A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a new suit to do it in; for him the old will do, that has lain dusty in the garret for an indeterminate period. Old shoes will serve a hero longer than they have served his valet -- if a hero ever has a valet -- bare feet are older than shoes, and he can make them do. Only they who go to soires and legislative balls must have new coats, coats to change as often as the man changes in them. But if my jacket and trousers, my hat and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do; will they not? Who ever saw his old clothes -- his old coat, actually worn out, resolved into its primitive elements, so that it was not a deed of charity to bestow it on some poor boy, by him perchance to be bestowed on some poorer still, or shall we say richer, who could do with less? I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes.
Iâve got a couple pair of Old Navy jeans, now almost 5 years old, that will. not. die. I want them to. So very much. They simply will not.
I think the secret of buying cheap clothes is to buy things that you donât particularly like, or just sorta fit you OK because those are the garments that last for freakinâ ever. Lookinâ at you crappy $20 work boots I bought in 1995 that refuse to fall apart. Got my other eye on those damned immortal jeans.
My tactic for buying fewer clothes is: âCan I sew this myself? Then I will not buy itâ (and also probably never get around to sewing it but it still works.)
Try clothing a full household, bespoke, for $1500 per year. In fact, try bespoke for one person on $1,500 per year. A true bespoke suit is like $3,000, and a single pair of bespoke shoes will run you more than $1,500.
No mater how infrequently you wear out clothes, you still need more than $1,500 a year if you want bespoke. Unless your plan is to wear one shoe and nothing else and build up your wardrobe from there one year at a time. I mean, bespoke Leviâs are $750.
It doesnât really matter why you want bespoke: the labour required to make one-off garments built specifically for you is going to be prohibitively expensive for 99+% of the people. And since the labour is the primary driving force behind price, it makes sense to use the best materials possible since they are not the major cost involved.
Perhaps one simply needs to apply @IronEdithKiddâs âimmortal theoryâ â purchase cheap ugly indestructible stuff and then find a good tailor who can make it work for youâŚ
Or start by finding a good tailor and having them make it work from scratch, which may be easier, and which is what Iâm thinking of when i suggest affordable bespoke clothing.
Of course I have the advantage of knowing someone who does everything from professional stage costumes to serious religious vestments to SF/fantasy fan costuming, so I know exactly who Iâd talk to and have some idea what it would cost me.
I grant that womenâs bodies vary more and their styles often require more fitting. Even soâŚ
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots thatâd still be keeping his feet dry in ten yearsâ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet."
Iâve long advocated dressing lower on the food chain. For example, the necktie is an Edwardian artifact â and an uncomfortable noose in warmer climates â yet is still mandatory in a lot of jobs. The world would be a better place if folks paid less attention to what they paid and more attention to where/how their clothing was made.
Attire is a form of tribal branding and class distinction. As RuPaul said, weâre all born naked and the rest is drag.
