One problem this shows, is that as a consumer I have no idea what the hell is quality clothing. Clearly, expensive does not always mean high quality. And I'm not buying "brand" clothing either.
Your experience is very common, I have a fake nike sweatshirt I bought more than a decade ago from a random street seller (emergency on a trip) which still outlasts current brand clothes.
Consumers' ignorance is not the problem, it used to be generally true that the more expensive item was better. Every brand has seemingly decided to burn their furniture to heat the house though, and what we experience is not as much consumer ignorance as it is a lack of names deserving trust.
However, made on demand will likely cost more, plus you can't fit items first. Unless they make items for fitting which you can then order to have manufactured.
But yeah the main thing is that on-demand can never compete with mass production even if a big part of the mass produced stuff is discarded.
"just don't do X" has basically never worked, it is not a serious solution to any problem.
A while back, Lee Valley did a 3D knitted chisel roll using Kevlar and other materials, in support of the Canadian company which invented the 3D knitting process used (unfortunately, at the time, I didn't have the money or need for --- I've since updated my woodworking toolkit and have a nice set of chisels which it would have been perfect for, except it was discontinued and is no longer available...)
I would nonetheless find it interesting to read an "ultimate guide" explaining how the knitting machines work, but this ain't it.
https://www.printables.com/model/1483991-fall-is-looming-the...
And yet, no one actually offers to sell you a made-to-measure knitted garment. Why?
A few theories: - Knits are stretchy so there's limited demand for M2M - DFM/software issues - no one actually knows to generate a pattern from a set of sizes without human intervention - Issues with OEE - it's inefficient to wait for orders to produce the garments because the capital cost of the machines is so high. - Logistics - you don't want to deal with shipping everyone the right order.
Though it totally misses the point of actually knitting something, with your own hands. The time it takes, the details you need to think about, the skills you work on perfecting, the quiet evening on the sofa or in a cafe with friends, chatting and knitting away, all that goes into a piece of clothing that you've knitted. Letting a machine do that is completely missing out.
I feel similarly about AI generated music. Taking the musician out of the loop misses the point of the whole thing.
The idea of this is: knitting on demand, customizable, less waste.
You can still knit your things at home if you want to do your own stuff, or relax a bit...
This isnt a hype board, for consumer products. Its supposed to be a tech first community.