The Evils of Crap Part 1

Growing up, I learned the evils of crap clothes from my parents, who owns and operates dry cleaners. Crap clothes do not dry clean well, things fade, melt, come loose, fall off, wrinkle funny etc. It takes more work and effort to clean and press crap clothes than expensive clothes. Well, I shouldn't say "expensive" clothes, just 'cause it costs a lot doesn't mean it's not crap. There are certain expensive brands my parents loath, Bebe comes to mind.

Unless it was going to be machine washable, disposable clothing, my mom would not let us buy any crap. My mom kept a mental black list of all the brands that made her job harder and she refused to let us buy anything from those brands. For this reason, we were not allowed to get a letterman's jacket. They hated those with a passion and the refused to buy them for me and my sister. I thought it was pretty unfair at the time but now I see the wisdom in their ways- letterman jackets are pretty fucking ugly.

I'm not against the idea of buying cheap clothing but, just 'cause it's cheap, doesn't mean it has to be crap- and just 'cause it costs a lot, doesn't always mean it's quality.

First off, luxury fabric (cashmere, leather, silk, etc.) doesn't always mean quality. This is a cheap silk blouse after a few wear:

And mind you, this is on the stomach part, not even a high friction area. A good way to check the quality of the fabric is to grab a handful and rub vigorously against each other for a few seconds, like they're two sticks and you're trying to start fire. If it pills, it's cheap. Pilling on silk will pretty much renders it unwearable, you can't even use one of those shaving things to get rid of the pills. Well, I suppose you can sit there with tiny sewing scissors and carefully cut all the pills off... On knits and cotton, pilling just makes it look cheap and old.

Speaking of which, get one of those electric clothes shaver. It's like a face lift for clothes and will make your old tired clothes look almost brand new.


This is hem of a cheap silk blouse. It's sewn by a sweatshop worker in like Indonesia or someplace, working in a crappy environment under a severe time constraint, what do you expect?


Cheap clothes are not always pieced together using fabrics from the same dye lot. As a result, some panels are slightly lighter/darker than others. The difference in this blouse is so extreme, I'm wondering if it was done on purpose.

Unfortunately, sometimes, clothing are coated after they're sewn to hide color difference. You think the colors are uniform until you wash it... and you get this:


Speaking of leather- when buying leather anything, try to find one put together with as little pieces as possible. Coats and bags made with multi panels are made from the reject scraps of a larger (and nicer) leather piece. Avoid anything that looks like a quilt.

Crappy clothing suck 'cause after a few wear, they start to look really bad. However, there are some values to disposable fashion. Aside from the points in my earlier post, cheap clothing are also a great way to test out what you really want and use. For instance, I know that I will get a lot of use out of a champagne colored silk tie neck blouse. Therefore, if I see a good quality one, I would gladly pay good money for one 'cause I know that I would wear it often. On the other hand, the $10 leather blazer I got- I very rarely ever wear it, and now, I know that I should never spend a lot of money on leather blazers.