I think Dhaller has some good points.
Relaxed work dress codes certainly allows the vast majority of workers to dress inexpensivly. The work clothes and recreational clothes become indistinguishable, there is no longer a need for a seperate wardrobe. With cheap, low quality clothing flooding the market, lower wage worke can devote less of their income toward clothing.
The divide between the have and have nots has been inexorably increasing, leading to two divergent markets. This got me to thinking about the costs of what I consider my modestly priced wardrobe. Apart from footwear, little of what I own was bought at full value. Almost all at least 10% to over 70% off. Yet when looking at my last 4 days of WAYWT posts, the outfits I was wearing ranged from $800-$2400.
My hospital is the largest employer in our county, with many thousands of workers. Apart from a handfull of top administrators, and a few Attending physicians, no one would spend a fraction of that amount on their work clothes. Now granted most are wearing scrubs, or some sort of uniform, but many, including vendors dress in regular clothes. I can count the number of doctors in a jacket and tie on one hand, and have fingers left over.
Work wear no longer drives the Men’s clothing market. Leisure wear and street wear are changing the way people dress in their free time. If it wasn’t for the exhorbatant prices charged by designers for dreck, the only people spending significant money on clothing would be AAAC types. And as we’ve unfortunately seen, we aren’t populous enough to drive the industry.
So as the haves get richer, those few buy more and more overpriced designer clothes, while the increasingly larger cohort of have nots can buy less of cheaper and cheaper imported clothing at the big box stores. The result is a decreased total of money being spent on clothing.
Stock up while you can, before quality, well made RTW classical clothing disappears from the face of the earth.
Relaxed work dress codes certainly allows the vast majority of workers to dress inexpensivly. The work clothes and recreational clothes become indistinguishable, there is no longer a need for a seperate wardrobe. With cheap, low quality clothing flooding the market, lower wage worke can devote less of their income toward clothing.
The divide between the have and have nots has been inexorably increasing, leading to two divergent markets. This got me to thinking about the costs of what I consider my modestly priced wardrobe. Apart from footwear, little of what I own was bought at full value. Almost all at least 10% to over 70% off. Yet when looking at my last 4 days of WAYWT posts, the outfits I was wearing ranged from $800-$2400.
My hospital is the largest employer in our county, with many thousands of workers. Apart from a handfull of top administrators, and a few Attending physicians, no one would spend a fraction of that amount on their work clothes. Now granted most are wearing scrubs, or some sort of uniform, but many, including vendors dress in regular clothes. I can count the number of doctors in a jacket and tie on one hand, and have fingers left over.
Work wear no longer drives the Men’s clothing market. Leisure wear and street wear are changing the way people dress in their free time. If it wasn’t for the exhorbatant prices charged by designers for dreck, the only people spending significant money on clothing would be AAAC types. And as we’ve unfortunately seen, we aren’t populous enough to drive the industry.
So as the haves get richer, those few buy more and more overpriced designer clothes, while the increasingly larger cohort of have nots can buy less of cheaper and cheaper imported clothing at the big box stores. The result is a decreased total of money being spent on clothing.
Stock up while you can, before quality, well made RTW classical clothing disappears from the face of the earth.
