The thing about fast fashion that upsets me the most is that it’s driving the market. It’s very very difficult to find high quality clothing that is ethically made, because so much of the market and money have gone to fast fashion. Teemu and Shein may be the new thing, but H&M, Mango, Gap, etc have been around forever.<p>I had to spend 4 months doing research on textiles and enlisting help to scour the internet/world before I could find a properly made pea coat last year, as an example. Sure there’s some sort of pea coat available from every major fashion brand, but they’re made for looks not function and durability, whereas a proper coat will keep you warm walking the dog in driving snow where I live in the Colorado mountains.<p>I have had a hell of a time buying shirts and dressier pants that hold up, but I think finally arrived at good options.<p>If it was simply a matter of paying more to get better stuff, I wouldn’t be so bothered, but that’s really not how it works. You can’t even rely on the same brand and product to maintain quality due to market pressures from fast fashion, and I am not quite well to do enough to have everything made bespoke, so it’s a relentless grind to buy non-shitty clothes in 2023, of similar quality to most higher end mall brands in 1995. In a lot of ways, I see this as another expression of shrinkflation and the failure of American and European industry.