Note: Some links on this page are affiliate or referral links, so I may earn a commission or credit at no extra cost to you. A few pieces were gifted; details at the end.
I used to shop the way a lot of us do. A new event meant a run to the mall, or ten open tabs and a brand-new outfit for the occasion. These days I’m building a quality wardrobe instead, one well-made piece at a time, and learning to shop with a more discerning eye.
Part of that has meant figuring out what “good quality” actually looks like now that price doesn’t tell you much. So I gathered the advice of five people who judge clothes for a living and tested it on my own closet. The short version is right below, and the details (and photos) follow.
What You Need to Know About Clothing Quality
- Price is a weak signal. My Gap cardigans, bought for under $50 each, have outlasted a $160 cashmere cardigan.
- Read the fiber content first. Then read the care label, which I learned the hard way.
- Turn it inside out. The seams, lining and buttons tell you more than the outside does.
- Super-soft cashmere in the store can be a red flag. That fuzz often comes from short fibers, and short fibers pill.
- A little synthetic can be a good thing. Some stretch in the right garment helps it drape and hold its shape.
- The checks catch sloppy construction. They won’t tell you whether a sweater will pill, so that part takes time (or a brand you’ve already tested).
Short on time? Skip ahead to the 60-second checklist.
How I Tested These Clothing Quality Checks
I’ve had plenty of practice handling clothes. I’ve rented well over 100 pieces between Nuuly (a customer since 2022) and BNTO (since 2025), on top of a decade with Rent the Runway.
I’ve worn Farm Rio, For Love & Lemons, Madewell and Amanda Uprichard, plus lesser-known designers like Klint Studio, Yui Row and Solene.
I feel the fabric on my skin, and I see how a piece holds up at an event, through a workday or in a carry-on. I live in them! And I adore the revolving door of pieces that rentals bring into my life.
Building my core wardrobe, though, the pieces I love and won’t be parting with anytime soon, takes a more discerning eye. So I’ve been learning what makes a piece of clothing truly earn the title “quality.”
That’s meant following what the people who actually know construction are saying: a dress historian, a fashion designer, a production patternmaker, an analyst who compares clothes across price points and a well-known tailoring writer.
Then I held their advice up against my own closet. I’m not brand loyal, so that closet mixes high and low, from Gap to Reformation to a linen dress handmade on Etsy.
Every garment here is one I own and have worn, from a $20 Quince tee to a $278 silk dress, a few of them for three years or more. I’ve noted what I paid, how long I’ve had it and how it’s held up. I’m still in the middle of this, so I’ll keep updating the page as my clothes age.
How to Spot Quality Clothing in 60 Seconds
If you only read one section, make it this one. Every check works in a fitting room, and I’ve noted whose advice each one comes from.
- Read the fiber content against the price. All five experts start here, and so do I. A “cashmere blend” can be mostly acrylic.
- Hold it up to the light. If light pours through a knit, the knit is thin. (Derek Guy uses the same trick on shirts to judge how breathable they’ll be.)
- Press a finger into the knit. If your finger slips right through the loops, it’s too loose. (Justine Leconte)
- Scrunch it for five seconds and let go. Good cotton, modal and Tencel bounce back. Linen gets a pass here, since creasing is part of its charm. (Leconte)
- Turn it inside out. You want seams that are enclosed or neatly finished. (Bernadette Banner)
- Gently pull a seam apart and hold it to the light. On a fabric that isn’t sheer, light between the stitches means a weak seam. (Banner)
- Check that stripes and plaids line up across straight seams. (Banner and Leconte)
- Look at how the buttons are sewn on. Four holes hold better than two. (Leconte)
- Check the lining fiber, too. Viscose breathes, while polyester tends to trap heat. (Leconte)
- With cashmere, look for a smooth, sleek surface over a fuzzy one. (Roni Brunn and Derek Guy)
I keep a shorter version of this checklist on my phone for shopping trips. It's five questions on one page, and it's all yours.
Get the 5-Point ChecklistThe 5 Clothing Construction Experts I Learned From
Each of them looks at a garment from a different angle, which is exactly why it’s interesting to compare them.
- Bernadette Banner is a dress historian who trained in theatrical costume at NYU. She measures clothes against hand sewing from before the electric sewing machine, so she’s the toughest grader of the group. (How to Identify Quality in Clothing)
- Justine Leconte is a trained fashion designer who has run her own ethically made label since 2015. Her checks are designed to take under a minute in a shop. (5 points and 8 points)
- Kathleen Fasanella is a production patternmaker with more than 30 years in the industry and the author of The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Sewn Product Manufacturing. She thinks most of us are asking the wrong question. (The difference between crap and quality)
- Roni Brunn compares construction across price points, often setting a luxury piece next to a cheap one in the same category. (Her archive at Fond)
- Derek Guy writes about tailoring at Die, Workwear! and used to write for Put This On. He focuses on menswear, so I’m borrowing his principles rather than his specifics. (How to Judge Quality in Clothing)
The Signs of Good Quality Clothing All Five Experts Agree On
These are the points where all five line up, along with what happened when I checked them against my own clothes.
Expensive Clothes Aren’t Always Better Quality
This is the one thing everyone agrees on. Banner says price doesn’t equal quality, and that brand recognition certainly doesn’t either. Guy writes that the link between price and quality is looser than it used to be.
My closet backs them up. A couple of years ago I bought two pointelle cardigans from Gap, 100% cotton with dainty scalloped edges, during one of Gap’s many sales. They were under $50 each, marked down from $65, and they’re still the light layer I reach for most. I liked the first one so much I went back for it in maroon.
My $160 Quince cashmere cardigan, on the other hand, started pilling after a handful of washes. Those Gap cardigans did a lot to break my old assumption that expensive always means better.
Why Super-Soft Cashmere Can Be a Red Flag
Brunn and Guy arrived at this one separately, and it goes against how most of us shop for cashmere. According to Brunn, high-quality cashmere is made from long fibers, which give it a smoother, sleeker look.
The cloud-soft fuzz we tend to fall for on the rack usually comes from shorter fibers, and those are the ones that pill. Guy adds that good cashmere gets softer with wear, a bit like raw denim.
My Quince Mongolian cashmere cardigan is a good example. It passed every construction check I know of (fully fashioned, clean seams, buttons sewn on securely) and still started pilling after a few washes. My Lexi sweater from Petite Studio (gifted), which is 100% mercerized merino, did the same.
In fairness, both labels say hand wash only, and I put both through the delicate cycle. I suppose my efforts to read the tag for composition didn’t extend to the washing instructions. Ugh. Lesson learned! My clothing care skills are still a work in progress.
Fiber length isn’t something you can see on a hanger, so no store check would have flagged either sweater. These days I look for denser knits and actually hand wash them. My three-year Quince review covers how the rest of the brand has held up.
Check the Lining Fabric, Not Just the Outside
Leconte prefers a viscose lining to 100% polyester against the skin, and Banner sees a lining as a sign that someone paid attention. My two coats make a handy side-by-side.
My Marcella coat is 100% virgin wool with a 100% viscose lining, made in Bulgaria. My Quince trench is 98% organic cotton and 2% spandex, with a 100% polyester lining. I wear the trench constantly in that in-between stretch of fall, though I do wish the organic cotton carried through to the inside.
The trench’s care label also says dry clean. Leconte sees dry-clean-only on a cotton piece as a hint that the thread or pre-washing wasn’t great, but she makes an exception for tailoring and outerwear, so I’m giving my coat a pass.
The buttons, at least, pass Leconte’s check, with four holes and a cross stitch.
Well-Made Clothes Have Clean Seams Inside
Banner’s main test is whether you can see that time and effort went into making the garment. When a shortcut saves the factory time but costs you durability, that’s the red flag.
My Quince silk skirt (gifted) passes this one. The seams are French seams, where the raw edges are folded and stitched inside the seam so they can’t fray. They take longer to sew, and they’re why the inside of the skirt looks almost as clean as the outside.
Natural Fibers Are Ideal, but Some Synthetics Earn Their Place
None of the five believes in a single quality ladder with natural fibers at the top. Leconte argues that a well-engineered blend can outperform pure cotton, and Fasanella describes quality as “adherence to a standard” set by whoever made the garment.
This is where I’ve loosened up over the eighteen months I’ve spent switching to natural fibers. I do prefer them, and I want them to make up most of my wardrobe. But synthetics have their place, whether it’s for stretch, for durability or (let’s be frank) for the sake of a striking style.
Take one of my favorite tops, the Reformation Cello. It’s 88% Tencel lyocell and 12% spandex, I picked it up on a Black Friday sale (it retails for $98 now), and three years later it still wears beautifully. I need that stretch for it to drape across my shoulder in its twisted, Greek-goddess way, and I wouldn’t get that look without it.
A quick note, since the label confuses a lot of people (me included, at first). Tencel is a brand name for lyocell, which is made from wood pulp, so it belongs with the plant-based fibers. The synthetic in the Cello is the spandex, and in this case it’s pulling its weight.
My Cult Gaia dress takes blending even further, with 38% linen, 25% wool, 20% rayon and 17% silk, all lined in cotton.
It’s one of the more interesting labels in my closet.
The construction is just as considered, too, with pleated bust panels, princess seams that curve into the waist and a topstitched placket.
Where Clothing Experts Disagree (and Where I Land)
This is the part most quality guides skip. But it’s the part I found most useful.
Does a Wider Seam Allowance Mean Better Quality?
Seam allowance is the strip of fabric between the stitching and the raw edge. Leconte sees a generous one as a quality signal, since it leaves room to alter the garment and makes the seam less likely to give way, and Banner agrees.
Fasanella, who makes production patterns for a living, doesn’t buy it. In her words, “we don’t use smaller allowances because we’re cheap… We use smaller allowances because they’re more accurate to sew.”
I’m with Fasanella on what a narrow allowance says about quality, which isn’t much. At 5’3, though, I alter almost everything, so a little extra fabric is a nice bonus for me. I just wouldn’t treat it as proof that a piece is well made.
Do French Seams Mean a Better Garment?
Banner ranks seam finishes, with French, flat-felled and bound seams at the top and a single serged seam at the bottom. Fasanella pushes back here too, writing that “the more complex a seam is, and the more handling steps it takes to form it, the more potential there is for it to be done poorly.”
I think they’re both right. A French seam sewn badly is worse than a plain seam sewn well, so I look at how neatly a seam is done before I get excited about what kind it is. The French seams on my Quince skirt are straight and flat, and that’s what counts.
Is Viscose Synthetic, and Is It Good Quality?
Banner lumps viscose in with polyester and acetate. Leconte puts viscose, modal and Tencel in a friendlier middle category because they breathe so well. On the fiber itself, I think Leconte has the stronger case, since viscose comes from plant cellulose rather than petroleum. Banner’s concern seems to be more about how it’s produced, which is fair, but it’s a separate argument.
My Marcella Cooper top ($90, 96% Tencel and 4% elastane) has me firmly in the middle-category camp. The way that cowl neckline falls is all thanks to the fabric.
Can You Really See Quality in Expensive Clothes?
Banner’s whole approach assumes a trained eye can read a garment. Guy isn’t so sure. In Can You Spot Bespoke?, he describes a bespoke tailor and a professional patternmaker, both with decades of experience, who couldn’t pick out high-end ready-to-wear. Machines can now copy a lot of the details that used to signal handwork.
After more than 100 rentals, my take is that the checks work well at the lower end of the market and get harder to rely on as prices climb. I can usually tell fast fashion from mid-range in a few seconds. Telling a good $300 piece from a great $900 one is a lot trickier.
The checks did catch one mid-range flaw for me, though. I’d seen the Reformation Romi dress online and went to try it on in store.
It’s 100% silk with a 100% viscose lining, and the lining made sense to me. Viscose isn’t a natural fiber, but it’s much more breathable than polyester and keeps the silk from clinging to the body. A luxury piece would likely have a matching silk or high-grade cupro lining, but at mid-range, I understand the choice.
What I didn’t understand was the zipper. It puckers outward around the hip, leaving a small but noticeable bulge at the side.
It’s an invisible zipper, which Banner counts among the weakest kinds.
When I went back to look at the dress online, the model conveniently had her hand or a purse covering that exact spot in every photo, even the ones from behind.
For a dress that runs $278 before tax, I’d expect a smooth, bump-free zipper. I bought it anyway in August, and the bulge has only become more noticeable since. Consider this the report-back I promised in my natural fiber post.
What You Can’t Tell in a Store, Plus How to Judge Quality Online and Secondhand
Here’s the honest list of things no fitting-room check will reveal.
- Fiber length, which decides whether knitwear pills
- Whether the dye will fade or bleed
- Half-canvas versus fused construction
- How a zipper will hold up after months of wear
- The quality of interfacing you can’t see
How to Judge Clothing Quality Online
You lose most of the hands-on checks when you shop online, but a few still help.
- Read the fiber content before you fall for the photos. It’s the one detail a product page can’t style.
- Look for reviews with customer photos. Real people don’t pose around the flaws.
- Notice what the photos avoid. If a hand, a bag or a pose covers the same spot in every shot, take a closer look there. Looking back, the Romi photos were pointing right at the problem.
How to Spot Quality Thrift Clothes
ThredUp is a digital thrift store, and like an in-person one, you often have to dig to find the gems.
Having a plan and a reliable set of filters cuts through a lot of the clutter. I go in with an idea of what I want, say a full-length structured brown coat for winter, and instead of searching by brand, I search by material (wool or a wool blend, in this case) and see what comes up.
Try not to be so brand loyal that you miss out on well-made pieces.
I go deeper on vetting brands and secondhand listings in The Quality Wardrobe Blueprint.
Did the Quality Checks Work? How My Clothes Held Up Over Time
All five frameworks are about the moment you’re deciding whether to buy. But I wanted to test how a garment holds up after a year or two, so I went back through my own closet.
| Garment | Paid | Owned | What the store checks said | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quince cashmere cardigan | $160 | Since Feb 2025 | Passed: fully fashioned, clean seams | Pilled after a handful of washes (machine, delicate) |
| Petite Studio Lexi sweater | Gifted | About 18 months | Soft and smooth | Pilled after machine washing on delicate |
| Gap pointelle cardigans | Under $50 each | 2 years | A simple cotton knit | Still a regular layer |
| Quince organic cotton tees | $20 | 8+ months | 9% spandex, more than I’d like | Necklines still sit properly |
| Reformation Cello top | On sale (retails for $98) | 3 years | 12% spandex | Still wears beautifully |
| Reformation Romi dress | $278 | Since Aug 2026 | Zipper puckered in the fitting room | The bulge is more noticeable now |
| Quince silk skirt | Gifted ($85 retail) | Almost 3 years | French seams | Drapes beautifully, waistband intact, stains have come out |
Seeing it all together surprised me. The checks were good at catching construction issues, like the Romi zipper and the trench lining. None of them warned me about the two sweaters that pilled, which both looked and felt lovely in my hands. So these days I give the fiber content and the care label just as much attention as the seams.
How to Judge Quality and Fit When You’re Petite
None of the five writes with petite women in mind. Leconte’s fit checks (fabric pulling at the armhole, missing bust darts, side seams that twist) are based on a standard fit model.
At 5’3, the issues I run into are different. Hems land at the wrong spot, waists sit too low, and proportions that look right on a 5’9 model look a little off on me.
Wide-leg pants are the perfect example. They’re what I gravitate toward, and they look so chic online, but then I click in and see the model is 5’9, so I know they’d pool at the ground on me. Now that I know my inseam, I always check the inseam of the pants I’m shopping for to make sure it’s within an inch of mine, ideally the same.
It also means I end up tailoring more than most people, which is why I appreciate a generous seam allowance. If you’re petite too, my Petite Studio review after 18 months covers a brand that cuts for our height.
What Good Quality Fabric Looks Like, Fiber by Fiber
How to Tell If Cashmere Is Good Quality
Go for a denser knit over the softest one on the rack, and look for a smooth, sleek surface. Holding it up to a window is a quick tell, since a thin knit lets a lot of light through. My full take on budget cashmere is in my Quince review.
What to Look for in Quality Wool
Virgin wool means new wool rather than fiber recycled from older garments. My Marcella coat is 100% virgin wool, and its viscose lining is what I’d hope to see at that level. Banner points out that scratchiness usually comes from coarser fibers, which are cheaper and perfectly fine for coats and trousers. I’d just keep them away from anything that sits against your skin.
How to Tell If Silk Is Good Quality
Look at the seams and the weight. My Quince silk skirt is 100% mulberry silk at 19 momme with French seams, and it’s machine washable.
Almost three years in, it’s held up well. The fabric still drapes beautifully, the elastic waistband is perfectly intact, and the few times I’ve spilled something on it, I’ve been able to get it out. I’m thankful it’s machine washable, unlike some of the more delicate dry-clean-only pieces on this site.
Quince’s washable silk pants are just as comfortable, but they wrinkle if you so much as look at them, so I steam them every time I wear them.
What Good Quality Linen Looks Like
Good linen is fairly even, though a few slubs are part of its character (Banner notes they can be deliberate). My linen dress was handmade by Anna at LOVEOCEAN on Etsy for $250, in what she describes as OEKO-TEX certified, 100% European medium-weight linen.
It floats on the body so beautifully and has an elegant simplicity that makes it easy to slip into and style. It’s also made me want to lean more into handmade pieces like it.
Quality Cotton Knits and Blends
A good knit holds its shape. My Modern Citizen sweater is 50% organic cotton and 50% merino wool.
It’s knit in a dense rib, with shaped seams that give it structure.
Hold it up to a window and barely any light comes through, which is a far cry from the thin cashmere boatneck I eventually gave away.
FAQ: How to Tell If Clothes Are Good Quality
Start by reading the fiber content and weighing it against the price. Then turn the garment inside out and look for clean seams that don’t show light when you gently pull them apart, patterns that line up, buttons sewn through four holes and a lining in a breathable fiber. With knits, press a finger into the knit and hold it up to the light.
It can be. Viscose is made from plant cellulose, it breathes and it drapes well, which is why Justine Leconte prefers a viscose lining to polyester. Lyocell, often sold as Tencel, is a related fiber that’s generally stronger. As with any fabric, check the weave and the construction too.
Not necessarily. The label tells you the fiber, but quality depends on fiber length and knit density, and neither one is printed on the tag. Shorter fibers feel softer in the store and pill sooner, while longer fibers look sleeker and last longer.
Not always. A small amount of synthetic fiber can do a real job, like the spandex that makes my Cello top drape the way it does. I’d be wary of a high polyester percentage in anything priced as luxury, though. Justine Leconte suggests avoiding more than 50% polyester in pieces sold that way.
Sometimes, but not reliably. All five experts agree that price is a weak signal, and my under-$50 Gap cardigans have outlasted a $160 cashmere one. The checks in this post will tell you more than the price tag will.
A French seam tucks the raw edges of the fabric inside the seam itself, so nothing can fray. It takes longer to sew, which is why you usually see it on silk and higher-end pieces. It still needs to be sewn neatly to count as a good sign.
Is Well-Made Clothing Worth It? Where I’ve Landed
I’m still building this wardrobe, and I expect to be for a while yet. What’s changed is that I know what I’m looking at now. These checks take about a minute in a fitting room, and they’ve already saved me a lot of returns (and a fair amount of regret).
If you’d like the full method, including how I vet brands, read listings online and shop secondhand, it’s all in The Quality Wardrobe Blueprint. For more long-term reviews, start with Quince, Petite Studio and BNTO vs. Nuuly, or browse quality clothing brands that won’t break the bank.
Want the checklist I run through before anything goes in my cart? It's five questions on one page, ready for you here.
Get the 5-Point ChecklistNote: Everything here is something I own and have worn. Petite Studio gifted me the Lexi sweater and Quince gifted me the silk skirt, and links to both brands are affiliate links.
