10 Tricks To Spot High Quality Clothing
[0:00:00] Tip #1: Take a dollar, in this case a 20,
and folder it right in half.
And I want you to take that shirt and I want you to put that dollar at the edge point of
the collar.
Now, you're gonna notice there's some stitching there.
What you wanna do is count the number of stitches from that end.
Now, this length here is an inch and a quarter.
If you don’t count at least 10 stitches, this could be the sign of a poor quality shirt
and you're probably gonna wanna look elsewhere.
In today's video, I’m giving you 10 quick tips to be able to identify quality clothing
and how to stay away from the bad stuff.
So, the next trick to quickly identify high quality clothing, look at the buttons.
So, with jackets, you wanna look for horn.
For your shirts, you wanna look for mother of pearl.
Now, just because they’re using plastic buttons does not mean that it's bad quality.
But if they're using horn, they’re using mother of pearl, these are much more expensive
materials.
So, if they're spending the money there, you know that on other parts of the garment that
they’ve spent the time, they’ve spent the effort, they’ve created a quality garment.
Now, how to spot mother of pearl?
So, you wanna take the shirt and you wanna look underneath the button.
What are you looking for here?
On the top, it should be very clear, very clean.
But underneath, we're gonna see these colors, these imperfections.
Why?
Because these buttons are stamped out of shells.
So, as we’re talking about buttons, let's talk about the stitching and the shank.
So, when you look at the button, it should be sewn on tightly.
There shouldn't be loose threads and it should have what's known as a shank.
This is basically where the button is sewn on to the short in a way that it's raised
off the shirt to make it easier to button.
And now, let's go to the bottom of the shirt.
We're gonna look where the front connects to the back.
And down here, we're gonna be looking for a gusset.
So, a gusset is an extra piece of fabric sewn into a stress point on a shirt.
The idea here is that they're spending time and money to actually go in and reinforce
your shirt.
A lot of manufacturers skip this.
This is a great sign of quality.
And let's not forget the gauntlet button.
It's gonna be right below the cuff on the sleeve.
It’s gonna be a little bit smaller than the buttons that we see on the cuff.
Now, the historical purpose of the gauntlet button was to help hide excess fabric as basically
you had the larger sleeve head going into the cuff.
But functionally, I think it really helps whenever you’ve got to roll your sleeves.
So, you always wanna make sure you find a shirt with a gauntlet button.
And don't forget, check in your collar.
You wanna make sure that you've got collar bones.
These should go in and out.
Made from metal, made from plastic, doesn't matter as long as you've got that slot there
to be able to make sure that you’ve got a nice pointed collar.
So now, let’s talk about the materials most quality clothing is made from.
The trick here is to look for 100% cotton or to look for wool when it comes to high
end trousers, when it comes to jackets.
This isn't gonna guarantee its high quality, but it's a great start.
Now, why is wool a great thing to look for?
Because it's a luxury material that’s very expensive.
So, manufacturers are gonna be careful when they're using it.
Now, when you start to see a wool blend, you wanna be careful.
There are some great jackets out there that are wool blends, but you need to be careful.
You need to start looking at other details.
Now, when it comes to shirts, 100% cotton is a great start, but it is not something
that you can’t depend on.
Why?
Because I do think that actually blends that bring in the right material are a great thing.
In addition, there’s different quality levels of cotton.
So, it is something that it's a great start, but you wanna look at other factors.
Now, what about linen, silk, bamboo?
I think those are all great materials.
They’re good things to look for.
When you see it, they're pretty rare.
Now, you wanna make sure that you can take care of it especially when it comes to silk.
But what about acetates?
These are things you wanna be careful of.
Acetates are made from petroleum.
So, they’re not gonna have much breathability.
Occasionally, when mixed in with other materials, they can prove useful, but I would be very
careful with acetates.
Another quick trick to quickly identify quality is to look at the pattern and notice was it
sewn in or was it printed on the material.
So, this right here I can look at the details on the fabric.
I can see this was actually sewn in.
Now, this one right here, it was printed.
This doesn't mean it's bad quality, but this right here is definitely a sign of good quality.
Another quick sign of quality?
Look for a split yoke.
You wanna turn the shirt around and you wanna look at the back.
Not all shirt is gonna have this.
And if it doesn’t, it doesn't mean it's bad quality.
But if they’ve got a split yoke where basically it has been cut in half and it's been sewn
together separate, this is a sign of good quality.
It goes back to old school tailoring where they actually used to measure each of the
shoulders, each of the lengths here, and they would actually make the shirt slightly different
for each side.
The next trick to quickly identify good quality on a shirt, look for pattern matching.
Notice the pattern here.
Well, the pattern on this sleeve should match up with the pattern right here in the shoulders.
And I can see that it does.
Why is this a sign of quality?
Because they had to spend more money on the actual materials.
So, it works like this.
A shirt is made up of various parts and this forms the pattern.
The pattern is laid out on basically fabric.
Now, that fabric, they can lay out those parts in a way that they can get the most out of
that fabric or they can lay it out in a way in which everything is gonna line up and it’s
gonna look best.
Now, one of them is optimizing for money.
The other one is optimizing for the artistic quality.
[0:05:01] You ideally wannna be able to find a company
that focuses in on that artistic quality, on the details.
They’re okay with spending a little bit more to deliver to you a great looking shirt.
Now, when it comes to jackets, you want the outside to look great.
But more importantly, look on the inside of the jacket.
You wanna look at the details on the stitching, everything that goes into it here.
They should have paid as much attention to the stitching to the basically the finish
on the inside as they did the outside.
Gents, if they paid attention to the details here, you could rest assured that on the inside
of the jacket the parts you can't see where this possibly a floating canvas or maybe they
used a little bit of glue strategically that they did a good job on that internal construction.
So, when it comes to sports jackets, blazer jackets, suit jackets, it's all about the
details.
Guys, you wanna look did they pay attention to working surgeon cuffs right here.
This historically basically you should be able to unbutton this so you could roll up
your sleeves, perform surgery on the battlefield.
But nowadays, what this signals to me is that they’re only making this jacket in enough
sizes.
They know they're not gonna be able to make it for everybody because when they make these
basically functional, you can only adjust the length of the jacket so much about 3 quarters
to maybe 1 inch versus if the buttons were right here sewn on top, you could go about
2 inches either way.
Now, I also like to make sure that my pockets are functional.
I like to use a pocket square, but it's okay if they've got this sewn initially.
You should be able to open up then put in a pocket square.
Now, right here, we've got patch pockets.
On other jackets, you're gonna see flap pockets, but those should also be able to be open and
use.
Now, when it comes right here to the boutonniere hole, this should be able to be open.
Sometimes they’re not gonna have this opened up.
And on the back here, you should have a latch so that you could put a flower in there and
it would hold it.
So now, let's talk about trousers.
Very similar to jackets.
You wanna look on the inside.
You wanna look at the finish.
Did they pay attention to the inside?
Did they stitch everything appropriately, you don't have loose threads all over the
place?
And I like to look at the back of the trousers.
Did they give me excess material so that I could open up the trousers later?
Here's the thing.
This costs money to put this excess material in there knowing that most guys will never
use it, but let's say you get a little bit bigger over Christmas time.
This is a godsend because all of a sudden you’re gonna be able to open up these trousers
and continue to use ‘em.
So, for shoes, the quick trick here is to look at the sole.
Is it a leather sole?
Right there, that's a great sign of quality.
Then look for stitching.
Right here, I see stitching.
So, this tells me it's either a Goodyear welt or it’s a Blake stitch.
Next, I wanna look for tacks.
These are small nails that they're gonna use in the heel.
The heel is made up of layers and layers of leather.
And they're gonna hold it together with basically these tacks and a little bit of glue.
Now, another quick sign of quality, on the inside of the issue is gonna be an additional
layer of leather.
This there is for protection.
This should not be the same leather that’s on the upper on the outside.
They should have another layer of a different color oftentimes that’s basically in there
to protect the shoe whenever your feet are sweating.
Now, what you can't see on the inside of the shoe is going to be a shank, a steel shank
or a shank made from a different material.
Sometimes even plastic is a good sign of quality.
Now, let’s talk about luggage, briefcases, bags.
The easiest thing to spot here, the #1 thing for me I look at is going to be the hardware.
That's the zipper.
That's the metal pieces used.
If they skipped here, you can bet that they went shoddy when it comes the leather.
So, go ahead and use that zipper.
Does it flow?
Does it get caught?
Is it something that seems small or is it made— like over built, oversized?
You wanna make sure that they spent the money and the time to get good quality hardware.
Now, at this point, you may be wondering “Antonio, how do I spot high quality leather when I'm
looking to buy that expensive bag, those expensive shoes?
I don't wanna make a mistake here.”
Well, guys, I’ve got you covered with this video right here, how to spot high quality
leather.
I go into the details, exactly what you wanna look for when you're looking at all the different
leather types, all the options out there.
And if that's not enough, check out this other video right down here, how to spot high quality
shoes.
I just touched on it in today's video.
I go into a lot more detail.
I talk about Goodyear welt.
I talk about Blake stitching and how you can spot the difference.
[0:09:00] End of Audio