02/20/2026
As the sheer quantity of clothing available to the average American has grown over the past few decades, everything feels at least a little bit flimsier than it used to, Amanda Mull argued in 2023. https://theatln.tc/CEkwZcmY
Good sweaters, gloves, beanies, and scarves in particular are all but gone from mass-market retailers. “The options that have replaced them lose their fluff faster, feel fake, and either keep their wearers too hot or let the winter wind whip right through them. Sometimes they even smell like plastic,” Mull writes. Knits used to be made entirely of natural fibers, usually from shearing sheep, goats, alpacas, and other animals. Sometimes, plant-derived fibers such as cotton or linen were blended in. Now, according to Imran Islam, a textile-science professor and knit expert at the Fashion Institute of Technology, in New York, the overwhelming majority of yarn used in mass-market knitwear is blended with some type of plastic.
Knits made with synthetic fiber are cheaper to produce. They can be spun up in astronomical quantities. They also usually can be tossed in your washing machine with everything else. But by virtually every other measure, synthetic fabrics are far inferior, Mull writes. They pill quickly, sometimes look fake, shed microplastics, and don’t perform as well as wool when worn. The majority of clothing sold in the U.S. now includes at least some plastic content. Brands generally rely on consumers not to be interested enough in fabric content to check the tags before buying. But Sofi Thanhauser, the author of “Worn: A People’s History of Clothing,” said brands have also gotten more adept at marketing synthetic fabrics as a consumer advantage, whether or not they actually are in any particular garment.
The result of all of this is abundance, but only by a definition of the word that includes an abundance of junk, Mull continues. A good sweater is hard to find, but it’s not impossible. “Plenty of garments gesture at what used to be widely available, but few hold a candle to the garments that were once the norm. And, in fact, please don’t get candles too close to a poly blend, which is much more likely than wool to go up in flames.”
🎨: Jared Bartman / The Atlantic / Getty
