I’ve never really understood the appeal of paying more for a shirt just because it has a brand like Nike or Adidas or something with another brand that sells a product printed across it when a plain, unbranded one costs less.
If you think about it, walking around wearing a giant logo is basically acting as a walking billboard for that company. Usually, if a company wants to advertise on a billboard, they have to pay for the space. But with branded clothes, people not only provide the advertising space for free, they actually pay extra for the privilege.
It feels a bit backwards to me. For those of you who prefer branded clothing, what makes it worth the extra cost for you?
Edit: I’m not speaking of sports equipment. Just clothing you would wear to the movies, the store, etc.
Maybe they’re better.
But I checked my email, my first hoodie from them was 2013. I still got it, still unfaded jet black, stitching still great, cuffs still elastic.
Shows no sign of age and even tho I have more, it’s still in rotation.
It’ll easily make it to 15 years probably 20.
But yeah, if you’re not American the fact that it’s made by Americans from American cotton by a company that treats it’s workers well isn’t a big point.
There’s not many companies like that for Americans to support tho, which is why it’s one of the few products I’ll bother to name or even being up on social media.
It’s literally exactly what American consumers keep saying we want, it’s just to make what we want is expensive.
If you want some more companies like that, check my most recent post about the Crafted With Pride catalog.
After spending some time with it, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s actually a lot of high quality manufacturers that have garbage websites and probably abysmal SEO. It shouldn’t matter, but it does. To be fair, I’ve mostly been looking at sites for suppliers, not necessarily the end products, though.
Between this and your other comment, I think you’ll really like these channels:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheIronSnail
https://www.youtube.com/@RoseAnvil
The second one is mostly shoes/boots but they’ve got a good Dickies vs Carhartt video from the last couple days:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxqlHJFwS8E
But, none of those videos are “fashion”, they actually break down not only which products are high quality or just good value, but also if a company is PE or if they’re ethical.
The first one does a lot of history videos as well. Like, just randomly going off about 80+ year old cold weather jackets and the mechanics of how they were effective with low tech.
It’s kind of weird that clothing is such a basic thing that we use constantly and most people (including myself) just really don’t even know what makes something good.
They actually pay their workers? That’s awesome!!
I’ve had my hoodies for 2 years, still looks brand new after weekly usage (cold wash only!), but now I really want to try to get a hoodie from American Giant!