I had a flashback to Dave Chappelle as Diddy "I only drink the finest breastmilks" and I laughed aloud.
Cambodian immigrants only!
Yo, Phil, I'm on my way back to Queens later tonight, while I'm there, I'll grab you a sugar cookie?
I feel you on that.
I'm more selective with the stuff I buy now but I grew up buying Coogi knits and Iceberg History sweaters so I don't have a problem dropping $80 on a good quality sweater....problem is, I don't see too much quality items out there right now.
But if you want premium products, be prepared to pay premium prices.
M/N is a bit of a grey area to me. But, I understand when an established high-end, or borderline high-end brand drops expensive pieces. Ralph Lauren and many high-end designers have earned the right to charge what they want for their pieces. M/N had a niche when they were very jersey and jacket-centric in that they provided high quality (less so now) items with hard-to-acquire licensing that weren't widely available other places. That was a niche product, and therefore those items are going to be expensive. It makes sense, intellectually and from a business standpoint.
But, now we are just talking about sweatshirts. This isn't high fashion. This is just jacking their prices up so that they don't look out of whack with the premium pricing on their jerseys. IMO, I wish they'd make a sub-brand for their fashion items so they wouldn't have to worry about manipulating pricing to support their high-end, niche jersey division and the more lowest common denominator streetwear ventures under the same brand.
And, I've said this before, but one of my biggest beefs is amateur companies jacking up prices as a way to skirt "paying dues." Instead of earning a rep and following on the basis of your merchandise that will allow you to expand and enter more exclusive pricing markets with different lines, etc. people are just trying to jump ahead of the curve by charging $100 for some BS streetwear product. Like a line's main drawing point is its exclusionary pricing. It's the fashion equivalent of being famous for being famous. Some idiotic madness like Rich Yung would come off doing nothing different than a million others, and without creativity or superior product to differentiate itself from it's competitors, it decides the best way to do that is to call itself high-end and charge ridiculous prices. The sad thing is people fall for this like suckers every damb day!