On Buying the Best You Can Afford

I’ve been a fashion journalist for longer than I can now remember, but funnily enough I’ve never thought I was writing about fashion. What I have always been much more interested in is style, taste, and quality in dress. I’d been aware since I was a young man who didn’t have the economic resources to buy clothes in quantity that one good pair of shoes were more important to me than six cheap pairs.

I discovered early on that fashion is something anyone can buy, while style and taste must be acquired, studied, and developed. And of course quality lasts longer and is less expensive in the long run. I learned this from my grandparents, who never wasted anything.

Anderson & Sheppard sport coat, 1983	Photo courtesy of Bruce Boyer and Permanent Style

It became one of my primary rules that I would buy the best I could afford and maintain it.

And I must say that, looking back over it all, I’m rather proud of myself for being one of the few style writers who hasn’t encouraged the buying of grotesque amounts of clothing. Please hold your applause, I’ll get back to this in a minute or two.

What got me thinking on this topic just now was a note from my friend and astute haberdasher Victor Besnard. I’ve known about Victor’s shop for some time because a few years back I bought a handsome regimental striped tie from him, and I’ve been watching his success ever since. So it was lovely to hear from him just this week, and in his note he quoted an article from an old Esquire magazine from the early 1940s.

“Proper care of apparel is now not only a matter of personal economy and appearance, but may be regarded as a small part of the national effort for Victory. Each of us must make things last as long as possible.” (Esquire, August 1942).

These words knocked me absolutely base over apex! I realized of course the context of the quote, that the author was speaking in a time of war and conservation among the civilian population was imperative for the conflict. But what struck me, as it had struck Victor, was the total relevance of the caution.

We are much in need of this advice today, at this moment.

For the past several years now the words I see most often when referring to the manufacturing of clothing are sustainability and globalization. Globalization of course has been with us, one can argue, ever since Asia and Europe started trading with each other, producing the Renaissance and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations to explain the benefits and liabilities of international trade and capital.

But sustainability is another matter. As the writer Dana Thomas and others have made us aware, the clothing industry today produces more garments than at any point in history, yet the discipline of buying thoughtfully and maintaining what we own has never felt more necessary. But while this is all playing out, there are other curiously reactive trends moving fashion in another direction, one more involved with sustainability.

You may have noticed that there are another set of words cropping up in the world of fashion: vintage, curated, and antique among them. Not only are there more and more shops selling “pre-owned” clothing, but whole designing careers in fashion are made by those able to edit history for a tidy profit.

But these days I see more and more of an interest in classic dress as a way of ignoring not only a market saturated with shoddy gear, but as a bow to individuality as well as sustainability. In other words, there are retailers who eschew mall-shopped brands and are providing quality clothing curated to updated traditional good taste. This “small batch” philosophy is the new black in dress.

For myself, buying quality and timeless clothing, nurturing them as one would a friendship – and that’s what good clothes become, good friends – maintaining them in good repair is very much a small part of what we can do to advance sustainability. If we can break through all the media clutter and re-develop the philosophy and way of life that respects what we wear, we may all benefit.