That is true but now even more expensive clothes are designed to break faster, back in the day expensive stuff was good durable stuff. For example theres a new trend for shoes in which soles wear out faster because of the material used. I’ve seen myself throwing out shoes that were in perfect condition or still very wearable if it wasnt for the hole in the heel. A lot of classic shoes that one used to be able to take to a shoe repair shop are now unfixable for this reason
When these discussions come up, there often tend to be suggestions durable brands for "big ticket" items like shoes, boots and outerwear (as other comments have suggested).
Does anyone have recommendations for longer lasting every day clothes? I feel like I often have dress shirts and pants/jeans that wear out more quickly than they should. Dress shirts tend to have holes wear in the elbow area and pants tend to wear in the pockets where I have phone/keys.
If it's just the inside pocket that wears, and not the pant leg itself, that's pretty easy to fix with scrap of fabric, plus needle and thread. I've done that myself with plenty of pants, even sewn a completely new replacement pocket for one pair.
For the shirts, you could sew patches on the elbows, but the would probably be at-home/casual shirts at that point.
The skill of mending clothes is one I think many people don't think about, out maybe they just don't think it's something they want to do. It's not rocket science at all, and there are tons of guides and videos or there to show the various stitches and techniques.
I mend all of my clothes when they start to wear, fix and replace buttons, even slight alterations to fit. When a piece of clothing finally becomes overall too threadbare, I harvest buttons and sometimes zippers, as well as scraps of remaining good quality fabric, all for future repairs.
My current pants are all from the Finnish store Varusteleka. Their ordinary jeans are good, their tactical jeans are amazing, and their worker pants are a breath of fresh old-fashioned air, with high waists, pleats and buttons for proper suspenders.
The materials chosen are solid, as is the workmanship, although you wouldn't call it superlative. Like the style, it's practical, not flashy.
For dress shoes, the top of the line Allen Edmonds are a great investment. High quality stitched leather uppers and soles. If you clean them, polish them, and store them in cedar shoe trees, they might just last a lifetime with resoling.
Buy a tube of Shoe-Goo. Inspect your shoes for wear and build up the areas that need it. You can keep a set of soles forever if you do this periodically before holes grow too big.
Don’t worry, I don’t. Maybe when I was younger Id make that mistake but luckily never bought expensive clothes in label only. If I had the money to throw around I’d have probably fallen into that trap.
But Im having more and more difficulty finding that real good classic shor that is well made and is maintainable/fixable and which is a good fit and could be happy with for a couple of years. I live in NYC and the market here is innundated in low quality crap. Even an expensive brand such as Prada doesn’t have well made shoes, they’re made to not last very long
https://builder.wescoboots.com. I still have a pair that I bought 20 years ago that I have worn for a large part of that time (with yearly resoling). They have a deal where you can return a pair of boots and they will rebuild them (keeping only the uppers) for half the cost of new.
they are not stylish. they will last forever. you send them your measurements and they make a form (last) which they keep and you can order against again. that first pair had some minor fit issues, I sent corrections and the second pair was a perfect fit.