Don’t Buy That Sweater
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 พ.ค. 2024
- We’re in the coldest season. We’re in the shopping season. We’re in the season of hygge. All the cues point to buying yourself a new cozy sweater. Don’t do it, until you hear what Atlantic staff writer Amanda Mull has to say about the cratering quality of knitwear. For years I’ve wondered why my sweaters pilled so quickly, or why they suffocated me, or smelled like tires. And then I read Mull’s recent story, “Your Sweaters Are Garbage.” It turns out that international trade agreements, greedy entrepreneurs, and my own lack of willpower have conspired to erode my satisfaction.
In this episode, Hanna talks with Amanda Mull-who writes the Atlantic column “Material World”-about why so many consumer goods have declined in quality over the last two decades. As always, Mull illuminates the stories the fashion world works hard to obscure, about the quality of fabrics, the nature of working conditions, and about how to subvert a system that wants you to keep buying more. “I have but one human body,” she says. “I can only wear so many sweaters.”
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Knitter here:
Sweaters are definitely a "you get what you pay for" proposition. As someone who makes their own sweaters by hand, I can attest this applies to the un-knit yarn as well as to finished commercially made garments. It doesn't pay to cut corners, because when the consumers cut corners, they are getting hit with products in which the industry has already cut many corners.
For people who say wool is always scratchy, please understand, you're not supposed to wear the sweaters right next to your skin. Put on a shirt, then put on the sweater. Also, scratchiness varies by the type of wool, i.e. the animal it got shaved off of. If you see a lush, plushy, luxurious-looking Aran fisherman sweater like the one Billy Crystal wore in "When Harry Met Sally" with all the fancy cable patterns on it, there are two options there - either that's not a real Aran fisherman sweater but a sweater made from a soft, luxurious wool knitted in an Aran stitch pattern, or it is a real Aran fisherman sweater and it's scratchy as hell. Real Aran fisherman sweaters are sweaters for real fisherman from the Aran Isles. They're not meant to be soft and lush. They're meant to be waterproof and able to take hard punishment on a working fishing vessel. They are made from pure wool, all right, but it's wool from breeds of sheep that grow hard, strong hairs coated in lanolin, the oily secretion from the skin of sheep. They are warm, weather resistant, and long-lasting, and they are very uncomfortable on your skin. If you buy a handmade Aran sweater from the very islands themselves, knitted in the proper traditional fashion, that's what you will get. If you were expecting to feel all cuddly and romantic in it, you will be disappointed. Warm but disappointed.
If you want to feel cuddly and romantic, then you need wool from an animal with much softer hair. Merino sheep give probably the softest sheep's wool of all the common breeds. It's still too scratchy for some people, so for them I would recommend alpaca (llama), cashmere (goat), buffalo (buffalo), yak (yak), or qiviut (muskox). All of those are cloud-soft and oven-warm. If someone you know is still so delicate that the feather-light caress of muskox hair will damage them, you can get all these luxe fibers blended with silk, which will smooth them right out. If that doesn't stop their whining, then just dress them in the plastic because there's no pleasing them.
Btw, a lot of people - including the leaders of the fast-fashion garment industry - will tell you that acrylic is an excellent, hypoallergenic, non-scratchy substitute for wool. It is true that acrylic sweaters can be warm, but do yourself a favor and never, ever pay full price for any kind of acrylic sweater. Pay as little as you possibly can because you're going to have buy a new one in less than two years. If you keep a good wool sweater safe from moths, it could likely last you the rest of your life and become an heirloom for your descendants because wool is extremely durable. Acrylic is not. It stretches, it unravels, it breaks. In a single season of regular wear, you will see the visible deterioration of your acrylic sweater. After a second or at most a third season, it will be unwearable. Wear whatever you like, but keep the durability issue in mind for your budget's sake. I've seen very expensive sweaters made from acrylic. Never pay wool prices for acrylic.
Also, moths attack acrylic fibers, too. The larvae can't eat it, but the adult moths don't know that when they lay their eggs. So acrylic needs just as much care as wool, but gives back less service in return.
If you really can't stand the touch of any kind of wool, or if you're vegan or against exploiting animals, go with cotton flannel. Shop around for the good stuff, which can be found at fast-fashion prices. Read the labels, shop the sales. I've gotten excellent 100% cotton plushy-soft flannel shirts and pajamas from Old Navy. Still feeling a chill? Layer 'em up. Don't waste money on acrylic, and don't sweat through the winter in polyester fleece.
PS: There are Mongolian sheep. Mongolia also produces cashmere from the Kashmir goats. However, Mongolia's signature fiber is yak, which is wonderful. "Mongolian wool" probably is the sheep's wool, as cashmere and yak are luxe enough to warrant their own labels.
thank you!!!
Thank you for the excellent information.
If you're a knitter and can afford it, Husky (the dogs) yarn is the absolute platinum standard.
Soft to the point of cuddly, never scratchy, doesn't shrink or smell when wet, and warmer by weight than wool.
Malamute yarn is also finding it's way to market. Slightly cheaper, slightly coarser, and I've heard but cannot verify that it's fire retardant.
I thank you so much for taking time and care to further educate me. I used to knit and crochet before the fiber trade became grossly degraded. I plan to start knitting again soon. Your comment further inspired me.
@@LusyPicker-sm6su most wool is fire retardant.
This applies to bedding as well as almost everything else produced for M'erka. Profits uber alles as the consumer gets screwed.
Just returned a sweater bought online. Despite being a 'designer' sweater Bella Freud, it just was a disappointing colour and quality. I felt relieved to be sending it back.
I am going to spin my own wool and make sweaters myself. When I knit sweaters they last decades.
The same thing is true for socks and gloves. All the gloves sold in most stores are acrylic which is absolute crap at keeping your hands warm.
Great segment, well done.
Tried finding a 100% cotton sweatshirt/hoodie to replace my beloved decades-old red one. What I discovered were tons of fake fiber (goes with the fake food) that were tee-shirt thin and scratchy, and made me sweat even when I was cold. Plastics have replaced all manner of textiles 😢😡 Millennials don't seem to appreciate the downgrade, perhaps because they didn't experience Real food, Real wood, Natural clothing and bedding.
Yes we've just had pure shite everything pretty much from the get-go
Become or befriend (and treat them VERY well) a knitter. Hand knitting sweaters are time consuming and a labor of love.... Either of the materials/pattern and or the person. The knitter will NOT make a profit financially by ANY means.
Knitter's have a question we ask either figuratively or actually...Is this person 'knit' worthy?
I hate that all my clothes fall apart in two years now. It's also terrible for the environment to have to buy so many clothes so often
And I don't like the idea of all those microplastics in my apartment
Karl Marx predicted this degradation of quality due to maximization of profit over everything.
Shaddup commie, eh just kidding. I’d love to be able to get quality items again. Would love for people to see the consequences of their angry fear based voting decisions
my marks and spencers jumper/sweater i bought in 2024 pills more readily than ones i bought in the 2010s
That's because it's an inferior wool. Short fibres pill more easily whereas longer fibres like merino wool are thinner in gauge but much longer so they don't pill. Look for merino wool. Much wool is produced by sheep bred basically for meat consumption and their shorter hair is very poor quality. I find stuff made in china is usually of this calibre.
I agree with a lot that's being said here, but if you think wool is going to less scratchy than your synthetic sweater then i think you're going to have a rude awakening. Maybe cashmere is the exception, but I've heard the environmental impact of that is more substantial.
Right!!! Many people cannot tolerate wool, even cashmere.
There's also cotton flannel. People don't give flannel enough credit. Of course, it's affected by the fast-fashion business model, too, but if you shop around, you can find good, weighty, plushy, 100% cotton flannel for very affordable prices. It is seriously warm as an under- or mid-layer. It layers well for extra warmth. Soft on the skin. Vegan, I guess. For Christmas this year, I was gifted some flannel jammies from Land's End, which normally cost way more than I can afford, but which I happen to know the giver got on a drastic clearance sale for Old Navy prices. So soft, so warm. And I've also gotten in some years - not every year, but now and then - really good flannel shirts and jammies from Old Navy itself. You have to read the labels and product specs to find the decent stuff.
I'm a little evangelical about this. Acrylic and the other petroleum by-product fibers are not worth any amount of money. They do not last long enough to pay for themselves. You will always end up spending far more over time on replacement garments than you would on one pure natural fiber garment of decent quality - which of course is the whole point of fast fashion, to make you keep buying more cheap disposable crap until you have spent more than you would have on quality stuff. Cotton and wool, both, will give you far more useful working life for your dollar than any synthetic fiber. And as bad for Earth as any kind of commercial agriculture can be, especially (yes) cotton and bamboo, they are not as bad as the fossil fuel industries and their spin-offs.
Too often sweaters are too heavy and don't even keep you as warm as layering. I am absolutely not willing to wear wool sweaters to prevent clothing waste.
That's because we are in too warm environments like air-conditioning and central heating. We don't burn fat anymore from the right kind of exercise and getting properly rugged up. Layering is needed from going in and out of air conditioning which often is too hot, especially in short which deliberately put it on too hot so you get bothered and make snap decisions.
Please stop ending your sentences in a question. Great story. Very intelligent author, but can’t take listening to the upspeak..
You can't lecture me enough to make me wear the dern wool sweaters. What! Two hundred dollars for a sweater!!! Nooo way. Rich girl, you are not in touch with real people. "Plastic sweater" makes you sound like ... argh ... gotta stop listening
Ah, but if you crunch the numbers, you'll find that cheap sweaters are like rent-to-own schemes. You always end up paying more. Cheap acrylic sweaters - the plastic ones - wear out so fast, you will end up buying more of them than if you paid up front for a good-quality pure wool sweater which could last you more than a decade. Anyone would balk at paying $200 now for a really high-quality wool or wool-silk or wool-cotton blend sweater, but in the same time frame that you'll be able to wear that sweater, you would likely pay (after a quick google of what's at Temu and on sale at Macy's right now) up to $300 - $500 on replacing cheap acrylic sweaters. Nothing in the fashion industry is really cheap.
Sounds like someone hasn't read Terry Prachett's "Boots Theory."
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
I invested $190 in a winter coat shortly after I moved to Montana, and it lasted me all 14 years I spent up there; I finally had to donate it when I moved cross-country a few weeks ago and it was still in nearly perfect shape, ready to warm and protect someone else for probably another decade. That upfront investment meant I didn't have to continue spending more money over those 14 yrs buying lesser quality coats, and the value worked out to be only $13.57 a year. Yes, it sucks and it's extremely unfortunate that too many people are too poor to pay that much all at once, and the fast fashion industry preys on them (really I can say "us" because I'm once again in a very bad financial situation and had to get rid of nearly my entire wardrobe). There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and so it goes. If one has no choice, then it shouldn't be a moral judgment on them. But that doesn't invalidate the truth that better crafted items with better quality materials constructed by fairly paid and treated workers are superior goods and they should be supported at every opportunity, or thrift shopping for well made items is an excellent alternative.
And frankly, $200 for a good sweater is barely anything to sneeze at when you have Gucci selling you a mere t-shirt for $800 and Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP G. Label selling you subpar garments for thousands of dollars a pop.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that the phrase "plastic sweater" is accurate given how so many of the microplastics in our environment, waterways, and bodies are coming from these plastic-based fibers shedding in the wash and out of our landfills.
@@jenfries6417
Also the cheap one is about half as thick (half as warm). You need to wear 2 at a time.
Don't forget that "rich girl" suggested getting second hand.
But it is "plastic wear: that you are wearing. And that plastic breaks down and pollutes like crazy. I'm not doing that to my earth!