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As the sheer quantity of clothing available to the average American has grown over the past few decades, everything feels at least a little bit flimsier than it used to.

The most obvious indication of these changes is printed on a garment’s fiber-content tag. Knits used to be made entirely from natural fibers. These fibers usually came from shearing sheep, goats, alpacas, and other animals. Sometimes, plant-derived fibers such as cotton or linen were blended in. Now, according to Imran Islam, a textile-science professor and knit expert at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, the overwhelming majority of yarn used in mass-market knitwear is blended with some type of plastic.

Knits made with synthetic fiber are cheaper to produce. They can be spun up in astronomical quantities to meet the sudden whims of clothing manufacturers—there’s no waiting for whole flocks of sheep to get fluffy enough to hand shear. They also usually can be tossed in your washing machine with everything else. But by virtually every measure, synthetic fabrics are far inferior. They pill quickly, sometimes look fake, shed microplastics, and don’t perform as well as wool when worn. Sweaters are functional garments, not just fashionable ones. Wool keeps its wearer warm without steaming them like a baked potato wrapped in foil. Its fibers are hygroscopic and hydrophobic, which means they draw moisture to their center and leave the surface dry. A wool sweater can absorb a lot of water from the air around it before it feels wet or cold to the touch

A significant amount of polyamide or acrylic is now common in sweaters with four-digit price tags. A $3,200 Gucci “wool cardigan,” for example, is actually half polyamide when you read the fine print. Cheaper materials have crept into the fashion industry’s output gradually, as more and more customers have become inured to them. In the beginning, these changes were motivated primarily by the price pressures of fast fashion, Islam said: As low-end brands have created global networks that pump out extremely cheap, disposable clothing, more premium brands have attempted to keep up with the frenetic pace while still maximizing profits, which means cutting costs and cutting corners. Islam estimates that a pound of sheep’s wool as a raw material might cost from $1.50 to $2. A pound of cashmere might cost anywhere from $10 to $15. A pound of acrylic, meanwhile, can be had for less than $1.

This race to the bottom had been going on for years, but it accelerated considerably in 2005, Sofi Thanhauser, the author of Worn: A People’s History of Clothing, told me. That year was the end of the Multifiber Arrangement, a trade agreement that had for three decades capped imports of textile products and yarn into the United States, Canada, and the European Union from developing countries. Once Western retailers no longer had meaningful restrictions on where they could source their garments from, many of them went shopping for the cheapest inventory possible.

  • gabe [he/him]A
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    1 year ago

    Knitting my own garments (sweaters, scarfs, etc) has made me appreciate how long it really takes to make actually good clothing that’s meant to last. Thankfully more and more people are getting on board with the idea of “slow fashion”, with a significant amount of younger people especially during the pandemic picking up knitting and crochet as well as seeing more of the value it possesses than before.

    • meggied90@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I’ve been knitting for a decade but only made my first pair of socks during the pandemic. I bought some wool from a reputable seller in fun colors. It was so fun and they were so comfy, I made several more.

      I almost never wear anything other than my knitted socks these days. They’re just so daggone comfy and they keep my feet warm yet they never feel sweaty, except on extremely hot days when I’m outdoors.

      Wool socks are absolutely luxurious to me now. 10/10 recommend knitting socks if you haven’t already!

    • SolarNialamide@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I’ve been making my own clothes for more than a decade now and I’ve dabbled in knitting and crocheting, but I’ll admit it’s a bit too much for me. I once made a dress where I didn’t have quite enough fabric so the skirt ended up too short and thought, oh, I’ll just a crotchet a nice 15 cm wide decorative border. Problem was it was a circle skirt so the hem was 4m long. Shit took me 15 damn hours lol. I respect people who have the patience for it or just find it fun but that’s not me.

    • jarfil@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I haven’t been knitting since my grandma taught me as a kid, but a couple years ago I just fancied a cotton scarf… and realized that getting a cheap knitting machine and some yarn, was cheaper than getting a scarf made with actual cotton instead of some poly-plastic trash.

      Sure, it took some time getting set up, refreshing that old knowledge, and making a nice cotton pom-pom to put on one end, but on one hand it ended up being cheaper in raw cash, and on the other I got exactly what I wanted.