The pricing is crazy/justified thread

[Faust]

I heard you correctly. :-)

[tweeds]

Or, how can a poly-blend sweater be appreciated when you're comparing it against a cashmere piece?

We are talking about an exchange between matter and sensation,
where the acquired exchange value is of little importance.

Language, language

To throw in another dimension: when it comes to fabrics (the tools of construction of the experience, or sensation), should exchange value enter the question? In other words, should the fact that polyester is cheaper than cashmere influence the judgment of a garment's price or exchange value?

My personal answer tends towards "no", because the use-value/utility of the garment remains equal, but am curious to see how people feel about this.

[Faust]

/\ I guess you are a CdG fan, then.

[syed]

I think the fabric question is a valid one in terms of pricing, but only if considering the garment as a whole. If a designer has two garments that are exactly the same piece, but executed in different materials, the cost has to come into account. Of course a cheaper material that has been treated or otherwise altered will have to reflect the cost of that treatment.

In terms of whether a cotton piece ought to be more expensive than a cashmere piece is a bit arbitrary if phrased like that. You could get really cheap cashmere and make a plain longsleeve. Or you could get cotton, cut and sew and make a really fantastic shirt. I think fabric alone does not give value (as obvious as that sounds), because you are also paying for design and aesthetic (not to mention a multitude of costs along the way). Yes a plain white Ann shirt is most likely constructed better and uses a better fabric than one on the high street, but you are paying for something more than just what is material - even if you don't recognize it or see it, you are paying for the idea/vision.

You have to consider everything within context and look at it as an individual garment. Yes lots of things are overpriced, but where it is a personal concern, things are only ever worth what YOU are willing to pay for them.

*edit* no idea where that emoticon at the top came from...

[tweeds]

/\ I guess you are a CdG fan, then.

Does it show?

Chilton, excellent link & good to see Wendell Castle feels that way. I think what he is speaking out against is valuing material in itself (in a fetishistic way), without more, which I agree with. Of course, one cannot completely remove economic value, also once you begin to work the material into a product it continues to change.

Yes lots of things are overpriced, but where it is a personal concern, things are only ever worth what YOU are willing to pay for them.

Can definitely get with this.

My perspective is that of the consumer and ironically because I buy things secondhand (like plenty of other people of course), often on the basis of pictures, it begins to decontextualise the garment. The season it came from, the way it was styled on the runway and the fabric composition all begin to fall away, leaving the visual details and fragments of background context.

[BECOMING-INTENSE]

You act as if you think garments can be judged much the same way as you would a poem, but poems are manufactured differently than garments... And the varying ways that garments are constructed is one reason for a great variance between prices. It's not the only reason, though.

No, only to the extend that the exchange value of the book you
are holding in your hand and the outfit, a composition of garments,
you're wearing as you passes by me, has no importance to the question:
"Does it work?" But then again, when you find that the pages of a
literary work or the entire surfaces of a painting are invaded by
folds of clothing, and when the folds of clothing spills out of and
exceeds the frame and is realized in polychrome marble sculptures;
and sculptures goes beyond itself by being achieved in architecture;
and in turn architecture discovers a frame in the facade, and
establishes relations to the surroundings so as to realize architecture
in city planing. Despite the difference in "manufacturing", one
prolongs and extends, one connects and relates, one exceeds the
other by a matter that moves through.

But thank you for this: garments are not manufactured the same
way as poems.

[BECOMING-INTENSE]

You should try an orgasm, highly recommended:

Capital is a self-positing absolute that always displaces
its own limits, conjuring away any excessive work or
affection by means of an aversion sacrifice: because one
works so hard, as labourer or entrepreneur, one need
never encounter free activity; because one rebels so
vociferously, as critic or cynic, one need never encounter
an unknown passion.

[Faust]

You should try an orgasm, highly recommended:

.

OMG, I love those!

[copacetic]

Going to try to put a different spin on this thread:

I'd say the price is justified.

Clothing is now manufactured industrially, in huge batches, and the process is largely automated. As such, the cost of clothing that most people around the world purchase is extremely low by historic standards, and the cost as percentage of income goes down year by year. (We find a similar pattern with the cost of food.)

However, with the emphasis on industrial production, artisanal knowledge becomes harder and harder to come by. It is extremely expensive to buy a unique garment (i.e. only one in the world exists) because it is not plausible to automate its manufacture, and so the task becomes finding an artisan able to make an original piece fit to a specific body with a pattern that is not copied directly from somewhere else.

The matter of cheap bespoke suits coming out of Hong Kong could be raised as an objection, but the low-end bespoke artisans are not doing "original" work. They are following strict patterns based on the measurements of the client. It is human automation.

So, to buy a unique garment manufactured by an artisan or team of artisans, accounting for the cost of living of those artisans (who generally are working in developed countries), the price is historically very high because that knowledge is increasingly rare. Historically high yes, but commensurate with the real cost of producing it.

[Faust]

These debates are cute, but ultimately without much of a point. The price is justified if you justify it. That's all. There are extreme examples when common sense prevails and pricing becomes just stupid and fetishistic - like the $1,000 Balmain tee full of holes - but by and large the rest is relative.

[edhohoho]

These debates are cute, but ultimately without much of a point. The price is justified if you justify it. That's all. There are extreme examples when common sense prevails and pricing becomes just stupid and fetishistic - like the $1,000 Balmain tee full of holes - but by and large the rest is relative.

I totally agree with the first part. If you can see the justification--that is, the beauty, utility, craftmanship, whimsicalness, or perfection of the placement of those particular holes, etc.--it's worth it in your mind, regardless of what anyone else says, thinks, or feels is common sense.

Honestly, I don't think realistically I can truly "justify" the price of half the things I buy. I mean, even if I were a designer myself who could source materials, sew, and duplicate any article of clothing, I don't think I would bother to invest the time and effort into doing so.

Sometimes it's just a simple matter of "I just have to have it."

[copacetic]

You're right, it is an intellectual game, but just take an outrageous hypothetical. Would it be justified to charge $1,000,000 for a cotton t-shirt from Fruit of the Loom? The word "justified" is what makes the question easy to dismiss. Well, yes, if some shah of Iran wants to pick up a few, then the price is "justified" to him.

A better word might be reasonable. Is the price reasonable, considering the cost of producing the garment. I.e. does the price the consumer pays cover the cost of production and sustain the livelihoods of the clothing producers without producing a profit margin outside the bounds of what we might consider reasonable. (The average last year for American corporations was around 8%.)

We are trying to "divorce fashion from consumerism," after all, but I don't think it's degrading to acknowledge the material demands that artisans try to meet through their income.

[Faust]

Ahh, reasonable is the whole new ball game. No, the prices are obviously not reasonable. They are quite mental, actually.

But we've talked about this many times and there are many factors affecting the prices - some fair, some not. Actually, I think designer clothing prices are actually in tune with the zeitgeist, the zeitgeist being the stratification of our society - the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer, the middle class is eroding. Now only the rich are able to afford most designer clothing.

The other part that bothers me more is the lowering of quality across the board. There is no denying that. That also reflects the zeitgeist - scarcity of resources leads to increasing prices and when you factor in the price multiplier, that effect becomes big. The erosion of the know-how by shifting production to China also contributes to that - as well as the new generation of buyers that don't have the knowledge of how the garment should be constructed and what quality is.

Thirdly, en masse, our buying habits have changed because of fast fashion. Even as early as 60-70 years ago, a coat would cost you a monthly salary. But it would be a coat of such quality that you'd wear it every day for several years. It was worth it, and there was no scorn for wearing the same thing every day, the way it is now. Today, 99% of society will think you should be put into a mental institution for buying a coat that costs you a monthly salary, but they won't blink at buying a coat a year and then throwing it out.

[eat me]

<...>Today, 99% of society will think you should be put into a mental institution for buying a coat that costs you a monthly salary, but they won't blink at buying a coat a year and then throwing it out.

Amen.

[copacetic]

I'd say in America and Europe that the rising cost of resources is small compared to the rising costs of living: real estate/rent, medical insurance, university education, child care, and major cuts in public programs like social security, and the slow erosion of work benefits like a generous pension.

That's why this clothing is so expensive: it relies on humans more than machines. And we need to pay for their retirement.