[GFischer]

When shopping for a washing machine, I found some articles that claimed that the reason that Americans buy so many clothes and find that they don't last as much as the rest of the world, is because:

1) they use top-loading washing machines

2) they use dryers

or even worse washing-drying combinated.

While I don't doubt that Polo chooses good cloth, it's standard here in Uruguay for clothes to last that long. I've inherited a lot of clothes from my father, and have tons of clothes to give away that are in reasonably good condition.

The reason is that they've been either hand-washed, or washed in a front-loading machine at a low temperature, and then dried in a clothesline (I've never owned a clothes dryer).

For example, this article claims that clothes washed on a front-loading washing machine last longer:

http://www.networx.com/article/choosing-a-washing-machine-to...

Edit: U$ 500 for the cheapest front-loaders? I bought mine for U$ 200 (not in the U.S. obviously, but with the humungous Uruguayan import taxes).

[yummyfajitas]

This sounds like a huge waste of labor. Suppose making a shirt (of whatever sort of cloth) takes 5 hours of labor.

If you hand wash and line dry, suppose that's 5 minutes of labor per wearing. If you wear the shirt every week for 10 years, that's 43 hours of labor on washing for 10 years worth of shirt. It would only take 25 hours of labor (compare to 48) to buy a new shirt every 2 years.

And this also assumes your time is equally valuable to the time of the guy making the shirt - I consider my time to be worth far more than $5-15/day.

[ricardobeat]

What if the person doing the washing/hanging is paid even less than the one at the factory?

[yummyfajitas]

If the maid's pay is 60% of the factory worker's pay, then you break even. I also ignored the time cost of shopping every 2 years to keep things simple.

The only point I'm trying to make is that durability and preservation of material goods is often overrated, and replacing things every few years isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[GFischer]

Yes, I forgot, I pay U$ 5/hour to the maid, and I'm paid U$ 10/hour (for now! :) )

And Uruguayans are used to earning very little compared to the U.S., plus brand clothes are MUCH more expensive here.

[ImprovedSilence]

Yeah, I'll believe this. I think it's a big culture thing too. I studied in Italy in college, and never used a dryer in my 4 months there, the washing machine was a little side loader, and if you tried to run that, the TV, and the microwave at the same time the breaker would flip... But here's the thing. EVERYBODY hung their clothes out to dry, dryers were just un-heard of. Here in the US, I've got my big washing machine, my big dryer, and I notice my clothes getting worn out before my eyes. I'd hang stuff to dry, but it's just a pain moving wet clothes from the laundromat to home. I'd like to get back to air-drying my clothes someday though, it was so much 'simpler' if you will, and nothing shrank.

[blahedo]

I believe this; I have plenty of clothes that I've been wearing since the mid-90s (and a few clothes I inherited that are even older), and none of it is luxury brand; but I do take care of them. It's also worth noting that some kinds of clothes can stand to be worn for multiple days between washings, and this is likely to extend their useful lives considerably.