For several years now, people have started to buy their clothes better: they are educating themselves about quality, know-how, shapes and colors.
And they are willing to invest a little more in their wardrobe... When it is justified of course.
But some are quickly surprised by the fact that clothes "live":
"My shirt has shrunk/expanded a bit after two years, and my jeans have faded a bit! Yet I thought I had invested in quality..."
"It's weird, there are small irregularities in the material"
"This linen shirt is really not practical, it gets wrinkled after a day, which was not the case with my old cotton shirts"
This article will help you differentiate between a quality problem and normal characteristics of clothes .
In short, take a step back and consider what we can expect from quality clothing.
Living and natural materials
What I call a "living material" is a natural material, which will live its life, move a little, adapt to your morphology, acquire a patina...
It is an imperfect but human and living material, and therefore beautiful in its texture, its authenticity, its poetry (see Japanese doctrine of wabi sabi ).
1. Fading Indigo
The most common example is of course the indigo of raw jeans . As a reminder, Milone, a workwear specialist, has written two in-depth articles on indigo: the history of indigo and the use of indigo around the world .
Indigo is a pigment - in general - natural, not very fixing by nature, but that is its whole interest .
This results in jeans or shirts that will fade over time, where the material rubs and works the most, reflecting your lifestyle and habits.
The more the yarn is dyed with a high density of indigo pigments, right down to the heart of the fiber, the more subtle the fading that will appear afterwards will be , with reflections ranging from turquoise to sky blue, sometimes even emerald or touching on reds and purples on certain fabrics treated with pomegranate peel for example .
Every morning, a big bowl of indigo.
The jeans with the most beautiful washes even find their place in Halls of Fame on the Internet , and there is a whole community around the washes of raw jeans, which for example has fun slipping coins or other small objects into the pockets to see them appear transparently when the outer fabric fades.
The thousand shades of natural indigo that fades, all in subtlety. You will never get that with synthetic pigments and mordants.
It is a material that changes, that acquires a patina, even if it means leaking a little pigment onto your sneakers or the inside of your blazers. But it is a material that lives.
Before / after on our Kurabo canvas, with natural indigo and in "deep core diying".
It's 1,000 times more interesting than having jeans with artificially fixed colors, which fade without subtlety instead of developing a patina: this is what I call dead materials.
Our advice for choosing and wearing jeans is here
2. Wear and aging of leather
We find exactly the same thing with leather.
On one side, we have vegetable leathers which are animal skins, but tanned with bark, resins, and natural oils. .
These leathers develop a patina, become puckered in places that rub, and smooth out in others when they are stretched. . But they live with you, they are witnesses to your history, they retain that organic and raw side which makes it leather, and not an alien substance from the KGB labs .
Vegetable leather, when the product is new.
The same leather that has patinated after 1 or 2 years.
On the other hand, there are metal tannings. which “kill” the leather; fix it completely.
These are the most widely used leathers, both for cost reasons, but also for consumer preference reasons, particularly in women's fashion where customers prefer their accessories and shoes to maintain a clean and unalterable appearance over time. . The same goes for a good part of men's luxury.
I can completely understand that, but the important thing is not to mistake a vegetable leather that develops a patina for a bad leather, on the pretext that it would get "dirty" more quickly .
The real evil being leather that is completely dead and suffocated, like bookbound leather, which is leather that has been scraped, sanded, and covered with a plastic film .
It looks very nice and clean in the store, it allows you to pass off poor quality and veined leather as cream, except that it wears disgustingly, it doesn't develop a patina at all, it dries out quickly under the plastic film, and it makes lots of creases where the leather works .To be avoided completely!
The typical rendering of a bookbound leather. You can smell the plastic from here.
Moreover, the Jacques et Demeter brand has published a fascinating article on vegetable tanning .
To read our leather guide, click here
3. The cotton that fluffs
Another phenomenon often mistaken for a lack of quality: cotton that fluffs up as it wears out and becomes softer .
Some quality cottons, especially heavyweight fabrics, are specifically designed to last and soften and fluff over time (that's the whole point).
Especially since cotton that has been artificially downed is called... flannel.
Except for flannel, the process is a little more abrasive. , whereas good cotton naturally fluffs up, and its strength is preserved.
Detail of an American military shirt that has started to fluff up quite a bit.
The fast fashion version of a "gabardine" from a brand that starts with a Z. Already new, it doesn't create any emotion, that's what I call a dead, sanitized material.
Want to know the history of the t-shirt? Here it is
4. Wrinkling linen
Well, this may make some people smile, but we sometimes get feedback from readers who complain that their linen shirt creases more than a cotton shirt .
Sure, it's uncomfortable and looks sloppy to wear a shirt covered in big wrinkles, but we're not talking about extreme cases here, just a few wrinkles in the back at the end of a hot day.
So it's nothing more than an intrinsic property of linen . It crinkles, it lives, well yes, and that's how it is, it's part of the trip. And on the other hand, it's more airy, it's much stronger than cotton.
Yes, it's a bit wrinkled. No, it's not all smooth.
We have to realize that creases on clothes are completely normal, and we have to completely get away from this sanitized vision of an outfit without creases that beginners sometimes have when they're a bit overzealous because they've looked at lookbooks where the clothes have been retouched on the computer.
Especially since it is the outfits that are too clean, without creases, with materials that are flat, and without a single hair sticking out, that make nice boy looks too smooth. . A little spontaneity and letting go never hurt anyone !
Our complete guide to linen
5. Oiled cotton and its nuances
I'm not going to dwell on the oiled cotton of " Barbour type" jackets, but there again it oozes at first, it's a bit greasy, but it calms down afterwards, and after a season the result is magnificent.
Like you've been walking around in this jacket your whole life.
It was worth getting your hands a little dirty at first!
New oiled cotton: it shines and oozes. Could do better (nice jeans, though).
6. Quality wool that fluffs a little, then not at all
Lint-producing wool is not a sign of poor quality .
In the case of high-quality wools, and in particular beautiful cashmere , fluffing is an inevitable step, resulting from the evacuation of short fibers.
The real difference between quality and wild wadding is not visible before about ten washes :
- Quality : fluff appears quickly but then gradually disappears on beautiful wools,
- Piggies : Fluff appears more slowly , but the process then lasts a very long time, even for life, until the material is completely thinned and holes appear.
Tempting softness and fullness in store. Yet no certainty about the quality at this stage!
7. Virgin wools that stand up to anything
Another misconception about wool.
Many consumers summarize the situation as:
- soft wool = quality
- rough wool = dirty stuff
Yet nothing could be further from the truth!
The wool from fast fashion chains is always super soft, because it is full of softeners : so much cover-up that hides a wool that will become rough and "flat" later, and very often will fall apart, pill for life, and develop holes after a few washes, due to the lack of sufficient density in long fibers.
It's a bit like the bookbinding leathers, which these chains are also fond of.
On the other hand, a choice wool is rough, and lasts for years, while softening . This is for example the case with very fine lamb's wool.
The good big SNS Herning knit from one of the BonneGueule forum members. It's raw, it's solid, it's functional, and it won't change after the first wash. And what a relief gain for a look!
Help, your sweater is pilling, we explain why
The matter that moves the least?
Well it's synthetic!
Synthetic is relatively inert. It will hardly move after machine washing or tumble drying.
On the other hand, it is a material which has many faults :
- No breathability
- No more body odor appearing
- Poor, standardized colors, without nuances
- It doesn't patina, it wears out in an ugly way.
- Oh yes, and it shines very quickly when subjected to friction (= magnificent shiny halos under the elbows and on the knees of poor quality suits).
In short, it's a perfect material if you don't care about your image, your comfort, and generally the quality of your clothes.
Perfect if you make a ball of it in the evening, throw it in the washing machine at 90°, and relax the next day with the shirt and suit that make you sweat on public transport.
But after all, each to their own choice. .
Zoom in on a polyester fiber (inert, no particular properties) and on a wool fiber (with its scales which allow the regulation of heat and humidity).
Natural treatments
Well, you've got the thing about materials right, and I could have given plenty of other examples.
Then comes the treatment: dyes, coating , flaming , calendering , etc.
As I wrote, starting from the same natural material , we can quite easily arrive at a material which retains its vital force, or at a sanitized and dead result, such as leathers tanned with metals or wools stuffed with additives.
Which shows that you can do a lot of things with natural things.
Respect for your health
Ultimately, choosing living clothing is a bit like choosing to eat organic food, with its little visual defects, but real taste and the absence of preservatives that harm us in the long term.
The element that must be taken into account here is the chemical dimension.
There are harmless mechanical primers but also chemical primers .
Certainly some chemical agents can improve a fabric , but you have to be careful about their toxicity every time .
In the early days of BonneGueule, I had an allergy. in the middle of a press evening while I was testing a shirt from a low-end brand.
There are labels attesting to the non-harmfulness of materials, but they are mainly present in the high-end.
We can cite the international labels bluesign® , OEKO-TEX® , or even the European label Master of Linen®
That said, the best way to avoid taking risks is to favor 100% natural materials, also treated naturally (or via mechanical finishing).
Respect for the environment and people
For a fabric that will cause you allergies, one can easily imagine what its large-scale production inflicts on the workers in the factories that produce it. The same goes for nature and for cases of poisoning of the water consumed by populations.
Isn't it reassuring to know that the clothes you buy and wear aren't causing trouble 10,000 km from home, or even causing deaths?
Thank you living materials.
Industrial chemical dyeing plant in China, in the northeastern region of Tianjin.
Indigo extraction in India.
Artisanal fabric dyeing in Fez, Morocco.
The case of natural dyes
Finally, there are more and more natural dyes, particularly for cotton.
The phenomenon is still recent, we do not yet find all the shades , but we still manage to produce very beautiful blue, brown, ochre, red, violet, beige, ecru colors with 100% natural pigments .
Of course there is natural indigo, but we can also mention avocado skins (purple), cochineal (red), henna (brown), rosebuds (pink), wood bark (brown, beige), or even saffron (yellow).
Example of shades that you can obtain yourself quite easily.
Here again we are dealing with living materials : the pigments are less fixed and they fade in places like shirts and jeans dyed with indigo.
Besides, the fixing agents can also be natural: alum, oxalic acid (extracted from rhubarb), cream of tartar, gallic acid (extracted from a type of carob), sodium carbonate (already used by the Egyptians), iron sulfate , etc.
The final shades are not necessarily super uniform, but this is what gives real, more raw looks, anchored in a real reality. Brands like Visvim or GANT Rugger are also developing these uses a lot.
Hiroki Nakamura, the founder of Visvim.
I also advise you to take a look at the website of the brand Johanna Riplinger , entirely developed using natural pigments. Its creator also develops her own materials, some very beautiful, with partners located in India. .
Johanna Riplinger and her creations. This gives you another example of the range of natural dyes. This would also be a good area of work for us, even if the subject is still quite experimental.
The soul of the garment
Finally, living materials bring a certain extra soul to a garment .
Knowing the history of its design, its production techniques, and who were the hands that held the thread and the needle, means taking with you some of the men and women who were involved in the process.
And I don't think it's just a psychological thing, or a clear conscience.
But rather all the micro-details that we don't see clearly at first glance, but which make us say to ourselves "this garment fits really well, it exudes something, it really has a look" .
An example of a brand full of soul is the Inis Meáin sweaters, made in the Aran Islands in Ireland.
Objects with multiple lives
"Luxury is what can be repaired" Charles-Émile Hermès (1831-1876)
It's a little saying that the clothing industry has really forgotten in recent years.
However, it is a real gauge of the quality of a product: we prefer to repair a garment or resoled shoes that are showing their age and scratches rather than throwing them away and replacing them.
Because quality clothes develop a patina instead of wearing out.
I would even say that the more patina and small scratches they take on, the more "face" they have. A bit like a person, they gain character. This also gives them their soul guarantee.
The Japanese (them again) even have an art that I find brilliant: Kintsugi. It involves repairing broken objects (especially ceramics) using lacquer sprinkled with gold powder.
The breakage is then highlighted and magnified. It is a beautiful philosophy that respects the past of the object, and presents its accidents not as a date of scrapping, but as the beginning of the next cycle of use.
We can also talk about Boro fabrics, originally the patched kimonos with coarse stitching (sashiko) of the poor of the last century. Today, they are collector's items:
How long can you really expect a garment to last?
1. The frequency factor
Last important point, when you rebuild your wardrobe, you have to take into account the frequency of wearing.
Often, a beginner who starts to overhaul his wardrobe will only wear new clothes that he loves, simply because at this stage he has few clothes that he is really happy with.
This is why some people will wear the same shirt 1 or 2 days a week for example. And then be surprised that it breaks down after 1 or 2 years, when 100 wearings and washings is perfectly acceptable (try to visualize 100 complete washing cycles, plus the intensive wearing afterwards).
It is therefore not surprising that a very nice shirt reveals a hole in the elbow after 2 or 3 years of intensive wear, or that a pair of Japanese canvas jeans gives you a hole in the crotch after 2 years if you wear them every other day, possibly combined with good thighs, weight changes or motorbike trips.
Here is a short list of the acceptable lifespan of a garment, with a reasonable frequency of wearing (2 to 4x / month) , a garment chosen in your size without particular tension and friction. , and compliance with maintenance conditions :
- T-shirt : hard to say, even at the entry level. Cotton T-shirts are solid because cotton jersey is a stable material that lasts over time. A T-shirt can therefore easily last several years, except for more fragile material blends such as cotton/silk on very high-end T-shirts, or on really light weights.
- Shirt : more or less three years. A beautiful material can last over time. It is mainly the quality of the heat-sealing of the collar that determines its lifespan. It is this which allows the collar to hold (or not).
- Chino : about three years. It is not the material that will give way first but the dye, which will lose its shine.
- Jean : about three years. I remind you that it should not be worn every day for such a lifespan. It also depends on the thickness of the fabric, the morphology of the wearer, and even the way he walks. The wear points of a pair of jeans are all different depending on the person.
- Wool sweater : it all depends on the thickness of the knit... and the moths in your closet. So at least 3 years for a fine knit and at least five years for a chunky knit.
- Jacket/blazer : if the piece is fully canvassed, the lifespan is measured in decades. Otherwise, four to five years for a semi-canvassed piece.
- Suit pants : about three years should pass before you notice any wear on the material at the friction points. .
- Coat : five years or more, depending on the thickness of the material.
I hope this will help you frame your requirements and adjust your budget accordingly .
2. Every object has a lifespan.
We must therefore accept that all clothing remains a consumable. Simply because an indestructible garment does not exist. and that nothing is immortal .
At some point I'll have to say bye bye to him though :'(
Depending on the quality we buy, we therefore find:
- Low-end consumables , which wear out quickly and rapidly lose their aesthetic and functional properties (extreme example: fast fashion )
- Clothes that can last a generation , sometimes two for the very beautiful leather lenses and traditional tailor's suits... but which always give up the ghost at some point, or rather which leave their natural death (extreme example: luxury crafts).
Because yes, even in the best qualities, there comes a time when after its first wrinkles and its last holes, a garment lets you down for good. .
It's up to you to take the deceased fabric in your arms, tell it one last lullaby, and then let it sail away to the paradise of nice clothes. After all, it will have served you well all this time.
