woman who does the work is essentially a genius and the work is near-couture quality. i'll keep on supporting her until she definitively retires.
Anything I wear is either already alarming or becomes alarming as soon as I don it.
for work - day dresses, wool skirts & slacks, silk shirts & cardigans for office & work from home; more polished day dresses and jackets for client, counterparty and regulator meetings; suits for hearings and court appearances; cocktail dresses for evening events
I am getting so much of this wrong.
When I leave the house, I still mostly wear khaki trousers and long sleeve button shirts. Because men's fashion hasn't changed since the 90s. Also, it turns out that cotton Oxford shirts last decades if you don't eat soup while wearing them.
All least the blue ones. White starts to look dingy at the collar much sooner.
I've mostly settled into stretchy cotton jersey dresses in dark colors with hemlines a little below the knee as the only thing I wear to work. It's surprisingly tricky to find tolerable ones -- I want a heavy fabric and no fussy details (no wrap dresses, no shirring/ruching, no belts, no ornamentation), but I usually manage to find replacements before my last set gets too shabby. Shoes are boots in the winter, flat sandals in the summer. Since I moved into management, I hardly go to court, but when I do I drag out my old pantsuits.
On days I don't work, it's jeans and T-shirts, or sweaters and jeans, and sweatpants if I'm not doing anything at all.
I just settled all my lawsuits, so many I should celebrate with more wool trousers that I don't have any place to wear.
How does the word "dry" not appear in that article? I know Europe is completely different on this, but surely in the US the carbon cost is at least as much about running the dryer as it is about the manufacture of the clothes?
I don't usually use the dryer for clothing that isn't underwear.
83: It's already hard for me to remember that until the pandemic, I wore khaki trousers to work every day. Jeans days at work were very special occasions. Now I wear jeans whether I'm going into the office or not, and my khakis are somewhere in the back of my closet, utterly forgotten.
90: Travelling even further back into the past, I believe there was a time when I wore dress pants, a buttoned shirt, and tie to work, Monday-Thursday, and it was only on Casual Friday, that I wore khakis and -- what is it called? -- like a t-shirt but with a collar.
I could have made a time-lapse video of my work outfits and called it, "The Decline of Western Civilization".
Yeah. Polo shirt or golf shirt. I started working in 1996 and wore a tie. It wasn't required formally, but every man who didn't wear one was a clerk or maintenance worker.
I still have a couple dozen ties, all of them but one at least a decade old.
91: Really? That seems pretty unusual for a man of your age.
I'm sure my dad never owned jeans. I don't remember this (he died when I was young, and I thought about clothes even less when I was a kid), but in every photo of him I have, he is wearing a suit and tie.
I used to wear nothing but jeans when I was allowed. The Gap came along selling khakis and they were so much more comfortable.
93: Polo shirt! Golf shirt! Why do I wear shirts named after sports I never play?
Because people who sell shirts give shirts names from sports instead of honest names like "Best Buy Sales Person. "
Katie Porter announced this morning? She's already asking me for money.
I thought I was fairly ascetic, but everything's relative. I have over 5 pairs of slacks/trousers I could wear to a business casual office, because only 5 seems like the bare minimum. What if there's a spill or I need to dress up more than usual? Probably almost twice as many shirts as pants, because they have to be washed more often and because a few have short sleeves, because DC heat sucks. I have all this even though I've been to the office less than 5 times since covid - they haven't got much wear, and I might have to go back to the office someday, so I might as well hang on to them.
I have over a dozen t-shirts because people give them to me as gifts and they don't get much wear and tear, especially if I don't wear most of them too often. Probably over a dozen pairs of socks. Mostly black or dark gray socks that can go with anything, but also some ankle socks for jogging or other workouts, some winter socks that are too warm to wear most of the time, and some well-worn socks that don't quite need to be thrown away yet. For some reason people like to give me socks as a gift as well.
Now that I write this out it sounds like hoarder tendencies I'd normally push back against, but it's easy for me to not think about clothes. Sometimes I don't go into my closet for over a week.
I've never go into my closet because it's not that kind of closet.
I feel like I don't have a nice casual wardrobe. I have work wear (dresses, wool/silk stuff, cardigans) and way too much workout gear (cycling/skiing, so it doesn't really work as athleisure), so casual weekend wear is usually a t-shirt from a cycling event plus some of those dumb dresspant yoga pants I bought a decade ago. I tend to keep clothes for a long time. Today: trousers 3 years old, blouse 12, cardigan 1, but thrifted from a friend who likes to buy clothes but always seem to wind up keeping some that are just barely too small for her and later gifting them to me during a closet purge, to the point I should probably tell her my preferred colors. I didn't buy anything new at the start of this school year (due to a well-timed closet purge), so I'm probably good for a bit.
I don't own a lot of clothes because someone lebensraumed all the closets in my house.
I learned a sock-related thing. Put antiperspirant on your feet before you put your socks on. Prevention for athletes foot.
88, 89: okay wait, this is a bigger deal than shopping. I gave up on the idea of routinely hanging lots of clothes up to dry, because it just took too long for full washer loads of 3 people's clothes. What percentage of your clothes do you (all) hang up to dry, and is it part of some process of doing the laundry every few days to keep volumes low? What kind of drying arrangement do you have -- rack, large clothesline, etc.?
I will put almost everything in the dryer that I can, because laundry takes a million years to do anyway, but if you can convince me it's worth air-drying more, I will definitely look into getting an Adderall prescription and training myself to move my goddamn arms and legs faster.
We have a hanging bar above the washer and dryer (which are side by side). That will hold a load of laundry if I loaded the washer or two if my wife loads it. Then we have dying racks if more is needed.
Apparently, I'm slowly breaking the washer by overloading it.
And also, apparently the pillars in parking garages aren't made specifically to suffer minor collisions without damaging the paint of a car.
106
What percentage of your clothes do you (all) hang up to dry, and is it part of some process of doing the laundry every few days to keep volumes low?
As for percentage, probably roughly half and half? All socks and underpants go in the dryer and all the heavy sweatshirts, sweaters, and pants get hung up, so that would skew things if we're measuring by weight rather than discrete items. We do almost all our laundry on the weekends.
What kind of drying arrangement do you have -- rack, large clothesline, etc.?
We have two portable folding drying racks, another one attached to the pantry wall, and a line outside we use in the summer. It's hard to move in the kitchen when both folding racks are in use but not completely impossible.
Like a large percentage of households in Germany, we don't have a dryer, so clothes for five of us have always been hung up to dry. In winter you put jeans and other heavy things on the radiator because otherwise they take a couple of days to dry. We have three drying racks.
I've had a dryer for the last six years or so, but before then (after I moved out of my parents' place anyway) everything got hung up to dry. Usually on a rack, but the first place I lived in in London had a washing line in the "garden".
We literally never use the dryer. Everything gets hung up to dry. The last time I used the dryer was to 'set' the waterproofing on a jacket and that was at least 3 years ago.
We might start using it for towels, now and again, I suppose, but so far, we haven't.
My wife's parents once used their dryer to cook a squirrel. Apparently that wasn't the goal though.
They couldn't get to it until it had spoiled.
I bought a rack and clothespins some years ago, because I felt bad about our gas usage, but my experience re hanging up clothes to dry was like lurid's - it was so exhausting and took forever, and also I hate when my clothes are stiff instead of fluffy (yes, I know they'll last longer, and I do care about that, but apparently not enough). Ultimately M rebelled - he didn't outright refuse to use the drying rack, but he was openly cranky about it, and eventually I gave up too. You all are making me feel a bit guilty though - I didn't know that clothesline drying was so common in the US. Maybe I'll try again (though not right now - the downstairs, where the washer/dryer is and where we put the drying rack, has recently been converted to a reflecting pool).
117 You'd think that drying it would preserve it indefinitely.
I don't recall why it didn't get that dry, but no.
106: Work from home makes it much easier; I was maybe 50% hanging before, but now do almost everything on the line. Of course, my climate is perfect for clothes drying - it rains very infrequently, winter fog can make the line much less effective -- but I'll still line hang for "mostly" dry, then toss it in the dryer for a half-hour to get it pleasantly dry before unpacking onto hangers.
We do have a backyard with a clothes line strung across it, so it's easy to pop the clothes onto the line a full washer load at a time -- I figure that it turns a 5 minute washer to dryer transfer into a 15 minute drag the basket outside and clip things on the line; the transfer dry from line to hanger is about the same as pulling things out of the dryer and sticking them on hangers. In addition to the across the yard line, we also have a little metal X-folding rack with 3 tiers, that are easy to toss socks and underwear on.
we've drying racks in a cramped edwardian rowhouse with no onsite washing machine so laundry is a complete pita. but we will be moving soon to a building with an onsite washing machine (maybe 2?) in the basement & will be installing a ceiling mounted rack on a pulley over the bath, can't wait it's going to be sooo much more convenient. oh and we have one of those retractable lines in the shower-bath for drying hand washing, mostly lingerie. that's definitely going to be replicated in the new place.
we rarely use the dryer for anything. while many of my things go to the laundry i don't generate anything like the sheer volume of laundry the better half & kid do, & i am pretty good about brushing & sponging to keep the number of dry cleaning trips to a minimum.
Kids exist to generate dirty towels.
tbh the better half has such exacting laundry standards that he does it all except for my lingerie hand washing & brushing/sponging. he irons! & not just shirts! hankies, napkins, sheets ... madness, but as a major beneficiary i'm certainly not complaining.
I'm only allowed to wash my own clothes, sheets, and the old towels. Nobody has ironed anything since 2014.
Like a normal American I use the dryer for everything dryer safe. We do hang the wool socks to dry.
Seriously. That's what the dryer is for.
Wool socks don't like the dryer, except for Darn Tough ones seem to do fine.
I have a drying rack for use when I did my laundry in a building where there was only one dryer (for five tenants, so not too busy) and you had to run a full cycle at full price each time. I would hang dry whatever still wasn't dry enough after the cycle.
Then I started going to a laundromat and bought some additional clothing so I could cut laundry back to every two weeks. It wasn't cheaper but it was possibly more efficient because I could do more laundry in less time, especially less drying time. Except those machines probably used more energy. Anyway, I like dry clothes.
Mostly, I hang things to dry because if you take them out of the washer right away and hang them, they look OK with no ironing. Also, I have a lot of wool that can be washed but not dried.
Astonishingly on-topic thread through 130 comments.
AB does all the laundry, so I couldn't assign percentages, but: weather permitting, everything except undies goes on the line outside, although I complained that line-dried towels suck, so those get tumble-dried as well.
In winter, she does a brief tumble to get the clothes from wet to damp, then hangs in the basement except for some items that go on a rack in front of the radiator.
When she was a baby in Germany, the drying lines were in the attic, and in the winter her diapers would freeze. I assume her mother had a system to thaw them before putting them on her, I don't know.
I definitely don't buy more than 5 new garments a year, but the vast majority of my wardrobe is thrifted by AB. It used to be that I wore out everything except for occasional items that either AB thrifted but I never loved* or grew hideously unfashionable (eg a shiny maroon dress shirt from ca. 2000). The last few years I've gained enough weight that some perfectly good clothes have been removed, although even those are mostly well-worn.
As is discussed in the OP and above, I feel like there's some incoherence around discussions about secondhand clothing and the environment (and, to a lesser extent, labor exploitation). Fast fashion is a problem no matter what, because the clothes can't last no matter what, so it makes no difference whether the original purchaser wears it 10 times then it falls apart or whether one person wears it 5 times and then another person does the same. But very little of what's in thrift stores is fast fashion (I've read that Goodwill just throws away most donated fast fashion, as it's not even worth processing). It's a mix of mid-range stuff (eg Gap) and high quality stuff (eg LL Bean). And the latter in particular will last forever. And this is the incoherence: for $20, I can't get even one t-shirt that is high quality and minimally exploitative, but at a thrift store I can get a lifetime dress short or two. The vast majority of people cannot afford to buy the best stuff new, but the very nature of the best stuff is that it lasts a long time, so buying it used allows hoi polloi access to it, while making real the promise of that longevity.
*mostly I like what she brings home, but sometimes they turn out to be things that I never choose over other things
I saw an article the other day talking about how clothing manufacture quality has dropped so low that most people literally don't know what a high quality garment looks/feels like. I guess on some level it's like American foodways of the '70s: almost literally every source of high quality food/cooking had been so commoditized(?) that even scratch cooks (which my mom, frex, mostly was) were turning out pretty mediocre food.
Unfortunately, I don't really see a plausible path to getting Americans to expect decent quality clothing again. I can imagine a set of international laws/regulations that make slave-sewn, carbon-spewing fast fashion impossible, but that would lead to voter revolt, not people posting pictures of how many wearings they get out of their t-shirts.
AB has always said that Germany is very different from the US in that it's totally normal for people just to wear the same thing day after day, and that a small wardrobe of quality garments is the norm. That's certainly how her father still lives, but I'm not sure about her middle-aged cousins, and I have no idea about the next generation.
re: on-topic, quality expectations.
Start with tombstones. Nobody does this anymore:
https://twitter.com/LadyTophamCatt/status/1609971020450136065?s=20&t=wrc54nKbm6N2fE9Yrzgl1A
It's not easy to get a tombstone that's even a little different. They have their stone shapes and that's what they have.
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
Fast fashion is a problem no matter what, because the clothes can't last no matter what, so it makes no difference whether the original purchaser wears it 10 times then it falls apart or whether one person wears it 5 times and then another person does the same.
But the second person doesn't deserve any blame, in my opinion. If I acquire a shitty H&M blouse from Goodwill and wear it five times until it falls apart, the environmental costs were sunk costs before I ever purchased it. I'm virtuous.
I saw an article the other day talking about how clothing manufacture quality has dropped so low that most people literally don't know what a high quality garment looks/feels like.
This is extremely easy for me to believe. My kids mostly wear hand-me-downs from Old Navy and Target or other brands on that scale. My students seem to mostly wear clothes on that scale. The mass of plebes mostly wear clothes on that scale. They're perfectly good in certain categories. If "quality" means "longevity" then sometimes they're totally fine, quality-wise, for what they are. (Other times they're worthless shit that falls apart.) But it's never the kind of beautiful-drape and categorical difference that you'd feel if you truly got your hands on some exquisite clothing.
139: Ah, but there's a gap between blameless and virtuous. You're still helping to create a market for that stuff, which is surely not a virtue. Delaying the inevitable, short trip to the landfill is not a bad thing, but it's very different from buying something that has a long life in front of it. Frex, a few years ago (actually, at least 5) I bought a camelhair coat from a thrift store, probably 30-40 yo when I bought it. Still in fine shape. Had the arms lengthened a bit, now it's my go-to dress coat for winter. It will certainly outlive me.
Now, there's no reason to think that coat wouldn't find another buyer, but every secondhand dollar spent on junk is a dollar not spent on clothes like that. Furthermore, to the extent people think of secondhand clothes as disposable--someone else already got rid of it, I only spent a few bucks on it--the more likely things like that won't be treated as lifelong garments, getting treated carelessly, left behind in moves, or just literally thrown away by someone who isn't in the habit of dropping off clothes.
140: One of the benefits of being familiar with exquisite clothing is that it can help you find the good deals at Target etc. Nothing heirloom-quality is slipping through the system to the sales floor, but when you talk about eg drape, not all cheap fabrics/quick sewjobs are alike, and you can find something that makes other people assume was from somewhere better because it fits that way. But having the eye is critical.
IKEA is very similar: a lot of it is cheap crap, a fair amount is mediocre stuff fairly priced, and then there are actual, legitimately good things that are well-priced. But I doubt most people know which is which*, because they don't know enough about furniture or, say, flatware to distinguish. First time I ever went to one, I was shocked that there was good stuff; I thought it was all flimsy bookcases.
*I mean, they can mostly distinguish the very bottom of the barrel, I assume.
136.last is wonderful; I'm surprised I've never seen it before.
My aunt, with a textile background, was able to quickly sift through a large rack of suit jackets and find the ones with good sewing, which I couldn't have possibly told.
137. There's this great video clip of a schlubby guy in a turtleneck and outdated glasses having a revelation while the backgrond is a galaxy image pan-and-zoom.
This stone is close to Sullivan's:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BruceGoffHeadstone.JPG
This is the next cemetary over:
https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20161031/north-park/tree-tombstones-grave-markers-bohemia-national-cemetery/
oh man, misspelling with the URL having the right one, put that on a triple word score for -90.
it's also super useful to know, e.g., which brands supply textiles wholesale to other houses & "own brand" garments to department stores bc you can get some amazingly high quality stuff second hand - gave my stepdaughter a suit for christmas that is in a gorgeous italian tweed, classic cut, will last for decades, was an astonishing good deal as made originally for bergdorf by agnona.
chanel oftentimes boring at the lower end but for e.g. black, navy or charcoal trousers, if you pick well, super great quality for the second hand price.
I saw an article the other day talking about how clothing manufacture quality has dropped so low that most people literally don't know what a high quality garment looks/feels like.
I believe this; I don't think I have any actually bad-quality clothes, fast fashion kind of thing, but I own a few things that are high quality and the difference is amazing - some old stuff I inherited, some things I had made to measure.
We use our drying line in the backyard in the summer. Low humidity and 95 degrees is wonderfully efficient. But in the winter unless it can't go in the dryer, it's going in.
142: I'm a lot better at judging furniture quality than I am at finding quality clothing, but the result is that I hate most furniture. Shiv, as a former carpenter, is pickier than I am so the result is that none of our stuff matches, we desperately need a couch but can't find one I don't despise, and that he made all the cabinets in our kitchen when we remodeled.
I probably have way too many clothes that I think I'll be able to fit into again when I lose weight. I only go clothes shopping when I go back to the US, don't buy that much, a few shirts, socks and underwear basically.
All the washing machines here are combination washer/dryers and they all suck. The one in my current apartment stopped drying the clothes over 2 months ago and it's taken that long for it to be replace with a new one (I had to get housing at the Uni I work for here involved) so I was hanging my clothes on a rack in all that time.
Initially they replaced it with another used one from an empty apartment that ended up leaking water all over the floor. And oh, did I mention that the clothes would come out smelling like old dirty sweat socks?
Anyway I'm pleased with the brand new machine.
In the summer here you really can't rewear much stuff, certainly not shirts of any kind and even jeans are only good for a 2-3 wears.
re: clothing quality
Absolutely. I have a lot of what I'd call mid-quality high street stuff (Gap, Uniqlo, Levi, etc). But I have owned a couple of proper jackets / coats in the past, which were second hand or where I got lucky. I had a beautiful Crombie coat that I picked up in a market in Oxford, and a really nice wool-cashmere mix sports coat that I bought new in a sale. The Crombie coat I got rid off because it was too warm to wear most of the time, and didn't go with anything else I wore, but I'm sure it's still exactly the same now as it was when it was made and will look exactly the same in 50 years.
My wife used to manage a shoe shop on Bond Street, though, so I had (and still have) nice shoes.
I grew up buying 99% of my clothes from thrift stores with a father who really cared about garment construction and fabric. I take the same sifting skills to fast fashion/mid range stores (from H&M to J Crew levels) and find that you can find diamonds in the rough even at a place like H&M, though it's been harder recently (conversely you can find some really shockingly made crap at a pretty high price point). I have 100% cotton blouses from H&M that are 13 years old and still look great. I knew someone who claimed that that one reason our clothes fall apart more quickly is if we assume they're disposable we treat them as such in terms of care and upkeep. I don't think it's fully the case but I think there is a bit of truth to that. I wash all my clothes except non-wool socks and underwear in cold and hang dry. I also have started spending money to repair even cheap clothes rather than throwing them out. I bought some Target brand jeans in 2019 that I have been wearing at least 3x a week since (certainly more than 30 wears) and they began to wear out in the thighs about a year ago. I got them patched and I felt silly paying $20 to patch $25 jeans, but ultimately I still like and wear them and it makes more sense to patch the jeans and wear them for several more years than to throw them away and buy new $25 jeans. With light colored clothes I've started soaking them in oxyclean overnight to remove pit stains or yellow collars and it's gotten me a couple more years wear out of clothes that I otherwise would have gotten rid of. I have otherwise fine Costco wool socks with holes in the heel and I'm trying to figure out if I can get them repaired somewhere.
The other issue that that there are so many ways that clothing can be fraught. I am attracted to the idea of Everlane but their union busting has turned me off of them.
Also as someone who buys lowish to mid-range clothes and wears them into the ground, I am really upset at the lack of textile recycling options. Ideally recycling clothing should be as easy as recycling cans or plastic but it's shockingly hard. I have bags of clothing I can't donate (no one wants a stretched out 5 yo Target t-shirt) and it's really hard to figure out how to actually recycle them. I already turn old bed sheets, towels, and socks/underwear into rags so that's out as an option for other clothes.
I think part of the problem is that clothes are only so durable, so a really well-made t-shirt might last longer than a cheaply made one but not *that* much longer, perhaps 2 years instead of 8 months. I have $500 La Canadienne boots I bought on clearance for $150 in 2014 and they are certainly worth their value. I've worn them every winter since and they've held up well, but they're suede and salted slush has taken its toll even with regular maintenance. I still wear them but someone more image conscious might not. Conversely I've had cheaper ($100 range) shoes that have also held up just as well over time. Expensive outdoor gear is pretty indestructible but as technology changes people might not want to wear, say, 50 year old 1st generation gortex camping as it's heavy and not that waterproof in comparison to what's available now.
Even new Goretex is heavy. Silnylon and pitzips are the way to go.
Except for specific circumstances.
Can't you recycle cotton clothing into fancy paper? In theory, that is.
All clothes are recyclable if you put them in an unmonitored donation bin and then live in denial.
When I moved last fall I made a good faith effort to donate or recycle lots of things but given what they accepted I think lots of my non-clothes probably ended up in landfill anyway. But I had some hope they had a recycling pipeline I didn't know about.
With light colored clothes I've started soaking them in oxyclean overnight to remove pit stains or yellow collars and it's gotten me a couple more years wear out of clothes that I otherwise would have gotten rid of.
I've been reluctant to really use oxyclean hardcore like this, because I assumed it would weaken the fabric or even eat holes in it. But it's gentle enough in that sense?
Oh yeah, OxyClean is fine to soak things in overnight. I've found that OxyClean White Revive is especially good at getting out tough stains if you soak for an extended period.
As my body has changed shape it's been hard to find good clothes to teach in. I finally settled on this dress, which I own in 5 or 6 different patterns and wear year-round, with tights and cardigans as needed: https://www.karinadresses.com/collections/nora
Have you considered walking into class wearing a blazer and changing into a cardigan while singing?
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NMM to Jeff Beck. You can enjoy this clip (yes, it is the obvious one) in whatever other manner you like, including posting commentary on the CLOTHING.
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They all look so serious. Like they're watching surgery.
164: this is my complaint with cocktail dresses - just not as comfortable as a good silk print day dress with a cardigan. but strangely the cocktail dress has become absurdly important at this stage of my career bc e.g. allows me to chase down more business to feed to juniors & build their capacity to eventually take over, which tbh is satisfying. still, narrower hems boo.
161
I wouldn't soak silk or wool or rayon but for cotton or cotton blend it should be fine. I haven't tried it with exercise clothes but I imagine they should be ok. If there are really gross stains you can also make a paste with oxyclean and water and leave it on for several hours. Also regular oxyclean says color safe and it's been fine for a white shirt with red polka dots but I don't know what it would do to a dark colored shirt.
A moth ate a small hole in one of my suits. My wife says I could find a "reweaver" to fix it. I think she just made that up. Regardless, I've just ignored the hole without trouble.
170
Sometimes I'll wear a shirt with a small stain and plan that if anyone points it out I'll act surprised and pretend I got the stain while eating breakfast on my way to work. I am very put together.
170 i had a small hole in a prada knit top v successfully repaired by a l.a. outfit i could try & hunt them up ... they are v good.
170: They are definitely a thing. There was even a cheesy 1970s song about them.
Re-weaver,
I believe you can set this suit aright
Re-weaver,
I believe you fix this weft's poor plight
etc., etc.
Oh yes, I remember that song from Wayne's World, when Garth first lays eyes upon his beloved seamstress.
But this is why I can't own cashmere. Every time I've tried, moths destroy it.
172: Thanks, but it's really unnoticeable and I'm not getting it fixed.
Over here they're called "invisible menders" which provides far more scope for puns
178: I'm also coming to terms with that it's just not very cold here, as much as I love sweaters.
145: Bruce Goff was one of the great weirdo architects.
Also, my dad owns 4 plots in the Bohemian National Cemetery, inherited from his dad, even though everyone in the family gets cremated.
New York state now allows human composting, but I looked it up and they still require them to be dead first.
You know when it's cold in Texas, because the governor fucks off to Cancun.
That's the senator. Not all right wing assholes look alike.
This thread basically forced me to buy used rain pants.
