Your wardrobe just isn't accessible. All of your recommendations are so expensive.
Hmmmm, what kind of reaction are you looking for, Anon? I am not your enemy.
You need to rethink what "accessible" means wrt clothing. (Especially bearing in mind you are on the blog of a guy who likes to wear vintage style suits, which puts us firmly in "luxury items" territory.)
We are currently living in an era where those who make clothing are criminally under compensated, with ever increasing demands to cut costs, yet produce faster. Fashion is both a sustainability and labor issue.
We are also living in an era where even the raw materials for clothing are undergoing enshitification and this has fucked with people's perceptions for how long clothes should last.
But I am determined to build a wardrobe where pieces last for 10+ years, if cared for properly. And I know I have some things that absolutely will outlive me.
For these reasons, I am not going to recommend $15 or even $50 dress shirts, especially given they will fall apart after a season or two.
My wardrobe is a 25+ year long project of discovering what I like, how to assess quality, and getting my finances in a place where I can buy good pieces. My closet is not meant to be achievable overnight or even within a few years, because it sure as hell didn't happen that way for me.
Trying to build a fashionable wardrobe (again, the word is *fashionable* because presumably that is why you are here) on a budget?
1) Thrifting and garment swaps are still options (be sustainable and get the quality of the past!), with more choices if you can get garments altered. Gem.app will always be high on my recommendations list for this reason.
2) Making relationships with sewists and tailors and working out fair compensation (be it money, trade, being a pattern tester, etc) is an option
3) Saving up where you only buy 1 or 2 new, quality pieces of clothing a year is an option and should actually be the norm for everyone - we all buy too many clothes (myself included) and need to reset our expectations for how big a wardrobe should be + how often to change clothes
4) Learning how to make garments on your own is an option (one I am taking), especially given free resources such as libraries, YouTube tutorials, the Internet Archive, etc.
Good clothing does and should cost money and time. Especially if you want to wear tailored garments made from nice fabrics, which is my style and presumably why you came across my blog. (It's important I reiterate this point.) Honestly, the fact I can find a 3-piece wool suit new, in a vintage cut that fits me off-the-rack for $1k feels like stealing.
I spent most of my adult life climbing the Old Navy > Gap > Banana Republic fashion ladder, not realizing that nearly all of that clothing is cheap crap, especially things made post-2005. Now that I can afford nice stuff, there is a world of difference between my $15 flannel shirts and the $90 ones. Vimes Boot Theory, but with the caveat that the $15 shirt should not even exist.
(I love Vimes Boot Theory, but it needs a companion theory from the perspective of the bootmaker.)
It may sound shocking to you, but nearly all my wardrobe recommendations sit on the low end of price vs quality. I still have to mend my clothes, fix poor workmanship, and alter things to fit.
If you want decent quality clothing ("decent" = lasting for years), you honestly should be expecting to pay at least $100 for a new dress shirt, $300 for new boots, $300 for new woolen trousers. And yeah, $1k for a suit. These are bare minimum fair prices for off-the-rack.
You have to get comfortable with the fact that you will be paying some combination of time + money if you want nice things. (Even inexpensive things that are good quality take time to learn about, find, and maintain!) But the outcome - longer lasting stuff that makes you feel good - is hopefully worth the investment.
Garment construction deserves fair compensation and if your current salary is locking you out where you cannot get a few good, new things a year, the problem is that your own labor isn't being fairly compensated. Scold your boss, not me.
Again, I am not your enemy. But you need to recalibrate your thinking about what our standards for clothing should really be, with all the labor involved to achieve those standards.
And one more time - you're also complaining that my luxury fashion wardrobe is a luxury. Please also learn how to prioritize your wants vs your needs.
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