I Regret to Inform You That Tariffs Are (Still) Coming for Your Closet

It’s not all bad, but it’s definitely not good

I need to start this one with a PSA:

I’m putting it here because this is important to me and honestly my soul just really needs this one. Substack gods, please bring me a kickass web designer.

That’s all! On to the main event…

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We had a whole thing about tariffs earlier this spring.

You remember: breathless headlines, TikToks doing the math, maybe even a friend texting you in horror about a surprise 145% duty on the dress they panic-ordered for a wedding. By god, historians of the Smoot-Hawley Act were FINALLY given their day in the sun!!!

Anyone? Anyone?

And then…silence.

It’s not because the tariffs went away or that all the drama back in April was wrong.

It’s because—and we all know this, but it bears repeating—it’s been kind of a lot lately. To say the very least.

But tariffs didn’t disappear! They’re still going to reshape the fashion industry in ways most of us haven’t fully reckoned with.

And yes, versions of this post have been marinating in my drafts for two months, okay?! Staying perfectly “timely” is not my strong suit.

But if there’s one benefit to missing the frenzy, it’s the chance to (hopefully) say something less breathless and more useful. So let’s talk about what tariffs might actually mean for the clothes we buy—and the choices we’ll have going forward.

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Con: It will make new clothes more expensive (and, worse)

This probably isn’t news to you. But it’s still worth unpacking the real choices brands are up against and why shittier clothes at higher prices is just one inevitable outcome.

Tariffs are paid by the importer when goods arrive in the U.S.¹, which means a tariff on clothing becomes an added cost baked into the process of making clothes for the American market.

Brands have three basic options for how to handle that:

Option #1: “Take one for the team”

In other words, absorb the cost by shrinking margins. It’s what we all wish brands would do. After all, aren’t they already “scamming” us with absurd markups? Surely there’s room to do us all a solid.

I truly hate to be a brand defender here, but even putting the whole “maximize shareholder value” thing aside, nobody in retail is laughing their way to the bank.

Compared to nearly any other industry, the business of making and selling clothes is already extremely thin. Even for the big guys, 10% net income is considered an incredible year. More often, it’s 4–7%. And if even one thing goes sideways? It dips negative.

Trump has floated a lot of different possible tariff rates, but even the very lowest —10%—would be enough to push a typical clothing retailer with average net income into the red. There is no taking one for the team because doing so would mean going out of business.

Option #2: Raise prices

Doing nothing isn’t really on the table. So what else is?

The most immediate move is to raise prices to offset the tariff. It’s the obvious lever, and many brands have already pulled it (to some degree).

But what about secret door #3?

Option #3: Offset by lowering other costs (enshittification)

I know the popular image of retail executives is that they’re rubbing their hands together giggling with delight at any excuse to raise prices.

But I promise you: nobody in retail wants to increase prices because of tariffs.

Those who took ECON 101² already know that raising prices without increasing margins is just bad business. Open your textbook to Chapter 1, and the law of demand tells us that higher prices mean fewer units sold. If your profit margin (%) stays flat, that means lower total profits.³

It’s just not in their interest.

That’s why clothing brands will try their damnedest to maintain pricing by lowering other costs. And that’s been the story of the last 30+ years in American fashion, tariffs or not.

Here’s a fact that sounds wild on its face, but explains everything the longer you think about it: the average American household has spent roughly the same amount (~$1,700 a year) on clothing since the early 90s.

That’s right. Since 1991, average pre-tax household income has tripled—from around $30,000 to over $90,000—but our spending on clothes has flatlined.

Data from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey

I fully realize that other things have gotten a hell of a lot more expensive in the meantime. All the things that actually matter—housing, healthcare, education—have become unaffordable to way too many. But the fact is that clothing is just not one of those things.⁴

I was in sixth grade in 2004, and I vividly remember pining after Abercrombie jeans that cost close to $60. That was a splurge.

Turns out my memory is pretty accurate, because Abercrombie jeans were exactly $49.50 in 2000. How do I know this? If you guessed it's because I own a few old…no, wait: archival…editions of A&F Quarterly (sourced from eBay, now living as low-key coffee table books), then you'd be correct.

Ask nicely, and maybe I’ll share more of the deliciously nostalgic contents

On this very day of writing, in the year of our lord 2025, I can buy Abercrombie jeans for $76.50.

That’s pretty wild for what should have been a full quarter-century of inflation. Those $49.50 jeans from 2000 would cost $94.27 today if they had inflated along with the Consumer Price Index.

The “happy path” for clothing brands in America in the 21st century has been to make clothing inflation-proof.

How have they done that? We already know the answer deep down in our gut: lower quality fabrics, less complex construction, turning a blind eye to labor violations of escalating concern.

The enshittification loop. And unfortunately, tariffs will only accelerate it.

Brands will absorb what they can by cutting corners even further. And let’s be honest: they only dare do it because we’ve proven again and again that we⁵ prioritize low prices above all else.

But the scale of these tariffs is bigger than what enshittification alone can cover. That means even shittier clothes at higher prices.

Fun, huh?

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Pro: maybe we’ll start buying less

The big question is: will we continue buying at the higher price? Well, that’s up to us.

Maybe at the margins, people will buy less stuff. We won’t necessarily spend less, but those same dollars may stretch across fewer things. We are forced to start making choices.

And that’s…kind of good?

Like, not in a consumerist sense, of course. If our shared definition of “wealth” is most closely linked to our ability to accumulate physical stuff, then less stuff for more money is a nightmare.

But from a sustainability perspective, fewer items of clothing being made, bought, and tossed? That’s a win.

And beyond that, I do genuinely think most of us would be happier if we weren’t constantly speedrunning the buy-it-then-ditch-it loop.

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Con: the rich get richer

Okay, but here’s the other thing that makes me pause again.

Shein still has a price advantage over everyone else.

If new clothes get more expensive and we start buying less, that impact isn’t necessarily evenly distributed.

Shein, while pricier than before the new tariffs, will still be by far the cheapest game in town. There’s no real alternative for Shein’s existing customers but to grumble and stick with them.⁶

But for a shopper who wasn’t already as deep in the ultra-fast fashion ecosystem (say, a loyal Target customer), suddenly there is a choice to make:

• Keep buying Target clothes, but at old J. Crew prices

• Or, switch and buy Shein clothes at old Target prices

They may choose to jump ship to Shein. I’m using Shein as an illustrative example at the extreme, but this kind of choice will exist at each rung of the ladder in fashion.

There will also be a huge advantage to anyone with cash reserves to strategically weather the uncertainty

A few weeks ago, I met with a friend who is now at the executive level inside a major brand⁷ within a publicly traded portfolio.

It was about that time of year when fashion is placing its big orders for the Holiday season. You know, only the literal make-or-break moment of the entire year. It was just a few weeks after “Liberation Day,” and I was honestly surprised she even wanted to grab coffee. I figured she'd be completely buried, running and re-running the numbers on every possible tariff scenario, human- and AI-generated alike, trying to figure out what move to make.

She shrugged it off.

Oh, we just ordered exactly what we had already planned for. If tariffs are still this crazy by the time the product reaches the U.S., that sucks but we have the cash reserves to eat it. But who knows? With Trump, maybe there won’t be any tariffs at all by then. We’ll be the only ones with product on the shelf at Christmas, and that’s a huge opportunity to take market share.

Big brands with resources will end up taking market share from small businesses who have no other options.

It’s not an option—for anyone, but especially for small businesses—to move production to America overnight (or maybe ever). They don’t have the luxury of cash float to wait and see what happens. They are forced to slash orders and raise prices now.

Smaller brands already operated at a price premium because of their lower volumes. They already struggle to justify their prices, on social media and otherwise. If the price gap between them and the fast fashion option only keeps widening, is anyone still buying?

The uncertainty alone is a killer. When tariffs are 145% one day, 30% the next, 10% the day after that, and then back up to 145% again…there’s no chance to spend time doing anything constructive for their business (like, develop good products or market them well) when every day is a fire drill instead. Meanwhile, big brands with cash can afford to sit back and wait it out under “business as usual”.⁸

Many small brands will simply fold. Watch for a tidal wave of closures from Labor Day through the end of the year.

So if you’ve ever side-eyed the price tag on an indie brand…now’s the time to buy it anyway. Otherwise? Get ready for way fewer options.

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Pro: secondhand gets a tailwind

We may end up with fewer options in the first-hand market, but tariffs fundamentally shift the economics for second-hand fashion.

I’ve written before about the unmovable “floor” in resale: for an item to have a shot at circulating, it has to hold at least $20 of value.

Nobody Wants Your (Cheap) Stuff

If new clothes get more expensive because of tariffs, that floor rises and suddenly, it’s way more worthwhile for everyone to buy and sell secondhand. This is a good thing.

Even knowing this in theory, I was still stunned to see how fast the Shein subreddit got there all on its own.

Like…wow. Just wow. It’s like being in Jurassic Park, watching baby raptors hatch. I can’t believe they’re trying to invent a resale marketplace from scratch.

(By the way, Shein already has a brand-owned secondhand site powered by Treet)

It’s funny how quickly "it's too hard" becomes "ok wait let's figure it out" the second the crop tops aren’t $3 anymore.

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So, uh…yeah. I think there’s some good and bad in tariffs. To be clear: I’d still very much rather not have them. The whole thing is a faff, and (IMO) a massive GDP drain even if only in the sheer volume of wasted brainpower. It’s not good policy.

But I have to admit that the armchair investigator in me is genuinely curious to see what happens when new clothes become more expensive, practically all at once

Will we buy less?

Will secondhand become everyone’s first choice?

And after everything we’ve said about values and intention and loving your closet…are cold, hard economics really the only thing that moves the needle?

We’re about to find out.

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1. And in fashion, the importer is generally the brand that designs and produces the clothes, the names you know and love: Banana Republic, J. Crew, COS, Zara, Tibi, etc.…pick your poison.

2. Or frankly, just have common sense

3. I don’t want to get *too* mathy on you, but if an example would help…

Before the tariff, Company A buys each pair of jeans for $10 and sells them for $20. That’s a 50% gross margin. They sell 100 pairs at $20 each, for $2,000 in total sales. At 50% margin, they make $1,000 doing this.

After the tariff, Company A now has to buy the same jeans for $11. To just maintain their 50% margin, they now have to sell them for $22. But because the jeans are more expensive, they don’t sell as many! They only sell 90 pairs, for $1,980 in total sales. Even at the higher price, margin is still just 50%. They make $990 doing this.

Higher prices for you, less profit for them. Worse for everyone.

4. This is an aside that justifies a whole other piece, but I do frequently wonder if pretty much all of our problems would be solved if that whole scenario was flip-flopped. If housing, healthcare, and education were cheap but clothes were expensive, I bet we’d be a whole lot happier than we are now, with a lot less crap dumped in landfill to boot.

5. As general consumers, not like…you specifically, okay?!

6. Please put aside secondhand, for the moment! I’ll get there.

7. Like, one you’ve definitely heard of.

8. If I HAD to predict where tariffs will really land?

Just look at the carveouts that are already happening. Exemptions for Rolls-Royce cars from the UK. A ‘temporary’ stay of execution for iPhones from China.

We’re not headed for a clean, consistent tariff policy. We’re headed for crony capitalism: a tangled mess of convenient exceptions for the big guys with lobbyists (or personal connections, or a timely investment in $TRUMP…) while everyone else is left scrambling.

The end result? A nightmare web that no ordinary person (or small business) can realistically navigate, with overall tariffs landing somewhat higher than before…but maybe not super-duper dramatically so.

Bleak, huh?

I’m a ton of fun at parties.