Comment by AEVL
4 hours ago
Just some trivia (and an aside):
The collaboration is with Issey Miyake. Steve Jobs black turtlenecks was Issey Miyakes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jenniferhicks/2022/08/10/heres-...
(As an aside, I swear by pants from the Issey Miyake Homme Plissé collection. Since investing in some pairs about 10 years ago, I have hardly worn anything else—no other pants match their comfort. The iPhone Pocket is of course ridiculous anyway.)
The pants cost around 500 bucks? I don't necessarily believe that a priori spending $500 on a pair of pants is irrational, but I really struggle to imagine any pair of pants being worth that much money unless they are lined with gold or something.
I usually buy cheap clothes and mend them and ten years for a pair of pants isn't unusual for me. I probably haven't spent $500 dollars on clothes in a year ever in my entire life (except maybe the year I bought a suit for getting married).
I guess I'm just genuinely curious how you found yourself in the position of even contemplating $500 for pants.
I never knew what a difference good pants can make. I usually just bought my pants from H&M/other retailers or Amazon. I usually bought what I considered good value pants for like $30-80. I then, out of curiosity, bought pants that were 2-4 times as expensive (~$150) and it really made a difference. I never really liked the pants I had… they never fit right… they felt very uncomfortable. The new pants I got about 2 years ago (the more expensive ones) were very very different. Very comfy. They also had a lot of nice features that I never knew I needed but that I now want by default…
- A button that just "clicks". Most pants I usually owned had a traditional pants button. Those more expensive ones had buttons that just "clicked". Away goes the worry about a button falling off while you are on the go. - Pockets with hidden zippers: My pants have pockets and in those pockets are smaller pockets with a zipper. Perfect to store things that are small and easily lost.
There are more "features" but those are the important ones. The most important feature is just the material that is used. I barely feel it. Also the company that makes those pants makes other things as well. I ordered a lot of cloths by now and the amazing thing is that everything they make fits me perfectly. I don't know how they do it… When I usually buy pants I have to try on like 10 pants to find one that fits. Even if I pick the "correct" size.
Alright, after that lead-in, you really need to tell us what the pants are.
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> but I really struggle to imagine any pair of pants being worth that much money unless they are lined with gold or something.
It depends on how much you earn. I don’t mind spending tens of thousands on Loro Piana cashmere because it’s really nice, but at my income level the price difference between that and Zara is pretty much immaterial.
Keep in mind that HN is packed with people with salaries above $1M/yr and entrepreneurs with way higher income levels.
A few years ago I too would’ve considered $500 for pants to be absurd, at this point I just go to a tailor and pay slightly more than that but save tons of time in the long term and always have perfect fitting pants. The time savings alone are tremendous, after getting a pair fitted properly I can just order new ones whenever I need without having to spend hours going through shops looking for the right pair of pants.
In this job market, in this political environment, with Luigi Mangione a Bonnie-and-Clyde-tier folk hero, the bit you quoted was perhaps a clue to the lack of wisdom in humblebragging that you spend a family's annual food budget on 5 pounds of spun sheep keratin.
I imagine that I will be the bad guy for pointing this out. (Perhaps even to myself, considering that there's certainly utility in rich people yapping incautiously about the reasons others might want to turn on an Enes Yilmazer video and figure out where the panic room is.)
Different strokes for different folks. I'm a fashion lover but a fan of cheap cars, and I could equally say something similar about people who drive new luxury cars when there's plenty of reliable functionality to be had under $10k. There's a lot of craftsmanship that goes into nice clothes, and you can get way more expensive than $500. And fashion is a form of art in a way. What makes a painting worth thousands of dollars?
I always have a hard time telling is it craftsmanship and superior materials or marketing
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$500 for something you might wear for a decade straight? A brand-new pair of Levis at JC Penny is gonna run you like $90 anyways. It's not that much more expensive.
But also, quality has diminishing returns in basically every category. At the low end, it's extremely efficient to improve the quality of your product and charge a bit more. At the high end, you can't make any more inexpensive moves to set yourself apart, so you use higher end materials, fabrication methods, and workers.
> A brand-new pair of Levis at JC Penny is gonna run you like $90 anyways
I'm seeing a range of around $33 to $60 at the moment, with other brands dipping under $30.
https://www.jcpenney.com/g/men/jeans?id=cat100250010
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> $500 for something [...] run you like $90 anyways. It's not that much more expensive.
To be honest, I did abandoned school as quickly as I could and my math skills aren't that of my peers, but 5x times as much is pretty "much more expensive" for most people out there, not sure how someone can say else with a straight face. $100 vs $500 would easily be a "Can I eat properly the entire month?" decision for a lot of the population.
What in Silicon Valley salary is this statement?
Median weekly salary is 1159 according to BLS. That’s 7% of weekly salary vs 43% of weekly salary.
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I don't necessarily believe that a priori spending $500 on a pair of pants is irrational, but I really struggle to imagine any pair of pants being worth that much money unless they are lined with gold or something.
I don't think Steve Jobs went shopping for pants. Nor do many of the people who buy this sort of garment. They either have an assistant who buys things for them, whose goal is to keep them happy and not blow a predetermined budget, or they go to a store and sit in a nice suite where a personal shopper suggests things to them. In either scenario the price of individual items probably don't even get a mention.
Steve was a notoriously picky shopper and obsessed with details. In the biography it says they went without a dishwasher or something in his house for half a year because he could never be satisfied with the geometry or finishing. So his billionaire wife washed dishes by hand.
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I believe the word for it is "rich".
I once paid $1000 for some sneakers. I’m still regularly wearing them 7 years later. I’ve bought $50/$100 and they never last that long. It was an insane purchase at the time, done in a moment of jet lagged madness when my shoes fell apart in an airport. But over time it’s turned out to be a great investment. Smart, comfortable, well made.
Do you wear them like $50 shoes or like $1000 dollar shoes? I run around 18 miles a week on trails and I doubt your $1000 dollar sneakers would last ten years with that usage pattern.
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I'm happy to pay $$$$ for something that lasts but my exerience is some of the most expensive things I've bought, well known luxury brand names, had the lowest quality.
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I have had $20 sneakers last that long. You don't need to pay $$$$ to have clothes last a long time, you just need to take care of your stuff.
As someone who is on the lookout for long-lasting durable products, what brand and model sneakers did you buy? How often do you wear these?
I've heard that Common Projects are pretty good at a $400 retail price point, but it sounds like you got something else.
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Which? I struggle to find any sneakers that last more than a couple years, while also avoiding the big brands.
Yeah, that is wild. I can't imagine spending that kind of money on pants.
Pro-tip. You can buy them used for a significant discount to rrp.
I don't necessarily believe that a priori spending $500 on a pair of pants is irrational, but I really struggle to imagine any pair of pants being worth that much money
Maybe he's amortizing them.
He says they've lasted ten years, so that's $50/year.
If they last another ten, that's $25/year.
Oh, great. Now I've invented Pants-as-a-Service.
statistically, inheritance
Don't rule out until you've tried it. High end clothing (not just brand name, but real advanced stuff) is pretty amazing in how it makes you feel. I'm inclined to spend on anything I interact with, and clothes is pretty big interaction.
Sure, but you need to have a certain level of wealth before even considering it. $500 is a ridiculous sum for a pair of trousers. I've had €80 or €120 Levi's at one point when I had a bit more expendable income but they only lasted me two years. I'm back on affordable jeans now (when outside, when inside it's pajama pants all the way lmao), I think they're €30 or so.
I'm sure the branded ones are "better" but is it to scale with the price? Are Levi's 4x as good as cheap ones? Are these Steve Jobs ones 16x as good?
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decent hand-sewn raw denim made in the EU/US jeans are minimum $500. and i'm talking non-designer. just fair wages and good materials.
I am wondering what you call consumption that feeds $499 designer margins on polyester like that, while so many people can barely afford to scrape by day to day.
Income inequality is a phrase that pathologizes what appears to be a universal truth. In all types of economic and political systems (after we left the forest, and probably while we were still in the forest), some people have been desperately poor while other people are not. What would be interesting is a single counterexample of sustained "income equality."
That said, our current degree of inequality and the particular way it is distributed seems to be unusual and remarkable. But pointing to someone having a hard time is, IMO, not a critique of that.
Yes, yes ... It's the same as it ever was, only so much more so!
Beyond just critiquing the disparity here, I feel like the psychology that treats capital in such a frivolous way, shifting it about already privileged pockets of society, rather than apply it to any sort of material good is rather abhorrent. That's just my take.
I got excited until I saw they cost $600? Once in a while I'm reminded we exist in very different universes. Still trying to justify splurging on common projects 2 years later.
in my experience as a tech guy who got into fashion and then after several years went back to not caring: Sneakers are the product category with the least differentiation in value-for-money between the high end (especially designer, but also not-designer-but-still-expensive like common projects) both in terms of aesthetics and quality/durability. You're paying $300 more for a 10% better product. Jeans, outerwear, knits, boots, you can more easily justify that cost
As a tech guy who found an interest in design and ancillary fields recently, I am curious to know more. I assume leather, merino wool, cashmere do provide extra value. But other than that I have no knowledge. Eg why would 500 pants be better?
Big fan of the Homme Plisse stuff but I do wish it wasn’t polyester.
It is a nice way to wear essentially a fancy pair of joggers while people assume you’re being somewhat smart though.
Have you tried Costco pants? They're pretty good.
Sorry but 500 eur for polyester pants? Not even cotton?