Oh God, it appears that I did not tell the Anecdote of the Pajamas! While my mom was staying at her mother-in-law's house during the week of no electricity, my grandmother made all kinds of characteristically inane and unanswerable statements. Two related favorites were the observations that my mom "sure has a lot of sweaters" (my mom wore 3 different cardigans over the course of a week) and "sure has a lot of pajamas" (my grandmother apparently owns one nightgown, with holes, that she wears every night). This puts my mom in the uncomfortable position that she is supposed to justify these facts. I told her that she needs to respond to these kinds of statements with a short denial of their truth, like "Not really" or "No, I don't." You just cannot let my grandmother define the reality in which you are interacting with her.
I also did not mention how for like three straight days, my mom and sister, in independent decisions, dressed in strangely similar clothing, down to the point of each selecting one day to wear a puffy light blue coat and another to wear a lightweight white jacket on our walk. (I mean, consider the coincidence of them both owning these items, J bring these items with her, and then them both choosing to wear them at the exact same time with no knowledge of the other's intentions.) With J styling Mom's hair with her flat iron, so that they both had very straight blonde hair with bangs to the side, the overall look was a bit eerie. (Thankfully, they are different sizes and Mom's hair is much lighter than J's, so they avoided a cookie cutter look.) Christmas day, they both had red turtleneck sweaters on and I sort of fit their theme by wearing a red hoodie sweater over a white shirt. One day late in the week, all four of us kids had long sleeved grey shirts on, no doubt preparing subconsciously to be easily indentifiable as a team in the event that a spontaneous football game against the neighbor's children were to occur.
Anyway, in addition to this birthday stuff, my mom also gave me a bunch of shirts that she bought, washed, dried, and shrank to be exactly my size. Every one of the shirts fit better than the shirt I had been wearing before trying these others on.
When I finally was well enough to emerge from the apartment yesterday, Robert and I went to Academy and in addition to the socks, I bought two skirts from the clearance rack - one for $4.94 and one for $1.44. I liked how the $1.44 skirt, the freebie shirt I was wearing, and my standby $7 Wal-Mart shoes made for a Super Cheap Ass outfit. (This photo is taken at a kind of wonky angle, but for fear of dredging up the whole "Jennifer Love Hewitt responding to the bikini photos by mentioning an unflattering angle and not leaving it with the admittedly awesome remarks about how women's bodies are considered public property and fuck anybody who thinks it's their business whether she's fat" outrage, I am loathe to comment that I do not look pregnant in this skirt when my body is not twisted at the waist and observe that it is indeed very low waisted.)
Needless to say, it would be impossible for me to replicate this skirt and shirt combo for $1.44 sewing by hand, unless I got all the patterns, fabric, trim, buttons, and zippers for free and I valued my time at nothing - actually, since I haven't yet attempted to put a zipper into anything, it may be utterly impossible full stop.
By the way, reading this blog post about the whole "Frugal Purchase of Quality (Hence Expensive) Stuff" issue, and the comments in which roughly 852 people talk about how the clothing, shoes, and purses they buy at Wal-Mart type stores fall apart immediately, makes me wonder what the hell other people are doing to their clothes to destroy them so easily. Did I accidentally blunder into the Little Kid Message Board where a bunch of 8 year old boys who regularly engage in insanely rough physical activity were comparing notes? I cannot think of a single garment from my adulthood - aside from underwear, socks, and a set of 3 men's white undershirts I tie-dyed and have been wearing at least once a week (now with pj pants) for 20 years - that has fallen apart or even taken damage of that kind. The things most likely to hurt my clothes are stains, and "quality" clothing is no more resistant than any other. To the degree that I would want durable clothing that can stand up to actual rough treatment, I would find myself gravitating toward things like the $21 Dickies pants that are made to be worked in.
A few years ago I finally gave up on some cheap Kmart cotton pants ever showing any wear whatsoever after over 10 years and donated them to Goodwill because I wasn't interested in continuing to wear pleat-front pants. Despite the claims of some of those commenters and others that one should buy "quality" clothing that "lasts forever," I do not want to be locked into wearing the same pairs of pants for my entire life. Styles change, my tastes change, and god knows my body changes a lot. In many cases, it is simply untrue that I can buy a piece of clothing and wear it forever.
It's like people in the online frugality community want to avoid at all costs making what seems to me to be a real, common argument for buying "quality" clothing - that other people will notice and respect the quality (and hence the expense) of the item, giving the wearer prestige or status points. There are situations in which this is, to me, a completely valid reason; if your office/profession puts a lot of stock in having the right look, and your colleagues and bosses will note that you are wearing a cheap suit or cheap pair of shoes and evaluate you negatively, by all means invest in quality stuff and dress for success. But it's a real stretch, to me, to use this logic on things like the t-shirt and jeans you wear on the weekend, unless it is really important to you to impress your friends, neighbors, and complete strangers in the grocery store. And of course, it's the rare person (especially in the frugality community) who is willing to admit that, even though social status is a common motivation in a great many aspects of people's lives. As a student, I don't have any colleagues or clients to impress with my clothing, and dressing as well as a kid at Bobcat High is really not a challenge. But I know that I tend to believe people do things for social reasons more than people believe themselves to do, and I should not forget the prevalent heuristic that cost = quality that could be leading people to make incorrect judgments. (In other words, people could be wrong about their own thinking for reasons other than the key ones I have identified. Heh.)
As to shoes and accessories, I am lucky that my feet aren't hugely picky about what they wear in casual circumstances (exercise is different) so I don't have to invest in expensive specialty shoes. (I do have to admit that after many attempts to go cheap, I have found cheap canvas sneakers to be uncomfortable and just not shaped very well compared to somewhat costlier Keds or Rocket Dog. This difference is noticeable in the store, so I have not erred in buying.) Robert has worn belts from a variety of makers and price points and has not found Coach to actually hold up any better than the ones from Mens Wearhouse. Sure, this is only one person's experience, but it is not consistent with the theory that "quality lasts forever" or at least better than cheaper alternatives. I wonder whether people are just remembering the instances that support this theory (that one cheap Wal-Mart purse that fell apart, that one pair of expensive shoes that wore forever) and forgetting the ones that are inconsistent.
None of this should be taken as an argument that people shouldn't buy whatever the hell kind of clothes, shoes, etc., they want, if they can afford them. The best reason for buying anything, of whatever quality level, is the pleasure that you yourself get out of looking at/interacting with an item. But I get weary of the arguably bogus justifications that people use and the moral grandstanding that they sometimes engage in. Buying quality because it lasts and is thus environmentally friendlier is another questionable rationalization. If you really wanted to get green for its own sake, wouldn't you buy as much as you could second-hand? Actually, buying used can be a great way to get quality at a cheap-ass price and has much to recommend it, if you have the time and will to sort through the junk and take a chance on finding something you like. If you need something really specific, like a nice pair of black pants for work, getting them from a second-hand store can be a timewaster and ultimate failure, however.
2 comments:
I've only had one sweater that I bought at K-Mart fall apart the first time I washed it. I had to sew up seams everytime I washed it until I got tired of that and got rid of it. Other than that most of my problems are with unremovable stains, as Sally said. I have had more expensive clothing that shrank horribly in the wash (even following washing directions), so it isn't always true that the more you spend the better the quality. It really should be taken on a case by case basis.
Mom - although of course I love it when the expensive clothing fits to be precisely my size :) This is even better than shopping at Goodwill. Cheap and all I have to do is try it on. It's only one step removed having a personal shopper.
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