You can get Kirkland brand men’s khakis at Costco for $20. Decent polos can be had for < $10 from JC Penny. Anyway, that’s what I wear, and they are good until the wife complains about the holes, and then some.

I keep telling her I’ll someday fit into that favorite heavy metal T-shirt from high school; don’t throw it out.

Seriously? What part of the world is this? Are you talking about formal wear?

Fashionable looking clothes for men in I would say Northern Europe is relatively expensive... because people buy brand names.

Jeans, t-shirts the likes... 200-300 USD for a pair of jeans is quite common (above also exists). You can get dirty cheap, but men are stupid (me included) -- and to be fair the quality is pretty decent.

I don't really shop in the US, because quality sucks.

So what does a pair of high quality women's jeans cost in Northern Europe?

I looked very hard for the article I read recently about a woman (in US) who just straight up stopped buying clothes gendered for women because they fell apart immediately. I am extremely curious whether there is a similar cost/construction problem in Europe.

Can't say I know much about womens clothing, but there a wider selection of less expensive fashionable clothes.. Like H&M, which I'm sure also compromises on quality.

Obviously, women can also get highend, quality stuff. But for men it's either highend or the supermarket, there's few things in between.

In the US my experience is that high-end stuff is being VERY high-end, and low end is becoming very low end... likely as a result of incoming inequality.

Fascinating, thank you for the extra breadcrumbs. I think the mental model has to include something about mass produced vs bespoke, not just high/low fashion.

In the US, the easiest example to take is the three tiers of fashion produced by Old Navy, The Gap, and Banana Republic. As far as I'm aware, it's always been the same ownership, but each brand is clearly marketed to different price ranges. And also as far as I'm aware: all three brands use offshore sweatshop labor. Right now, rough prices for jeans:

Old Navy: starting at 25USD The Gap: 40-60USD and up. Banana: starting at 120USD

If I had to pay 200-300USD for one pair of denim jeans, I would make damn sure it's because it was machined by a highly paid local artisan. (I don't really care that they're local. I'd still have to think about the cotton sourcing, I guess. Everything about the supply chain is problematic.)

You're right that income inequality is shaping the market, but I think the reverse is true too. The only go-to-market strategies anyone seems to use are: 1. dominate the market with razor thin margins (or even at an initial loss), 2. well differentiated luxury products at outrageous margins. Changing the subject from cloth, Apple is the only company that doesn't seem to operate barely above margins for their low-end products. But of course they benefit from fierce competition on margin with their suppliers. And electronics recycling is a lot more profitable than clothing recycling. I don't know, I guess I was never talking about clothes anyway, and always talking about Late Capitalism.

Really, I've never observed this. If anything women need more variety and clothing tends to be more expensive. Formal wear comes in all price points for both men and women, as does casual clothing.

This is doubly true if you're buying button-down shirts, because if you're not one of a handful of exact anatomical sizes you've got to have things altered after purchase if you want them to fit well.

Men's button down shirts are generally sized in 3 dimensions - collar, sleeve and fit (slim / normal)... which is more axes than most clothing items. If you're only seeing a handful of sizes, find a different brand.

Unless you're trying to buy a flannel. Then it's small medium large.

You can get custom sized flannels too, I'm wearing one right now. Just have to look around or pay more but it's worth it if you're a fringe size. (I'm tall.) I get mine from Trumaker.