Shopper slams Carhartt after noticing concerning detail on clothing tag: 'It's sad to see'

One Reddit user was unhappy about the decline in quality of one of their favorite clothing brands. 

"These are both the heavy weight rain defender sweatshirt," they said of a picture posted to the r/Carhartt subreddit comparing the tags between two pieces they own. "The right one I've had for 2 years and the one on the left I just got today. They're cheaping out using more polyester and increasing prices, it's sad to see."

Sure enough, the older sweater tag showed 75% cotton and 25% polyester being used for the shell, while the newer one was only 55% cotton. The hood had a similar degradation. The lining used to be 100% cotton, but the newer sweater was down to 60%. 

Polyester is cheaper to produce, but it depends on oil production, and it doesn't decompose gracefully. Processing cotton has its own environmental costs, but it decomposes much more naturally. On top of that, cotton doesn't shed loads of microplastics in the wash. 

Finding clothes you like is hard enough. Check out our guide on eco-friendly clothing brands to find which ones aren't skimping on quality for the sake of padding their profit margins. 

Reddit commenters were equally sad to see the brand fall from grace. 

"There's absolutely no reason in the workplace to go for modern Carhartt over Dickies or some other equivalent. Considering the fit and materials used, there isn't much reason on the fashion front anymore either. Sad to see but that's the way it goes," one community member said.  

"Moving slowly to lighter fabrics with a shorter life, simplifying items (getting rid of welt pockets), and all but doing away with items which used somewhat higher quality fabrics (the old heavy brushed twill). Moving manufacturing out of the US. Increasingly using slimmer cuts (which believe it or not creates a profit margin in large scale manufacturing), and now drifting towards all polyester everything," another said. 

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