There are two things that will make me irrationally irritated when I pick up a garment.
Cheap fabric.
And mean-spirited meterage.
Cheap fabric is fairly obvious. It feels wrong the moment you touch it. It looks busy, slightly shiny in a way that isn’t meant to be, and has the sort of personality you know will collapse into a sad heap after two washes.
Clothing made from it is rarely cheaper in the long run and almost guaranteed to disappoint.
But cheap fabric isn’t my greatest irritation.
Mean-spirited meterage is worse.
This is the quiet trick used in a great deal of modern clothing. The fabric itself may not be terrible, but there is simply not enough of it. Sleeves become slightly meaner. Hems are reduced to minuscule narrow machine-sewn tracks. Tucks, pleats and gathers are all pinched. The garment becomes smaller, tighter, more economical — not for the wearer, but for the manufacturer.
A few centimetres removed from each pattern piece may not sound like much. Across thousands of garments it becomes very persuasive accounting.
I remember Air New Zealand once did a cost-cutting exercise and removed one olive per meal from passengers meals. Apparently it saved them a small fortune. It’s the same logic.
The trouble is that clothes behave differently when there isn’t quite enough fabric. They pull where they shouldn’t, twist slightly, sit oddly on the body and rarely move well.
Good garments need a little generosity.
Fabric to fall properly.
Fabric to move.
Fabric to allow a sleeve to sit comfortably rather than grab like cling wrap.
This is one of the quiet luxuries of well-made clothes: there is simply enough cloth.
I rather relate cutting clothing to cooking. I am a generous tablespoon, a hefty glug of olive oil and a thick smattering of butter kind of girl — just like my mother. Food thanks you for the love and generosity, and so do clothes.
For me it’s never been about how many centimetres can be shaved off a hem, but whether there is enough weight in it to sit perfectly.
Pick up a garment and you can tell within seconds whether the fabric was chosen carefully, and whether the garment was allowed enough of it.
Good fabric, used generously, behaves beautifully for years.
The other sort usually reveals itself rather quickly.
There’s no meanness here — unless you’re after a string bikini.