Hope is not completely lost. Some crazy Japanese companies produce stuff with unbelievably good fabrics all the time. E.g. The Real McCoy's, Buzz Rickson, Studio D'Artisan and a few others.

For cotton, many of their models are loopwheeled which is a fantastic low tension fabric that ages really well. All they are doing is to copy American techniques from the golden age of workwear and sportswear. In fact, they try to produce perfect reproductions.

Modern streetwear brands like Outlier and Acronym are also really good.

I love Ventile cotton as it's natural and fairly rain resistant. You can find several brands that use Ventile made by Stotz in Switzerland in coats. For pants, if you don't like denim German Ripsmoleskin is fantastic.

Finally, knitwear from Inis Meain and SNS Herning is machine produced but absolutely fantastic. Expensive but not insane prices like some superb Italian brands.

All these brands I mentioned are really high quality. Plus the production process and materials employed are really transparent. There are many others with different styles I would also trust like Merz B Schwanen, Maison Margiela or SEH Kelly.

I checked out some of the brands you mentioned, and holy crap they're expensive. Outlier has 3 t-shirts on offer for $300, shirts from most of those brands average $150, Acronym are selling jackets for $1k+....

I'm expecting a reply on the line of "quality comes at a cost" but I've got shirts over a decade old that have no visible signs of wear and cost a tenth of what these cost.

Disclaimer: Outlier fan.

The shorts and pants are where Outlier really shines (okay, and button-down shirts), they’re the best value. the ~$100 Ultrafine t-shirt is luxurious as hell but then you’ll want to wear it every day and it’s pretty delicate, being wool. Their pants definitely uphold the “quality comes at a cost” argument.

Also there are luxury brands with questionable quality that will also sell you a t-shirt for $100 that doesn’t have the same thought into materials or build as Outlier, etc.

Just based on googling by and looking at the price, I don't think these brands are something the average HN reader buys.

DISCLAIMER: I work at Son of a Tailor

We do exist ! Our selection is not that large yet, but we are growing it steadily and slowly, to make sure that the garments we choose work for the product.

We exclusively use the best quality garments we can find(within reason of course) That means only using Supima Cotton for cotton and Merino Wool for wool products. We even get our fabrics knitted and dyed at a place we trust near or production facilities in Portugal.

I'm not totally sure if that part of our business is totally unique, and i'd imagine that many small brands go to the same lengths to ensure the best quality but maybe you should just stop looking at large clothing companies when searching for quality.

Pretty funny reading an article like this on HN :)

Loro Piana (the clothing brand) is rather expensive but you will not often (ever?) run into poor quality fabrics in their stores.

There is just no way that a 625$ price tag for a polo shirt can be justified by the product's quality.

Loro Piana cotton polo shirts are definitely not worth the price, the 645$ cotton/linen "jeans" definitely are.

Nothing by Loro Piana is bad, lots of the stuff is overpriced but many things are quite reasonable. After the LVMH acquisition they regularly offer pretty great discounts too.

I just bought one of these jackets (in yellow) for 1000 euros, an absolute bargain. https://us.loropiana.com/en/p/Man/Jackets/Sweater-Jacket-FAE...