The t-shirt and shoes question

The t-shirt and shoes philosophy

The idea isn't mine. It was first proposed by a guy I was working with. At an in principle stage, anyway. We sort of developed it from there together. Until recently, I'd forgotten all about it. Memorable, it isn't. Sensible? It works for me. It explained some unspecific begrudging feelings of dissatisfaction. Those vague and nagging feelings you can't actually pin down sometimes.

This is it:

Imagine (see? a thought experiment already – weren't expecting that, were you?) that in the near future the clothes and footwear manufacturers and retailers all suddenly disappeared. It's okay. No insider knowledge of a sudden crash affecting Primark and Clarkes. Just an experiment, no more than that.

So, there we are in the future. No shops selling clothes, and none selling shoes, either.

Where do the problems lie? Assume that there's raw materials available, but you have to be self-reliant.

Well, we decided as follows:

Clothes. Take as an example a t-shirt. You could take off the one you're wearing, lay it on some folded over material and draw around the edges. Cut out and there's two pieces of cloth: t-shirt (front) and t-shirt (back). Sew (crudely) or in my case staple or glue. Fip it the right side out (didn't we say that at the beginning, oh well, start again) and there you go. T-shirt. Job done.

Shoes. Where to start? How do you shape, or cut, or do whatever it is to leather, then attach that to the soles? How long would it take to make a pair of decent shoes, from scratch, knowing nothing.

The conclusion: bit of a long-winded thought process, I know, but when someone wants £45 for a t-shirt and you think “hold on a minute”; and when someone wants £45 for a pair of shoes and you think “okay, I can see that”; that's why. That's our theory why, in any case.

That's why, when you can make decent pizza and pasta at home, £5 - £7 a pop is fine, and £11 and £12 upwards gives you that unspecific dissatisfaction (unless it's a super-pizza or uber-pasta). That's why a decent curry and rice at a decent price is all well and good, why a good curry for a little more is also okay, and why a high-cost curry had better provide a high differential in quality over the decent.

That's why, for all the starched white table wear and heavy plates and fine glasses, when a curry house charges too much for sweet and mild and non-descript rubbish you walk out scratching your head. At the points where you are feeling the donkey ears start to emerge.

The t-shirt and shoes theory.

That feeling you get when you see and hear the Prime Minister or the Pope? Overpriced t-shirt side of the equation. Centuries of politics and religion, and still most of the world population is starving, stoning each other to death, or working for 2p a month, while they ride around wearing five grand suits and hugely expensive silly hats, encouraging the stonings for drawing cartoons or selling the nation's assets to their mates for a laugh and a few bob in director's fees, or whatever it is they do. Fire brigade? Well, they put fires out (shoes). The police? We're on what must the twentieth or thirtieth stop crime initiative of my lifetime without anything changing (t-shirt).