Around 2020, something shifted in the clothing industry. Quietly. Without announcements or press releases.

Brands discovered they could cut fabric weight by 15-20%, shrink sizing patterns to squeeze more pieces from the same roll of cloth, and somehow still charge you 4 to 5 times more than they did five years ago.

The industry has fancy terms for this: shrinkflation (giving you less product for the same price) and greedflation (raising prices way beyond what increased costs would justify).

But here's what it really means for you:

• That "Large" you ordered? It's actually closer to a Medium from 2019
• The fabric weight dropped from 180gsm to 140gsm—but you'd never know unless someone told you
• Those fancy details, extra logos, and trendy colors? They're distracting you from the fact that the actual construction is terrible
• The T-shirt that used to cost $8 and last two years now costs $35 and falls apart in three months

And who gets blamed?

You do.

"Maybe I washed it wrong... maybe I should hand-wash everything... maybe I gained weight... maybe all clothes are just like this now..."

No. The system changed. Not you.

Walk into any shopping mall and count the clothing brands. Ten? Twenty? Fifty?

Now here's the uncomfortable truth: most of them are owned by the same handful of massive corporations.