Clothing, footwear and size/quality issues...

I have gripes when it comes to clothing and footwear. I plan on using this thread to voice a few. My main gripe is with over priced flimsy textiles and the fact that most nothing is the right size... Today's clothing can't compete with the way clothes used to be made because they have to be shipped from so far away.

I have problems with where many things are made (not the workers who makes them). My first gripe is who foots the bill for textiles to be sent halfway around the globe? It certainly is not the corporations... No, the consumer pays. So the corporations design textiles more flimsy, much less tread count, usually too small or at least a size smaller than it states, they severely underpay foreign workers, pass the transportation bill for moving it across the globe to consumers and jack up the initial price to a ridiculous amount. This wastes energy making throw away clothes that don't last while trucking them from the farthest possible place on earth.

Would you pay 5o to 100 dollars for a pair of flimsy low thread count cargo pants? Well even at discount outlets that is where the price on a pair of cargo pants usually starts off. Even with bargain brands... I could care less to pay for just a nice logo... Eventually the price gets lowered for clearance on some items... I pity the poor fool who buys them at the initial price.

Have you tried to buy a pair of men's crew socks in the last few years? Well they say they are for shoe size 8-12... If you have a size 9 1/2 shoe size expect these socks to be like a tourniquet.. If you buy size 9-13 shoe size (they are hard to even find) the socks are a bit longer yea but they get you in them only being an infinitesimal size larger in circumference. So even if your shoe size is 9 1/2 expect even the larger sock size (at twice the price) to also cut off the circulation in your feet. Like Chinese foot binding... I am not kidding one bit... Someone sure thinks this is a joke.

If you have a 9 1/2 foot be prepared to buy a size 11 shoe. Off by an inch and a half. They will also be too narrow for most people's feet and nearly no arch support at all. Buying shoes used to be a pleasure where a knowledgeable sales person would actually measure and select the right shoe size.

What is up here people? Flimsy overpriced fabrics that cut corners in every conceivable area. Today I saw a pair of cargo pants on the rack at a major dept store where they had never been worn, yet the seam was already splitting due just to being sewn through. I am wondering when plastic garbage bags will become fashionable clothing. A burlap sack used to be manufactured with more fabric and tread count.

If our textiles did not have to be shipped halfway across the globe maybe a bit more quality might go into their manufacture. But the clothing labels would not be able to make such a killing while passing the transportation cost also over to the consumers... Heaven forbid if these clothes were actually manufactured to last longer. Like clothes used to be hand me downs for several kids and I used to have clothing that I wore in my late teens. Now even work boots last only one year (if you're lucky)...

And what is up with the size thing? Are they being made for skinnier, seemingly undernourished people with just bone and absolutely no muscle tone? Are they measuring them with metrics and selling them in inches? I can't even buy a pair of men's crew socks that do not cut off the circulation in my feet, no matter which brand or how much I am willing to pay for them. I pity people with really huge ankles and calves. This is not meant to be an insult to foreign labor, this problem rests at the feet (no pun intended) of the clothing labels...

Anyone else notice this? What happened to fine quality clothing at reasonable bargain basement prices? If you want cheap, torn up, stone washed and already worn out clothes? Go to a department store. If you want nice quality clothes that last a few years? Go to Goodwill... Something is wrong with this picture here...