Chums,
I had been ruminating on this point even before seeing ol Tom's post in the Bean thread. Not wanting to spoil ol katon's pics by going afield in topic,, I thought I would start a new thread.
In ol HTJ''s blog,, he has a great page from Bean of 25 yrs ago. Interesting to compare to todays pricing.
25 ys ago,, a down vest was $42.50. Today,, it is $49. A 7 quid increase in 25 years!
The poplin khakis were $24 then. Similar poplins are approx. $39 today,,or you can purchase the cheapos for $29.
Chums,, dont know what the conclusion of all this is,, but thought it would make for a good chin-wag. Were the down vests made in the US of A then? Do cheap goods justify job losses? Can a country avoid job losses, ect. Is the quality of these worse today??
Cheerio.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_aUE6s--Cm-A/SQ4rUFHTxqI/AAAAAAAAAbM/2us865i-9Vk/s1600-h/LLB+Early+Fall+1983a.jpg
http://www.llbean.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?categoryId=51589&storeId=1&catalogId=1&langId=-1&parentCategory=504723&feat=504723-tn&cat4=504715
I prefer the earlier version of Bean's down vest, which had that special Bean character. Plus, the new colors are way too fancy shmancy. Earlier colors were simple and
straighforward: Red, blue, green. Those colors have been replaced by cayenne and "bright" navy.