Did cotton get expensive?

Cotton prices have been relatively stable the last 4 years, although there was a huge spike in 2011 to three times the current price.

I would attribute your fashion dilemma to the popularity of stretch pants/yoga pants. That style does not work well made with just cotton.

<Currently sitting here in yoga pants.> Oh.

I complain about this all of the time! When I lived in the Memphis area cotton fields were all around me, but the stores were full of rayon shit! It’s a huge per peeve of mine.

@JLeslie I am home alone and I was just ranting out loud to myself in my kitchen about “rayon shit.” I hate rayon and that poly/spandex blend. Everything is so shiny.

Sweat material can easily be made from mostly cotton with a little stretch. I’m not complaining about polyester or nylon, they have their place. It’s the substitution of rayon for cotton that drives me crazy.

I don’t mind a bit of stretch, especially in certain items. I do mind that cotton seems to have been phased out for rayon or that poly/spandex combo seemingly in everything. I would love to find some dresses and tops that are made of cotton. I just don’t understand why it seems to be everything.
It is so hard to find dresses, in particular, that aren’t synthetic. To me, it seems that way.

I agree! Summer dresses made from cotton should be a staple. WTH has happened? The US is still a huge cotton producer. We export a lot of it. It pisses me off. Rayon shrinks, it’s awful.

<Tucking blanket over my yoga pants> I would love to find cotton also. Every pair of pants and jeans I buy has some kind of stretch material and within 2 hours my pants are all stretched out and the butt is hanging down looking like I’ve pooped myself.

Let’s be serious, though, yoga pants are glorious. I have a dresser drawer just for my stretchy, black pants.
But, they can’t be solely to blamed for this shift in the fabric of the fabric universe (that was terrible, I know, I’m sorry.)

It’s not really a matter of cost so much as fashion trends over the last few decades, plus the fact that synthetic fibers tend to hold up longer and don’t shrink in the dryer like cotton does.

And yeah, we still produce a lot of cotton, but it’s used in things other than clothing (bandages, swabs, make-up applicators/removers, etc, etc, etc).

Ever since Lincoln freed the slaves, labor costs have risen for picking cotton.

Seriously, there are a couple of contributing reasons:

- money: cotton as a crop is less lucrative than growing a lot of other crops.

- fewer farmers, larger expanses of land… more costly.

- as others wrote, synthetics often hold up better, so less demand

Rayon does not hold up better than cotton. There is an argument about whether rayon is synthetic or not. Let’s just say it’s natural. It’s still awful.

Rayon shrinks and wrinkles. I put the item back on the rack if it has rayon in it.

I hate when I see a sweater that I like and I touch it and it’s not 100% cotton. The synthetic stuff, even if just a small percentage of the sweater, feels like shit. When it comes to blouses, they have to be all cotton.

I blame the “skinny” trend, as in “skinny jeans”. In order to be form fitting, they have to have a certain amount of non-cotton stretch content.

I know in men’s wear, what used to a small top is now youth, and what was small is now medium. Etcetera. Vintage and athletic fit are code words for “if you’re not built like Matthew Mcconaughey it’s going to look like shit on you.” It also means a significant synthetic content.
Plastic is in. Haven’t you noticed that the vast majority of athletic shoes are now 100% synthetic?

Want cotton? Google it!
You might also try looking up some clothing resale shops and doing a little fashion recycling.

Nearly all the cotton fields in California, the second highest production state, have dried up.

The U. S. has become increasingly dependent on cotton imported from India.

@ibstubro Actually, the bit of stretch in jeans started before the skinny trend. I think it really became prevalent as people got fatter. I worked in the jean biz in the 80’s and only a few vendors were putting stretch in their jeans, and only one or two of their styles. By the early 2000’s stretch jeans were everywhere.

I can only speak to men’s wear, @JLeslie, and I’ve not really seen stretch prevalent in men’s jeans until the past few years, and gaining. I’m always behind the curve, so I got my first jeans with stretch content in the past couple years.
Most people can’t get jeans skin tight on their calves without a decent amount of stretch, and that’s the fashion.

@ibstubro I’d have to agree that stretch is fairly new to the men’s jean world.

And with it came the tiny, thin, stretch tops that only really look good on about 5% of the population, @JLeslie.
The vast majority of Americans can stand a little blouse, cover and collar, IMO.

@ibstubro, “plastic is in,” is a really good point.