So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Lean'n'mean]

That is disgraceful..... the children that made those should be severely punished.

 

[BobHufford]

Next thing you know, people will be spending hundreds or thousands of dollars at a stroke trying to dress like they work a punch press at a General Motors plant in 1936.

That's been going on for quite a while. Do you not read the work-wear threads here on the Lounge?

 

[Woodtroll]

That's been going on for quite a while. Do you not read the work-wear threads here on the Lounge?

Yes indeed. To each his own, and I admit I'm a tightwad, but $350-500 for a Japanese-made pair of blue jeans for daily wear? Nothing special, they just look like... blue jeans. Just like my $20-on-sale Wranglers do. It's things like this that make me feel fortunate to have such low taste.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's a source of great amusement to me that the uber-expensive vintage-style leather jackets so coveted around here were, in the 1930s, a style closely identified with labor and CPUSA organizers. Solidarity, boys!

 

[GHT]

It's a source of great amusement to me that the uber-expensive vintage-style leather jackets so coveted around here were, in the 1930s, a style closely identified with labor and CPUSA organizers. Solidarity, boys!

I'm glad that it was you that said that, women can get away with that sort of F/L heresy. It made me smile because I bought an original WW2 RAF, pilot's jacket back in the early 1960's for just a paltry sum. Far from salivating over it, my father's brother, my Uncle, said that flight crews used to moan about how restricted in movement the flying jackets made them, but that was the trade off for keeping warm when flying at 30,000 feet without any sort of heating. Not that bothered them much when being shot at by enemy fighters.

 

[tonyb]

It's a source of great amusement to me that the uber-expensive vintage-style leather jackets so coveted around here were, in the 1930s, a style closely identified with labor and CPUSA organizers. Solidarity, boys!

I’d really dig having a quality replica made to order, but I’m not the sort to drop some four-figure sum on a leather jacket. I am now at a point, for the first time in my life, where I could actually afford such an extravagance, but I got to this point by NOT doing such extravagant things.

Now, if I happened across an original in some off-the-beaten-path junktique emporium ...

 

[belfastboy]

Yes indeed. To each his own, and I admit I'm a tightwad, but $350-500 for a Japanese-made pair of blue jeans for daily wear? Nothing special, they just look like... blue jeans. Just like my $20-on-sale Wranglers do. It's things like this that make me feel fortunate to have such low taste.

You and me both, bro!

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Do you mean that longer, simple non-blouson jackets?

Non-blouson ? mais, vous êtes français monsieur ?

 

[Trenchfriend]

Non-blouson ? mais, vous êtes français monsieur ?

A jacket, that is not a (short) blouson.

 

[3fingers]

Next thing you know, people will be spending hundreds or thousands of dollars at a stroke trying to dress like they work a punch press at a General Motors plant in 1936.

Everything silly in its time. I am still astounded by the prices people pay for chemically worn out pants full of holes.
Many years ago now I was employed in the bovine chasing business.
I was tipped off that there was a fellow who would buy your worn out Wrangler jeans for a premium if they were stained with cows#@t, the greener the better.
After I quit laughing I gladly sold him a few choice pairs that I would no longer have worn aywhere. I don't know what he was selling them for, but at the time 1 pair sold would buy me 3 new pairs with enough left to eat supper in town.

 

[Woodtroll]

Everything silly in its time. I am still astounded by the prices people pay for chemically worn out pants full of holes.
Many years ago now I was employed in the bovine chasing business.
I was tipped off that there was a fellow who would buy your worn out Wrangler jeans for a premium if they were stained with cows#@t, the greener the better.
After I quit laughing I gladly sold him a few choice pairs that I would no longer have worn aywhere. I don't know what he was selling them for, but at the time 1 pair sold would buy me 3 new pairs with enough left to eat supper in town.

That's the kind of deal I dream of stumbling into some day. I've thrown away a lot of honestly-worn-out clothes in my life (well, most of them were used for shop rags and such).

 

[GHT]

Everything silly in its time. I am still astounded by the prices people pay for chemically worn out pants full of holes.
Many years ago now I was employed in the bovine chasing business.
I was tipped off that there was a fellow who would buy your worn out Wrangler jeans for a premium if they were stained with cows#@t, the greener the better.
After I quit laughing I gladly sold him a few choice pairs that I would no longer have worn aywhere. I don't know what he was selling them for, but at the time 1 pair sold would buy me 3 new pairs with enough left to eat supper in town.

Astounded indeed. When I was a penniless student I supplemented my meagre student grant by working on Saturdays in a Singer Sewing Machine shop, remember them? Old machines traded in would be broken up, as would the treadles. I remember someone offering our store manager twenty pounds for half a dozen old treadles, no sewing machines, just the treadles. Twenty pounds was more than a good price back in the mid 1960's and as a bonus the shop didn't have the hassle of disposal. Some months later a trendy wine bar opened nearby, the tables outside were of a glass top design and the the table top support was an old sewing machine treadle with the belt still attached but instead of operating a sewing machine it operated a fan. The fan didn't do a lot but it did create a great deal of interest. I did hear that the wine bar proprietor so loved the tables that he bought the lot, I would have love to have known for how much.

 

[tonyb]

I’d imagine that folks of my grandparents’ generation would think it silly that I would pay perfectly good money for old calendars and magazines and motel postcards and advertising signage, among other things that were never meant to last anywhere near as long as they have. (And let’s just put aside for now any mention of the hats and other vintage attire.) I don’t pay anywhere near as much as “serious” collectors might, and I’m nowhere near so well read on such matters as they generally are, but I know enough to know how much is too much to pay.

 

[tonyb]

It doesn't take such a discerning eye to know the difference between those $350 blue jeans and the $20 item from Target. And a casual observer such as myself can easily appreciate how a guy might much prefer a high-end horsehide jacket made by a committed and experienced craftsman over anything he might find off-the-rack at the mall.

Some of our friends here have the means to acquire such things without putting a strain on their budgets. Maybe they're of an age and possessed of an outlook sufficiently sober to know they won't live forever. Maybe they've already survived a potentially deadly illness. Maybe they've already buried spouses and siblings and even their own offspring.

So go ahead, man. Buy those jeans, and that jacket. Get a nice little top-down two-seater to tool around in on sunny days.

Can't take it with you.

 

[Woodtroll]

It doesn't take such a discerning eye to know the difference between those $350 blue jeans and the $20 item from Target. And a casual observer such as myself can easily appreciate how a guy might much prefer a high-end horsehide jacket made by a committed and experienced craftsman over anything he might find off-the-rack at the mall.

Some of our friends here have the means to acquire such things without putting a strain on their budgets. Maybe they're of an age and possessed of an outlook sufficiently sober to know they won't live forever. Maybe they've already survived a potentially deadly illness. Maybe they've already buried spouses and siblings and even their own offspring.

So go ahead, man. Buy those jeans, and that jacket. Get a nice little top-down two-seater to tool around in on sunny days.

Can't take it with you.

I don't think it's as much a discerning eye, as a sense of economy or value, but your point is well stated and well taken. I would not presume to tell someone else how to spend their money as long as no harm is done to others, but I still don't understand some things like the "holey jeans". Like I said, I'm glad I have economical tastes, which has allowed me to raise a family on a single income while my wife stayed home with the kids, working a job I love but which doesn't pay that well. Others have made different choices that obviously put them in a different income bracket.

I was thinking about the jeans and jackets discussion later on, and thought to myself, "I bet the same guys that spend money on those jeans wonder why I'll spend $250 on a custom beaver hat when a $40 wool one is almost as good". As I said earlier, to each his own, with no ill will.

 

[tonyb]

…
I was thinking about the jeans and jackets discussion later on, and thought to myself, "I bet the same guys that spend money on those jeans wonder why I'll spend $250 on a custom beaver hat when a $40 wool one is almost as good". As I said earlier, to each his own, with no ill will.

Well, being a custom hatmaker myself, I find an all-beaver custom hat a far superior value to a $40 woolie. We who know a thing or three about hats could explain that to the uninitiated, but they probably wouldn't care anyway.

Some vendors offer thousand-dollar lids. Yes, they are very nice, and for those with the means, well, it's good for them that such items are available. But, as with many consumer goods, the point of diminishing returns is usually reached in the mid-range.

FWIW, the jeans I'm wearing at present set me back 12 bucks. Bought 'em on sale. Three pairs.

 

[GHT]

It doesn't take such a discerning eye to know the difference between those $350 blue jeans and the $20 item from Target. And a casual observer such as myself can easily appreciate how a guy might much prefer a high-end horsehide jacket made by a committed and experienced craftsman over anything he might find off-the-rack at the mall.

You make a very valid point, but, and it is a big but. There are those who are swayed by celebrity, so much so that the will all but bankrupt themselves to have the celebrity item.
You can get an original Indiana Jones hat for mega bucks, that's original as in made by the same milliner that supplied the film company, or you can go to Mustang Mike and get an exact copy. But oh my gosh, it's not original, such heresy.
OK I made that up, but teenage girls were doing much the same when Victoria Beckham announced her fashion label.
However, just as has been said before, your money, your choice.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Can't take it with you.

Nope, the living see to that.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

$1200 will get you this from Calvin Klein.

 

[3fingers]

$1200 will get you this from Calvin Klein.

You could have at least smiled a little when they took the picture.