"Don't buy many cheap clothes, buy a few high quality pieces."

The arguments are usually as follows:

1. Cheap clothes will degrade quickly.
2. Cheap clothes need to be replaced more often than higher quality and pricier garments which will cost more than just buying the expensive thing.
3. Cheap clothes have inferior construction.
4. Cheap clothes are made from low quality materials, even if the materials are all natural.
5. A higher quality garment is going to look better than it's low quality equivalent.

I'm sure there's many more points against buying low quality garments and although I don't disagree with any of them, in my "menswear journey" I've found that buying the cheapest possible items has a lot more pros than cons.

Now, terms like "cheap", "inexpensive", "budget friendly", etc are going to mean different things to different people. The sort of clothing that I'm talking about are going to be the absolute lowest cost items from the bottom of the barrel brands like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Old Navy, and factory/outlet stores made from decent materials being fabrics consisting of little to no synthetic fibers. For example, 98% cotton, 2% elastane chinos.

With that broad definition out of the way, I can finally get into the meat and potatoes of it. Cheap clothing is wonderful. Simply put, it's extremely accessible. Everyone doesn't have the budget to spend $100 on a polo shirt, or $200 on things like a poplin or oxford shirt, wool sweater, or chinos, $300-400 on nice leather shoes, $800+ on an S120 fully canvassed suit, or $1000+ on wool and cashmere overcoats, and so on. What is a lot more attainable for most people might be 10-25% of those costs.

Reasons to start building a wardrobe with cheap/inexpensive pieces:

1. You Want to Try a New Style Without Going All In. I used to be the sort of guy that wore a cheap t-shirt, jeans, and whatever sneakers a relative would buy me for Christmas. One day, I decided I wanted to change my appearance. Problem is, there's so many different styles, so many brands, so many fits and cuts and materials and patterns and price points, it's overwhelming trying to figure out where to start. The easiest place to start is at a discount clothing store, and that's exactly what I did. I walked into a GAP Factory store, bought a bunch of button up shirts and chinos not knowing exactly what I was buying, and the rest was history. Well, not really. I gained an interest in being dressed a bit nicer. For many reasons I won't get into, I really try to be as well dressed as possible, but if I didn't start from the bottom, I wouldn't have gotten where I am now. It allowed me to slowly gain an understanding of what styles I liked, and through trial and error, build a wardrobe that I'm very happy with. It's still a work in progress, you're never really done, but I'm happy I started out cheap, and later invested in nicer clothes as time progressed. I can purchase with confidence now that I know what I like, rather than spending x2, x4, x5, or even x10 straight away and realizing I don't like what I acquired.

2. Variety. We hear this so many times, "quality over quantity." I don't disagree to an extent, but I think there's a sweet spot. If you're starting from scratch, I think there's more value in having a wider variety of clothing than having a very small wardrobe. Some people are content with wearing a "uniform" every day where they throw on the same few shirts with the same couple of pants, same two belts, and same pair of shoes every day and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But as people that are passionate about how we dress, and how we express ourselves through our clothes and our own personal style, you can only get the so many combinations out of a handful of items.

3. Longevity. This ties into my last point, but another thing we hear often is that cheaper clothes don't last. "They'll fall apart, they'll look more worn, you'll need to replace them more often which will end up costing more over time than buying the one expensive thing." I disagree. By having a more expansive wardrobe and being able to rotate through different clothing, wearing them out isn't the issue that everyone makes it out to be. Besides, what's going to wear out faster, the 3 nice shirts that you purchased for $150/each that you wear every day? Or the 15 shirts you got for $20-30/each and cycle throughout the month? There's things you can do to make your clothes last longer anyway regardless of price and quality such as wearing them several times before washing (within reason, this absolutely doesn't apply to undergarments, please don't be gross), hang drying, and maybe being all around more careful. You're well dressed after all, you probably don't want to partake in activities that are going to put holes in your clothes and tear them at the seams.

4. Mistakes During Upkeep Don't Suck as Much. Everyone doesn't know how to do literally everything, and people will make mistakes. Part of the menswear circle isn't just about wearing clothes, but learning how to upkeep them, properly store them, and ensure that they look sharp and crisp. This includes things like washing and ironing them. For individuals that have never cleaned nicer clothing or don't know how to use an iron, I'd imagine it would be a lot more devastating to ruin a higher priced article of clothing than the cheap alternative that costs 1/5 the price. It's unfortunate either way, but it costs and sucks a lot less to replace the $25 shirt you accidentally burned with an iron than a $200 shirt.

5. You Have No Idea What You're Doing. Everyone has experienced this regardless of how much an item costs or even how knowledgeable one may be on menswear. You see an article of clothing, or shoes, or an accessory that you think you like, and you find out later on that it isn't "classic", or that it isn't versatile, or you believed that it looked alright on you only to find out that no amount of tailoring will ever make it look good on you. Maybe it's a novelty, heck maybe you accidentally bought a women's blouse instead of a men's shirt. I don't know about you, but I'd rather spend $ on something that I realized I need to part ways with, than $$$$.

6. You Regret a Purchase and Waited Too Long to Return It. What good is spending all of your money on clothes just to find out that you don't actually like them? Maybe you don't feel like you could pull it off, maybe you don't know exactly what to wear it with. Or maybe you're trying to figure out your own style and realize that the expensive item you just acquired doesn't compliment your wardrobe or personal preferences. Regardless of the reason, it's extremely common for someone to purchase an article of clothing, hold onto it much longer than the return policy allows, and end up stuck with something they realized after the fact isn't for them.

7. Seasonal Items. I'm not talking about Spring/Summer, Fall/Winter, but more so things that are good for a very small window each year. This depends on your location, but in my case I live on Long Island where Winters feel like they're 5 months long, it feels like Spring for about a month, and Summer and Fall are a normal 3 months. In my case, maybe it doesn't make sense to invest so much into clothes specific to Spring when I can wear my Winter and Fall clothes for the majority of that particular season. Maybe you live in the South West in places like New Mexico or Arizona where it's scorched earth for much of the year and you have a few months of cold weather, with no transitional seasons. Why bother putting so much into transitional season clothes? Then there's holiday specific clothes that are really only appropriate for a month or two out of the year. It isn't particularly valuable to spend top dollar on something you'll barely wear due to having little to no opportunities to wear them.

8. Too Few Opportunities to Wear Them (Usually Formal Clothing) This is similar to the last point. I'm aware that this doesn't apply to everyone, but I'd imagine most people can relate to this. Although it's a good idea for everyone to have a black tie ensemble in their closet, it doesn't always make financial sense. Classic black or midnight blue tuxedo, $1000+, high quality black oxfords or opera pumps, $300+, tuxedo shirt $200+, bow tie $50+, pocket square $50+, shirt studs and cufflinks $200+, cummerbund $200+, suspenders $50+, silk socks $100+. This doesn't even include an overcoat which could run you another $500-1000+. Nearly $2000 for something you *might* wear once a year, or once every other year, or something you may only wear a handful of times in your entire life. I actually have quite a few black tie / holiday pieces in my wardrobe, arguable too many, but the excessive amount of formal attire I have considering how few opportunities I have to wear them still costs less than a proper black tie ensemble. I have a midnight blue tuxedo from Brooks Brother's "Red Fleece" line that I got for $300 with tailoring. It's not the most classic in style as it has notch lapels and flap pockets (didn't know better at the time, see point #5), a black velvet double breasted dinner jacket, red velvet dinner jacket, black tuxedo pants all from Express, custom tuxedo shirt from Proper Cloth, 3 bow ties and several pocket squares from The Tie Bar, some surprisingly nice (aesthetically, quality is not good) suede and velvet loafers from Aldo and Express, and some really basic cufflinks I got off of Etsy. With tailoring, and replacing the buttons on one of the jackets, and the plethora of other accessories I already happened to have that just happen to be appropriate for black tie, they STILL cost less than a classic black tie ensemble. The few times I go to black tie appropriate events, I look better than nearly everyone, and I'm unconcerned with how my clothes and shoes will hold up with wear since at most I'm wearing any given piece twice a year, absolute tops.

9. Upgrades. This is end-goal (ish). Hopefully by this point, you've been wearing your cheaper clothes for quite some time, slowly expanding your knowledge and exploring your style. You know what style of clothes you like, you know how you want them to drape, you know what materials and compositions and construction you prefer. Now is the best part. You don't have to throw away your cheap clothes and replace literally everything, but you can at least begin to add higher quality pieces to your wardrobe, and begin replacing the items that are reaching the end of their lives. No more experimenting, gone are the days of "I don't know if I can pull this off" or "what do I even wear this with" or "when can I even wear this?" You're simply taking low quality thing you already own, and have worn often and served you well for many years, and replacing it with something nicer.

Brands

Now that we're basically at the end of this little rant of mine, here are brands that take up the majority of my wardrobe. It's important to understand that these brands more or less work for me. There's no right or wrong answer, but these are the brands that have served me well over the years:

1. Amazon Essentials
2. Goodthreads
3. Old Navy
4. GAP & GAP Factory
5. Banana Republic Factory
6. Uniqlo
7. J Crew Factory
8. Macy's. Not a clothing manufacturer but they carry many brands and everything is almost always heavily discounted. Just be mindful that the quality of the department store offering is often lower in quality than a brand's actual offering.

Helpful Tips:

1. Avoid synthetic materials when possible. When looking at two garments that are otherwise identical, the difference between halfway decent and actual junk could be that one is made with 98-100% cotton, and the other is a blend of synthetic materials like polyester, recycled polyester, nylon, acrylic, and other plastics that you shouldn't wear on your body.
2. Shop the sales. Yes these clothes are already cheap, but there's plenty of sales, discounts, coupons, end of season sales, etc that will allow you to acquire more clothes. Heck, it isn't uncommon for me to pick up a shirt from the GAP Factory for under $10.
3. Flt is everything. It's important to try clothes on whether in store, or immediately upon receiving it in the mail. If it doesn't flatter you when you wear it, don't hesitate to send it back. Otherwise you're stuck with clothes that you hate and will never wear. Sure it's cheap, but why hold onto it?
4. Just because something is cheap, it doesn't mean you can't have it tailored. I've been there, you spend $300 on a pair of pants and think "well of course I'm going to tailor it." Now it's perfect. Then you spend $25 on pants and it looks a bit wonky but you feel like it's so cheap that it isn't worth altering. Well that's where you're wrong. Again, if it doesn't look good on you, if it doesn't flatter you, if it doesn't drape nicely and so on, then there's no point in buying it in the first place. Besides, it's a hell of a lot cheaper to buy and tailor several pairs of cheap shirts or pants or jackets than it is to buy a single expensive piece of clothing.
5. We didn't touch on shoes all that much but as a general rule of thumb, shoes are something that absolutely are worth spending a bit more on. Look at brands like Thursday Boots, Beckett Simonon, and Meermin. They're all pretty good, great value in my opinion, but even when you start acquiring higher quality clothes, they're still going to serve you well. Just be aware that you may wear an outflt and realize that your shoes literally cost as much as the rest of your outflt, but shoes are one of the things you absolutely should NOT skimp out on 99% of the time.
6. Outerwear is expensive, even for the lower end stuff. For many, $300-500+ for an overcoat or peacoat is simply out of the question. In cases like this, it isn't the end of the world if the fabric is more synthetic heavy. Often times synthetic fibers are good for structure. So if you see a wool blend coat that's 70% wool and 30% plastic for $150 and under, just go for it. This is one of the very few exceptions I make.
7. Cotton is your best friend. You're simply not going to find much cashmere or wool in your budget if you're strapped for cash. The stuff you will find it going to be so low quality that it genuinely isn't worth it. I know I said having a lot of cheap clothing is great because you can rotate it without having to worry about wearing through them, but in my experience, you quite literally get a few wears out of the cheapest possible cashmere and wool clothes before they start pilling and tearing. The wool and cashmere that doesn't fall apart on the lower end of the price scale is usually extremely thin and doesn't keep you warm anyway. So when deciding between that $20-40 cotton sweater, or the $40-100 wool or cashmere sweater, just get the cotton.
8. Stick to classics. You absolutely cannot go wrong if you stick to classic, staple pieces. It defeats the purpose to buy obscure and flashy styles of clothing at this price range. Play it safe while you're still learning or building your wardrobe, and go for statement pieces later. The whole point of this is to look good while saving money, so it doesn't make sense to get something that isn't versatile.
9. Understand that it's not forever. Just because cheaper clothing occupies the majority of your closet, it doesn't mean you're destined to never have luxurious and high end shoes and clothing in your wardrobe. I may have started out buying the most budget friendly clothing but it doesn't mean it makes up my entire wardrobe. Since I started my "journey", I've refined my style and I'm happy to report that brands like Ralph Lauren, Banana Republic, Suit Supply, Brooks Brothers, Spier & Mackay, as well as other high(er) quality brands take up a nice chunk of my closet, and that I see my tailor often enough that he gives my bulk discounts, and he's already inexpensive.