Standing in a changing room doing arithmetic is one of the least glamorous parts of getting dressed, and one of the most useful. We all have a private ceiling — a number above which a garment starts to feel indulgent — and most of us have never examined where that number came from. It is usually inherited: from what our mothers paid, from what we earned at twenty-three, from a high street that trained us to think a shirt should cost roughly the same as a takeaway. Meanwhile the shirt itself has quietly changed, and so has the maths.
The tag is a starting point, not a verdict
Price communicates less than we think. Two pieces on the same rail can be made from the same mid-weight cotton in the same factory and differ wildly in price because one has a logo and a fashion-week show behind it. Equally, a cheap-looking price can hide a garment that will pill in three washes and lose its shape in five. The question worth asking is not "is this a lot of money?" but "what, specifically, am I paying for here?"
There are only ever a few honest answers: fabric, construction, fit, longevity, and the pleasure of the thing. If you can point at two or three of those and feel satisfied, the price is doing real work. If the only answer is the name on the label and you do not particularly care about the name, you have found your limit.
