It's surprisingly easier to derive this from first principles than most people think. All clothes undergo a fairly predictable set of stresses and the design solutions for these stresses are mature enough that they lie pretty close to the efficiency frontier for price/performance.
Basically, if you know what you need to look for in terms of material selection, stitching, hem design and tolerances, you can pretty quickly evaluate the design life of clothing and then compare it to the price.
There's many guides out there that tell you what to look for as a final result but I haven't seen a good guide break it down to fundamental material science but the back derivation is not especially difficult.
Comments
It's surprisingly easier to derive this from first principles than most people think. All clothes undergo a fairly predictable set of stresses and the design solutions for these stresses are mature enough that they lie pretty close to the efficiency frontier for price/performance.
Basically, if you know what you need to look for in terms of material selection, stitching, hem design and tolerances, you can pretty quickly evaluate the design life of clothing and then compare it to the price.
There's many guides out there that tell you what to look for as a final result but I haven't seen a good guide break it down to fundamental material science but the back derivation is not especially difficult.