*Hems are another pet peeve when it comes to cutting corners - never enough fabric anymore to let a hem down.*
Just about everything annoys me... One of the reasons I started reading this blog and forum was hope to find alternative sources of decent clothes and shoes.
I have some good news, though, Debora. For years, I've been noticing that clothes made in Vietnam are of decent quality and fit, and pretty well constructed. Based on my own empirical data, it seems to be true lately that some manufacturing is getting out of good ol' China and moving to even cheaper countries. Evidently, and much to my delight, Vietnam is cheaper and I started seeing more clothes made there.
When I first noticed that, I googled it out of curiosity - just to see if other people are of the same opinion. It turned out that many who go there have custom clothing made at very reasonable prices. That means that even though the cost in Vietnam may be lower than in China (at least for now), they do have an established garment industry and skilled workers, unlike China. As hard as it is (close to impossible), I'm trying to stay as far away from the label "made in China" as possible. At this point I've developed a gag reflex to it... Not that I shop there, but once I walked into St. John as they had some incredible sale and I figured I may find classic item worth the money. Even half of their clothes were made in China! It's true the quality is better than the mainstream junk, but not $1,000 better! Heck, you can't even trust the "made in Italy" label anymore because the Chinese factories and workers invaded even Italy and get to legally place Italian labels on their junk!
