Comment by lamasery

Extracting any useful signal from brands requires keeping up with news about the businesses, and keeping track of various sub-labels and the hieroglyphic knowledge to distinguish them, which is so fucking tedious but is still easier than evaluating every single garment you're interested in in-person (and developing the skills and knowledge to perform that evaluation).

Or you just have enough money to buy only from less-widely-known but actually-good brands and don't worry much about price. The ones that haven't started cashing in on their "high class" branding by moving down-market toward the middle class... yet.