Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Well, other than the old saying, "You get what you pay for", when it shows what kind of fabric the garment is made of, Google that fabric to find out how the quality of it tends to be.
Or go aheade & order it if it seems good to you & return it if you don't like it.
Or if you're buying in-person, other than it feeling luxurious & not cheap, bring along a printout of common fabrics w/ notes of their quality so you can look them up then & there.
The presentation of clothes is pretty... crappy, not to mention that those are mostly jogging/house clothes, to sew at home - not professional clothes one wears at work...
Those fabrics are not presentable.
I totally agree that before you even start to evaluate the fabric, you should pay close attention to finish. Cheap fabric won't have quality finish (buttons, zips, stitches, lining, pockets etc. ) Similar to fake purses, watches and all wannabes.
After touching many different types of fabric both low and high quality you can sometimes notice patterns to them visible by photographs but you would have needed to touch them beforehand to know what you are looking for.
Yes, you can try to determine the quality by touch, but that requires years of experience.
OP seems to be not informed about the basics.
Buying online cut that experience.
You have to learn. Visit a top clothing consignment shop, if you have access to one, and examine the higher end clothing. The cottons and silks of fine shirtings will be soft to the touch. Fine wools will be springy and the colors will be rich. Clothing made of fine fabrics will be made better than clothing made of cheap fabrics.
The labels will also help you. In general, the more natural fibers, the finer the cloth. There are exceptions to this, but in general natural fibers are more expensive.
Go to a thrift store and fondle the clothes. Thrift stores have a wide variety of quality levels and fiber contents, so you can experience the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Look at the labels of those you find pleasant or nasty. Consider how well an item has held up; has the fabric pilled, sagged, or just given up?
I prefer natural fabrics; cotton, linen, wool, silk (and the earliest synthetic, rayon). They are often blended with synthetics so they wrinkle less, or to be stronger or cheaper.
It's also about construction. Have they left hardly any seam allowance in an attempt to be cheap? Are inside seams unfinished, is the sewing not straight? Are patterns matched well*? Are there linings where there should be linings (either for the sake of structure or making the garment non-see-through)? Are buttons and other notions sewn on sturdily or just quickly attached?
As someone else mentioned, does the fabric seems like it would last well, or is it going to stretch out, pill, tear, wrinkle permanently, etc. the first time you wash it? Does it drape nicely the way it appears it's meant to for the construction of the garment, or is it too stiff or soft for the look the designer was probably going for?
*I have a duvet cover that closes with buttons at the top. The duvet cover is plaid, and the buttons are fabric-covered with the same fabric. They're not large, they'd be pretty unobtrusive either way. Whoever sewed it chose and placed the buttons to go perfectly with the plaid. As in, if there's a stripe in the plaid, the button was covered/placed/whatever so there's also that same stripe right there on the button. I'm somewhat floored someone bothered to go to that much detail-- how many consumers would even notice, let alone care? They could have easily just put whichever button wherever, or even chosen buttons in a solid color that goes with the main color of the duvet cover.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
