I bought a blazer from them which looked amazing, but a week after wearing it, it was "frizzy"---some of the finer fibers were starting to unravel on the outside.
I purchased a set of boots last year. They lasted a single season before the soles cracked.
I agree that quality is going down. If someone has an answer, I would like to understand why.
I will give you an example. There used to be a fantastic store called "Marshall Field's" in Chicago. Their own Field's brand clothing, say simple white T-Shirts, were fantastic. Well priced and would last forever. They have since then been bought out (by Macy's???). Now, I would have never thought that it would be very difficult to bring thick-white-cotton T-shirts to market at $25. I would pay for these and so would many others. But that option is just not there any more.
Why is it that when big chains come in, quality goes down? I am sure they would make plenty of profits on good quality stuff, no? And, you can't blame the outsourcing of production to China or Bangladesh -- they would be happy to produce for you whatever quality you want, shoddy or good, as you desire.
So why the decline in quality on so, so many things that we buy? Has there been a general decline in people willing to pay 20% more for something that will last twice as long?
> So why the decline in quality on so, so many things that we buy?
The common answer is information asymmetries. The seminal paper is Akerlof's "The Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism". [1]
Simply speaking, consumers can't determine quality before buying which makes buying low price the better decision, economically speaking. Suppliers can use branding or guarantees to counter this. Unfortunately, the first is also open to deterioration; and the second has high transaction costs for consumers.
In fashion, however, there are other causes as well. Clothes are not just bought for protection and comfort, but for communication as well, ie. advertising. In my opinion, this is why clothes signaling status work well for older men, clothes signaling aggression work well for younger man, while clothes signaling youth work well for women. Especially the latter drives the fashion market, and thus the need to cheap, disposable clothes.
The key words are 'profit maximization' and 'planned obsolescence'. The fashion industry knows that most people buy clothes for the looks and will bear rather low durability.
I bought a blazer from them which looked amazing, but a week after wearing it, it was "frizzy"---some of the finer fibers were starting to unravel on the outside.
I purchased a set of boots last year. They lasted a single season before the soles cracked.