Culture Study Presents: Why Do Clothes Suck Now?

Work Appropriate

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For the maiden voyage of the Culture Study podcast, we’re taking a hard look at a problem that plagues us all: terrible clothes. Why are shirts falling apart or pilling after just a few wears? Why does Gucci charge $3200 for a polyester sweater? What happened to ironing and will we ever dry clean en masse again?

Amanda Mull, staff writer at The Atlantic, joins me for a deep dive into the past twenty years of fashion production (and consumption) trends.

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Show notes:

• The tweet I describe in the beginning of the podcast
• Read Amanda Mull’s piece in The Atlantic: “Your Sweaters Are Garbage”
• Read Sarah Zhang’s piece in The Atlantic: “How I Got Bamboo-zled by Baby Clothes”
• Amanda mentioned: Sofi Thanhauser’s Worn: A People’s History of Clothing
• Some other Amanda pieces I love: Millennials Have Lost Their Grip on Fashion, The Free-Returns Party Is Over, How Shoppers Got Tricked By Vegan Leather
• You can see Amanda’s Jeffrey Dahmer glasses in the bio of her Instagram (which is private, so don’t friend request unless you actually know her)
• Paul Mescal’s rat tail situation (perhaps more appropriately called a mullet)

This week, we’re looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• Resurgent interest in early 2000s music (with Switched on Pop’s Nate Sloan)
• The Mean Girls Trailer
• A deep analysis of Taylor and Travis Kelce discourse
• Kevin Bacon’s Hott Instagram and Gen-X/Elder Millennial Instagram in general
• “Little treat” culture

You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here.