LL Bean will replace, repair or refund any product they sell for as long as you own it, no questions asked. Most recently, I had a cotton turtleneck sweater whose collar didn't stay up enough. I had it a year and brought it back on my last trip up there. They looked it up and I opted for a credit (since I was doing some shopping anyway). They replaced an attache I was unhappy with (after 4 or 5 years) with a better version for the difference in place, apologizing that I had to pay the difference for the upgrade. I returned a raincoat that I found unsatisfactory after several years for a full refund in cash.

 

Andy and I have always been leary of what we buy in Home Depot or really anywhere. We give items a good check out and I'll take things out of the box if I can, to see how sturdy they are. There is a lot of junk out there. My daughter would always want to buy the trendy clothes in the junky stores and I would tell her they would fall apart and then I'd be the one who had to sew them back together. Now she likes Victorias Secret. The other extreme.


I shop LLBean too and used to use Lands' End. Once Lands' End was bought by Sear's (?) I found that their quality seemed to go down. I'm talking clothes, towels, sheets, duffle bags, etc. I was always Lands' End loyal but after having their best sheets split on my son's and daughter's beds I switched to LLBean. I did send back the second one and got a free replacement. The first one I thought was because my son was big and I ate it but my daughter is a light weight. LLBean's Egyptian Cotton Towels are thicker and keep their colors.

 

But to me 33" length pant is VERY tall! I'm only 5 feet tall, and buying clothing is not fun.

As you said, if we buy from a specialty store/catalog, the prices are higher, but quality is not there. I bought two pairs of slacks a while ago. They fit fine in the dressing room, not tight, a nice fit. I washed and dried them according to instructions and they shrunk a full size. I pressed them and brought them right back to the store for a refund.

Another off topic issue is that the clothing industry caters to the 19-30 year old crowd. While those styles aren't for me, I don't need grandmotherly style clothing quite yet, which seems to be what a lot of the petite clothing looks like. I used to be able to wear Dockers. They they changed the cut, the material, the style. No more Dockers for me.

I've heard a few stores are going to bring out a clothing line to appeal to the 30 + age group. We'll see how they do.

 

I find myself buying almost all my clothes at Neiman Marcus Last Call or Saks Off-Fifth. I usually pay $30-45 for a business casual shirt, but I find they just last forever. When they have a good sale, you can pick up off-season stuff at a decent price. I even got my last two pairs of shoes there for next to nothing, in the final clearance section.

 

I'll have to return the turtle neck and see what happens.

I returned the aforementioned sports shirt and asked for a replacement; received a shiny weird-color green shirt that I would never wear
...so I gave it to my son Next time, I'll have to ask for a credit or cash

 

Can we call China, India, and Taiwan "overseas" instead of "offshore?" I know that to the marketer, "offshore product" sounds better than "Chinese import," but shouldn't we the customers deny them that when we speak among ourselves? Key West is offshore; China is overseas.

I don't meant to flame; please don't take offense. It just causes me pain to see those of us who lament the importation of all of our consumer goods from the lowest-cost source lapsing into the marketers' own jargon. Let's take the word "offshore" away from them. I'm on my soapbox and I'm trying to start a crusade! Let's deny the bastards this one euphemism. Whenever someone says "offshore," inquire if they mean Key West; if not, use the term "overseas" to refer to their product or service.

 

actually i think the choice of style isn't there in the large stores. i.m.o. just rags. i actually saw a pair of jeans ,can't call them blue as they are two toned and looked like they needed washing. there was holes in them. just worn out from the chemicals used in production.$75.00 is this fashion? i guess i am my parents.
i agree we all shop for a bargain just getting harder to finder it.
on another note i have been in construction for thirty five years and where have all the qualified trades people gone to?

 

I was actually thinking that the technology would be great for dress shirts. Having the right collar size, the right sleeve length and opening, the right tail length, maybe a bit of postural adjustment, and most importantly the choice of whether one needs the chest larger or the waist larger - that would be really nice. There aren't a lot of other styling differences in dress shirts, just maybe whether or not they are button down and whether to put a front pocket on them.

Plus, people who wear them are likely to need five or eight at a time.

 

It's pretty hard to knock Wal Mart / Target / Home Depot when we all know what insides look like. As much as anything the market defines the product they want/will accept, but in the case of Wal Mart, they have taken the ball and run with it.

I also agree with KEDO regarding the trades--is this because all of our cheap labor comes from "offshore"?

I've taken an opposite tack with some of my products--because I can make them (relatively) inexpensively overseas, I use better methods or better materials. For example, I just got back from Taiwan, and will be making suspension pieces for trucks by forging them, instead of laser-cutting, as is the preferred local method. The resultant piece is more robust and OEM-like. No harm no foul.

Maybe people are starting to define more items as "commodities" than before, and therefore are just buying on price. In that case, it is the responsibility of the seller to define their product so it stays separate from everything else at the Wal Marts of the world.

 

Great discussion going on here.

33" and 34" inseams are considered tall. 36" inseams are extra tall. Remember, the mass merchandisers want to carry only those items that will sell in quantity. That is why it is almost impossible to find much in the way of big and tall in those stores. Similarly, that is why it is almost impossible to find short or small sizes there as well. For women, it is only lately (past 10 to 15 years) that the departments stores and mass merchandisers have created "Petite" departments. For men, small sizes are almost impossible to find.

Those of you needing 36" inseams generally have to go to "big and tall" shops. You pay more, but not for quality, rather for the availablilty of the item. To a certain degree, you are also paying more because those inseam lengths require more fabric, and the consumption costs go up. (I know this first hand, I was trained as a cutter/marker/patternmaker when I took my apprenticeship).

Big and tall shops are interesting places in that they cater to a captive audience. By time a man or woman finds his or her way into one of these stores he or she has generally exhausted all of the other, more common stores. Typically a big and tall customer is forced to settle for whatever he/she can find that fits. In my day, an awful lot of last year's fabrics and leftovers went into b & t production, and the stores were glad to get it. There is nothing especially wrong with the merchandise except that it may be last year's fabric, color or cut. I mention this as my way of saying that if you shop there, keep your eyes open.

Made to order jeans never really took off. Not so much for the fit, but rather because of the price. They were too costly and the market in general didn't want to pay that much for jeans. There was an attempt, in better menswear, to move towards laser cutting and computerized sewing, and some of it had been implemented by the time I left the industry, but the laser cutting and computerized production wasn't sophisticated enough to eliminate human operated sewing machines. Computerized marking was becoming a topic, but the computers weren't sophisticated enough at that point, and the initial investment was much greater than an industry of small businesses could afford.

All of that said, there really is no secret to quality in the clothing industry. Quality costs more to produce and has to be sold for higher prices. Mass merchandisers prefer, for some reason, to compete on price. Actually, the reason is clear. Quality is invisible, price is visible. Quality in clothing is subjective, price is not. Price seems to sell, quality does too, but only a little. That is why the quality of clothing available appears to be on a downward spiral.

Finally, someone mentioned fashion and style. That too is very costly. Fashion clothing goes out of style "on the rack" and has to be given away. The garments that do sell have to carry the markup for those garments that don't. That causes prices to be higher. Unlike quality, fashion is very visible, but, the consumer has to be willing to pay for it. That is part of the reason that stores like the Gap were delighted to promote fashions like the "Preppie" look. That fashion was actually a non-fashion fashion. If you can convince your customer to buy the Khaki twill pants year after year, you eliminate the risk of the item dieing on the rack. But, your fashion soon becomes a commodity item, and the only way to compete is price, and the only way to gain an advantage is by lowering quality. And, the spiral goes round and round.

Fashion is not conducive to mass merchandising. Mass merchandising requires committments to be made months in advance. Mass merchandising requires huge quantities of an item, and mass merchandising requires regional or national distribution. None of those things favor fashion.