A quick look at my sport shirt labels shows a mix of China, Sri Lanka and El Salvador.

I don't like it but I'm not paying $200 for a shirt, either. (Unless it's Mercer.)

Has there been any US president since Reagan who hasn't been a neoliberalist? No. Reagan was the pioneer so deserves the most blame.

I have to agree.

I know a guy who thought up a portable, packable doll house, designed for use with the hugely popular American Doll. These things are big. You could get half a dozen Barbies into one American Girl.

The guy couldn't find anybody stateside willing to make the things to his specifications and at his price. So he turned to China, and after a year or so of dicking around he finally got what he wanted.

Similarly, fly rod companies are making their less expensive rods in China. Or South Korea. Or wherever. They are perfectly functional. Ninety-some percent of anglers would have a hard time distinguishing the cheaper Chinese rods from the more expensive USA made rods in the same line.

So if you ride herd on the Chinese they will produce what you ask for.

Not endorsing it. Just describing the situation.

Frankly if I were in the market for a doll's house and/or a fly rod (whatever that may be) I doubt I would mind at all if they were made in China. Yet for shoes/clothing I remain highly unimpressed. Although my Uniqlo boxers have proved a lifesaver, and they're made in Bangladesh.

The old Abercrombie and the old Brooks looked at the Old World shops of their respective spheres and made department store versions of them (even where this involved custom work) at somewhat lower cost and quality levels but still respectable, serviceable, and "good enough" for their old customers relative to price (in addition to some of their own contributions). Bean (mostly) wasn't looking to an old world tradition that might've required more continuity and stability at least at a very general level and their business trajectory could be seen as the fruit of extreme yankee frugality/profit-over-quality maximization and the style basically a cheaper version of what everyone in most of Massachusetts now looks like in its march to Oregon, except in Patagonia or whatever. (The Andover shop now sells Elizabeth Warren coats.) The Brooks quality is better and passable for the price and certainly in line with the business ethos of the people whose clothes people here like. It would be nice for less at Brooks to be outsourced but it probably can't be done for around the same cost as its current line. Being rather like Ford but less inventive, they need a GT halo line of higher quality to provide direction for the rest of their kit and to provide a cheaper alternative to more expensive, largely continental designer and tailor brands. As it stands they're just, like Bean, triangulating a rather stagnant market. On the other extreme, something like Quoddy is like a version of an aspect of Bean whose cost exceeds its worth relative to the outsourced brands. The shining star so far as I can see is Cordings, aside from their cardboard tailoring, in terms of integrity and continuity and not outsourcing. Cheers to Eric Clapton et al.

Hmmmmm, Cordings.  I will check it out.

I buy Cordings ‘Catterick’ heavy drill trousers for winter months, 5 pairs now over the last 6/7 years, I like them a lot , (I wish JS sold similar trousers )but they have succumbed to 98/2%, I bought a pair a few weeks ago , TBH you don’t notice the stretch, but the latest pair are a tad wider in the hem, picking them up from the seamstress tomorrow see what they’re like then. The shop obviously caters for ‘toffs’, I can just about get one of the tossers in their pink or red or lime green strides to help, I was in there one time when some hoity toity young blade was shopping , the shop assistants nose could not have been further up his arse, made me grin,

I am impressed with the current crop of John Simons own label trousers. The cords, chinos and most recently moleskin trousers all have a very acceptable rise and waistline, relaxed fit without being baggy and a good taper to about 7.5??  bottoms.

I am impressed with the current crop of John Simons own label trousers. The cords, chinos and most recently moleskin trousers all have a very acceptable rise and waistline, relaxed fit without being baggy and a good taper to about 7.5 inch bottoms.

I have shopped at Cordings for a while.
Their trousers are good but can be a bit baggy. I have previously bought their cords and there was so much surplus fabric. On the plus side the quality of material was second to none, the rise was spot on and they weren't expensive.
I currently have a pair of their moleskin jeans that are really good, a shall collar cardigan (that's superb) and some of their cotton twill jeans - that based on the paisley pocket bags are exactly the same as some John Simons 5-pockets I bought about 8 years ago.
I recommend their raincoats too. They do a lovely Lovatt raincoat that is partially lined.

The irony of the whole British ivy scene, given its strong labour bent, is that everything John Simons saw when he came to America to admire midcentury modernism is what produced contemporary LL Bean and Brooks Brothers rather than either his shop or Cordings, which are more like each other and more consonant with the political aura of the scene than the American milieu the British scene was admiring. The Cordings customer base, whatever their many faults, is a lot of why the British got to have an ivy scene.

^ Something interesting there.  I never imagined Mr.Strachan of the Ivy Shop to be left-wing.  My own leanings are, and always have been, mildly pro-Republican.  I bought a Barry Goldwater tie-clip years ago that remains one of my treasured possessions.  John Simons openly catered to the wealthy customer, not those whose poverty forced them to pass by on the other side.