My experience has been that cheaper clothing, on average, actually lasts longer than the more expensive stuff. The cheap stuff is designed for people who do physical work. even if you don't, the more durable fabric and stitching will stand up to more runs through the washing machine.
The jeans I'm wearing right now are the costco store brand; I bought a bunch during the first .com boom for $12 a pair and used them for quite some time.
My experience has been that more expensive jeans are usually made of thinner, weaker material. I bought a bunch of fairly nice calvin klein brand jeans which cost 3x as much as these jeans and they all suffered catastrophic failures within the first year or so of use. (nearly all of them, I'd go to lift something fairly heavy, I'd hear a tearing noise and feel a draft. Irritating, as I'd have to interrupt the work day to change pants. The costco brand jeans? when they fail it's usually that the knees or the seat would wear through.)
I'm just saying, expense does not correlate very well with durability. Have you ever owned a 10 year old BMW? I can tell you from experience that a 10 year old toyota is going to be more reliable.
I'm sure you can find many counterexamples; I mean, certainly a nice pair of vibram-soled leather boots is going to last longer than any athletic shoe; probably longer enough to make them cheaper over the long-term. Hell, if you want to look "professional" there are specialized work-slacks and button-down shirts made by companies like Dickies that are very durable but also fairly expensive.
But my point is that more expensive is usually not a very good heuristic for more durable, especially when dealing with fashion items.
The jeans I'm wearing right now are the costco store brand; I bought a bunch during the first .com boom for $12 a pair and used them for quite some time.
My experience has been that more expensive jeans are usually made of thinner, weaker material. I bought a bunch of fairly nice calvin klein brand jeans which cost 3x as much as these jeans and they all suffered catastrophic failures within the first year or so of use. (nearly all of them, I'd go to lift something fairly heavy, I'd hear a tearing noise and feel a draft. Irritating, as I'd have to interrupt the work day to change pants. The costco brand jeans? when they fail it's usually that the knees or the seat would wear through.)
I'm just saying, expense does not correlate very well with durability. Have you ever owned a 10 year old BMW? I can tell you from experience that a 10 year old toyota is going to be more reliable.
I'm sure you can find many counterexamples; I mean, certainly a nice pair of vibram-soled leather boots is going to last longer than any athletic shoe; probably longer enough to make them cheaper over the long-term. Hell, if you want to look "professional" there are specialized work-slacks and button-down shirts made by companies like Dickies that are very durable but also fairly expensive.
But my point is that more expensive is usually not a very good heuristic for more durable, especially when dealing with fashion items.