How can this happen. How can. This happen.

[rinue]

Received mail-ordered clothes that did not fit me, or conceivably any human being. (I could not draw a picture of a woman with proportions that would be appropriate to this clothing. Not and make it look human.) Had a total breakdown. I swear there was a time when I could buy nice things from Old Navy. I can't even blame this on the cotton commodity price problems; the fabric was poor quality, but the real problem was cut.

Sometimes, I think I am too rarified for the world and should be better able to handle aesthetic violence. (For instance, I just called it aesthetic violence.) On the other hand, god damn it. Why are we mass-producing things that are atrocious? It only takes one person to do a good job, and then you can copy it a million times. It's like everyone is afraid if we make something beautiful, much of the country will think it is too nice and won't feel comfortable using it, whatever the low price. And maybe they are right?

Hell, I don't know. I don't know anything about people.

Comments

[valancy_jane]

I have probably mentioned before that one of the things that's always stuck with me is when my sister once said (paraphrased as best as can remember), "I don't understand how they can sell things that don't serve their fundamental purpose. Can openers that don't... Why do they do that to us? Why do they bother?" The failure for an item to serve the only purpose it was created for is one of the most depressing and sadly consistent issues we see in modern mass production...which is no fix nor help, but I very much share the frustration.

I think part of it is that people are used to settling, and they don't have many options - cost, time, etc. And people who do have the standards and money go elsewhere, obviously. It's that trim selection of society who is cost-conscious and knows there is better that suffers - though I'm sure a growing segment as our generation is less monetarily successful than our parents.

[rinue]

What troubles me is it doesn't seem all that linked to cost. I could buy an $80 shirt that would have the same problems as an $8 shirt. A $300 shirt is not more likely to make sense than a $30 shirt. A big part of why I shop secondhand is not cost, but because I know everything in the store at least at some point fit someone.

[valancy_jane]

Yes!

My similar issue is furniture. I have become very nervous about buying anything new. It seems like every new piece we've ever bought is beaten do death in no time; the antiques just don't seem to age the same way. It's pre-tested.

[rinue]

I point to your pepper shakers, for example.

[valancy_jane]

Lordy, yes!