After work today, I went to pick up Uniqlo pants that I had to get shortened. When you are petite, this unfortunately has to be a frequent occurrence, but I will admit that some brands are becoming more empathetic, like Ann Taylor, Loft, and Banana Republic. Even brands like Uniqlo that come from Asia still do not grasp the fact that not every woman out there is 5’9” or 5’10”.

While I was in line to pick up my pants, I was thinking about the last time I bought these same pants and how long they lasted. These pants on average cost about $30/pair, and they lasted me about 2.5 years- that’s 30 months. So that really means that I paid $1/month to wear these pants for the last 30 months. You know it’s time to get new pants when the crotch area starts thinning out and eventually starts becoming a growing hole.

This actually started making me think about the decline of clothes in general, though. If you think about it, $1/month to wear a pair of pants that was very comfortable and got a lot of wear seems like a good price to pay. But what if the same pair of pants had the same cost and could last twice as long? More and more, when I look at clothing labels, fewer and fewer things are made from cotton and wool, and instead, they are made from synthetic materials made from variations of plastic, like polyester, rayon, and acrylic. It’s obviously cheaper, which is why mainstream clothing companies are using it, but it’s sad to think that we’re all just becoming and wearing more plastic. We live in a world now where cotton and wool are becoming too expensive to wear on a daily basis. We may jus become plastic bottles ourselves.