Learning to look for "quality" items... - YouLookFab Forum

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Learning to look for "quality" items...

Mel

I found this very handy article recently, during a search on "quality clothes": https://www.thebalance.com/how.....ng-1387970

I've been thrifting clothes all my life out of pure fun and just realized that I've acquired several of these skills along the way. When you thrift, you have to sift through oodles of clothes in record time, and you learn to spot quality and condition just by feeling the fabric and quickly checking certain details. Brand -unless we're talking about brands like Burberry- is only a secondary factor. The best pieces in my closet come from a huge variety of brands, everything from vintage and J Crew, to Walmart and Patrizia Pepe.

The most recent skill I've learned is observing how the seams are finished: French seams, for example. A sole criteria is never enough, of course; I have an H&M blouse with beautiful French seams but made of a poor quality fabric that isn't holding up in the wash.

Do any of you have tips you can share, of how you spot quality items? Sadly, it's getting harder and harder to blindly trust retailers; you really have to be proactive in looking for well-made items.

Shopping

25 replies

Latest reply was from Mel

karen13

Veteran

I'm a stickler for pattern match - if the stripe, plaid or print isn't consistent or symmetrical, just walk away. It will bother you when you wear it.

The Cat

Veteran

Avoid acrylic fibres. Acrylic sweaters are prone to pill after one wash (sometimes even before the first wash!) and get a strange smell.

Joyce B

Veteran

The article that you are sharing is very useful. You can also ask on the forum if anyone has experience with a particular brand, more so if it is a brand that is not one of the usual ones.
Your article reminds me of how my grandmothers used to shop for clothes. They were seamstresses so they knew what to look for.

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

I'm sticking up for acrylic. I have two white acrylic pullovers and they are fabulous. They don' crease, and they hold up beautifully in the wash. I just brought this one along on my recent Euro trip. It was fab. Felt and looked polished.

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unfrumped

Veteran

Checking seams is good. My mother sewed beautifully. She was very attentive to quality sewing thread and great fabric blends( she refused to iron!) and also often pre- washed fabrics to avoid shrinkage/ puckering. She was aware that clothes were often made with cheap cotton thread that shrank more than the fabrics.
Same for buttonholes. Buttons are often suboptimal but not deal-breakers if you're willing to replace.
Fabrics!
Agree that brand is unpredictable. Yes there are super- quality brands, but sometimes a lower- end or medium maker just " gets it right", very unexpectedly. Often just in one or 2 items that season. Not sure how that happens.

Anonymous

To me, even unfinished seams are ok because they are surged--a very durable seam.

For knits, it seems like if they are smooth and flat, that is better and if they are lofty and have a more brushed appearance, that means they are less durable. I think the quality has to do with the length of the fibre strand rather than the type of wool.

molly221

When I was losing weight I bought a great yellow sweater at goodwill. I wear that with everything and people have told me that they have looked for the exact same fit/color as my look. The brand? Mossimo which I believe is target - it was a winner but I would like to replace it with quality!

shedev

Veteran

I also have had good experiences with acrylics.

tulle

Veteran

I'm a devoted thrift-shopper for this very reason. Quality, especially fabric quality, has been diminishing steadily for the last 10 years or more. I love hunting for older items because they are more likely to be well made. My favorite quality tip-offs: bound buttonholes, silk linings, french and tape-bound seams, hand-knitted woolen sweaters and socks and hand-woven tweeds (rare--but they are out there!) Oh--and leather-lined & soled shoes and boots, hand-rolled hems on silk scarves, lined classic woolen trousers. I also look for beautiful cashmere sweaters, even if they have a couple of tiny moth holes (these are easily mended on the inside with a couple of delicate stitches with matching sewing thread.) Shopping this way, you can put together an outfit for under $100 that would cost ten times as much new for the equivalent quality. Recently I found an impeccably tailored black & white birdseye-check wool blazer at a thrift store for $20. It was a Talbot's petite, so it fit perfectly, and it was the exact twin of a St. Laurent jacket I'd seen online (for about $1600.) That jacket had been styled with jeans and a round-necked lace shirt. I liked the look, so I wore my jacket with a beautiful black lace top I'd found at another thrift shop (also Talbots, tags still on, for $9) and a pair of black Gap skinny jeans. With a black Coach classic crossbody bag (also thrifted, new, for $50,) a sparkly vintage brooch, and black block-heeled booties, I felt comfortable and well dressed at a winery opening a few nights ago.

The Cat

Veteran

About T-shirts: A thicker fabric, a blend with some stretch, and nice finishing make them look better for longer.

The Cat

Veteran

Interesting to hear that acrylic pullovers work for Angie. For many, many years, I avoided acrylic items (because of earlier bad experiences), but last year I was tempted to buy a poncho in 100 % acrylic, and a few months ago, a coatigan in 70 % acrylic and 30 % viscose. (In both cases, the colours were so beautiful I couldn't resist ...) Sadly, both items are now pilling. They have only been worn a few times and haven't even been washed yet. I have to realize that they will not survive 2017. And now I am determined to go back to (and stick to!) my old rule: no acrylic for me, thank you.

Jaime

(website)

Veteran

I have a vintage acrylic sweater that is very high quality. But many acrylics are not so there is no shortcut there. The advantage of second hand sweaters is you can see immediately if they will pill or not - if they have managed that long looking good it is a good bet.
As you mention fast fashion sometimes finishes seams but the entire fabric bobbles, still seams are a good starting point.
If it is wrinkled in the store, it will be wrinkled on you.

Mel

karen13 - me, too. I agree, at least the stripes should match up. Offline stripes are a sure-fire sign of cheap!

unfrumped - I have some great items from the "George" brand at Walmart, but you're right that you can't go to Walmart expecting to haul away a wardrobe.
That's a great tip regarding thread, although I wouldn't know how to tell cotton thread from other types, yet. I have had that experience with fabric: a blouse made of mainly cotton with some polyester stripes woven in; the cotton shrunk and the polyester didn't. It didn't last a single wash.

The Cat and smittie- I also feel t-shirts and knits for smoothness. I have a good pima t-shirt from Uniqlo you can literally feel the smoothness, softness, and stretch, in comparison to cheaper t-shirts. I'm also so tempted to buy cheap t-shirts, but have to remind myself that they won't last. I pretty much stick to pima cotton or linen blends now. I agree about the finishing, too. Someone else also gave me the tip that higher quality t-shirts are likely to be longer; cheaper t-shirts are shorter because they use less cloth (unless you wanted a cropped t-shirt on purpose).

Molly221- Sometimes if I'm not sure if I want to add a new color or style to my wardrobe, I buy the cheap version, and if it works well, I then get a better version.

tulle- you and I would have a blast thrifting! I have to admit that probably 80% of my wardrobe is thrifted or recycled and cost me pennies. However to thrift successfully you really have to have some notion of what looks good on you and what you are looking for. And have patience. And time. And some resistance to dust, haha. I guess it's not for everyone. About the cashmere sweaters, I usually pass them up if they have the tiniest hole, but I'm going to reconsider it.

Mel

shevia- that's a great tip about second-hand sweaters.

About acrylic....

It's funny: if I'm shopping in a better store I'll usually pass up all the acrylic, thinking "couldn't they have used something better?", but it's because I've only had experience with cheap acrylic sweaters that lasted two or three years at most, before they got stiff or heavily "pilled". Maybe there are grades of acrylic, or maybe it does better in blends than alone.

Anonymous

Pattern matching is a must.

If you want to know how much a fabric will wrinkle, wad some of it up in your hand. When you let go, you'll be able to see how much it will wrinkle.

To check for colorfastness, check to see if the back side of the fabric is the same as the front. If not, the fabric will fade faster.

Check seams and seam allowance; and extra buttons and/or thread.

Metal buttons tend to cut the thread.

Tisa

I don't thrift, but this is what I do when shopping for clothing:

First I touch the fabric. If it feels nice, I check the composition, look for any discoloration or spots, then check how much it wrinkles. Some fabrics leave lint, so I find a white cotton shirt or something similar and rub the two fabrics together to see what happens.

I also check seams, zippers, buttonholes and buttons.

Anonymous

I agree with The Cat on acrylic. Nothing but bad experiences with that stuff. Avoiding it is one of my shopping rules.

Mary Beth (formerly LBD)

(website)

Veteran

Annuschka Rees (formerly "Into-Mind") wrote an amazing two-part series, "How to Assess the Quality of Garments", and a cheatsheet.

Part One:
https://anuschkarees.com/blog/.....-guide-par

Part Two:
https://anuschkarees.com/blog/.....-guide-par

Cheatsheet:
https://anuschkarees.com/blog/.....-guide-che

Mel

BC and Tisa- thanks for the tips! Now that I think of it, I had a jacket of which the buttons would frequently fall off, and they were a sort of cheap metal. The buttons were probably cutting the thread. I really dislike it when manufacturers use the cheap version of something nice (like metal buttons), just so the item looks nice in the store but later doesn't wear well. I've also had this experience with Banana Republic's leather-covered buckles, on two items bought in the last two years. The buckles looked okay when I bought them but the leather is so cheap that they are starting to shred. It would have been better if the buckles were plastic. As the saying goes, "if you're going to doing something, do it right!"

Mel

La Belle - thanks for the AMAZING links! I've just started reading them. What a wealth of knowledge! As someone else on this thread mentioned, we've lost a lot of this garment construction knowledge because we don't sew like our grandmothers and even mothers used to. I think we're much more likely to be swayed by trends and cuteness than examining for quality materials and construction, and least those of us who are 40 and under. Most young women would not even know what to look for.

Mel

Regarding acrylic....

Part one of the links posted by La Belle has this very useful information:

For starters, there is a huge difference between synthetic materials (usually polyester or viscose) that are commonly used by budget fashion brands and the high-quality synthetic materials used by designers or higher-quality brands. In the fast fashion industry, synthetic materials are often used to replace natural fibres. It’s about cutting costs, so these types of synthetic fibres typically won’t have a high quality and are mainly chosen for their resemblance to natural materials, their price or their look. On the other end of the spectrum there is the designer who chooses a synthetic material over a natural one for its specific properties (e.g. it’s particularly light weight, the way it drapes, its texture), in order to enhance the final garment. Many designers and brands specifically formulate fabrics to get the exact type that’s right for their design or to improve things like breathability and other functional properties.

So avoid the acrylic sweaters from fast fashion and give a thought to the acrylic sweaters in the "better" stores.

Sal

Veteran

I have enjoyed this thread and learnt a lot.

I tend to look for lining on jackets, smooth seams and hems, fabric feel, and how the item sits on me.

Penny

Veteran

Really appreciate this thread - I'll definitely be keeping these tips in mind!

darkhound173

Member

Omg Ive had this struggle in finding high-quality clothing. It's really aggravating when I have to stroll through store after store to find good clothing that fits my personality and needs. Today, my favorite store is loudenluxe.com because they use high quality material and their clothing is beautiful.

Mel

Sal- that's a great observation about linings. For me, the lining is usually the first part of the jacket or the skirt to get worn down: the seams split or go threadbare. And there are linings that don't really serve their purpose as lining. I have a skirt that I can't wear with pantyhose because the lining gets all caught up in it....some kind of friction going on there. It's worth it to check the quality and smoothness of linings.