Ready Made Disposable Society: Detachable Collars

Yesterday, I was putting away laundry when I noticed a white shirt collar that will soon resign the shirt to weekend-around-the-house wear. I do what you can to keep my collars and cuffs white, but living through Texas or DC summers, you're fighting a losing battle. When I lived in Bangladesh, the woman who washed my laundry dyed all my white shirts blue. I suppose that's one way of attacking it.

I started thinking about what a waste it is that the collar and cuffs of a shirt, probably all of 10 percent of the actual shirt, will often dictate the fate of the rest of the shirt. Hardly equitable, now, is it?

Now, unless you're attending Eton or, I don't know, a practicing barrister, perhaps, your collar is more than likely permanently sewn to the rest of your shirt. I wouldn't suggest that we should all be wearing wing collars or anything, but what's to keep from making day-to-day shirts with detachable collars? Nothing, it would seem, since one can find a shirt with a detachable collar, for a price.

But why should this option be reserved for people who buy $125 shirts? And even those are few and far between. When I think of how much easier, cheaper, and less wasteful it would be to worry about replacing a collar than an entire shirt, I can't help but wonder why more people aren't clamoring for them.

This really brings up a much larger issue, which is that in our economic quest to provide as much low-quality merchandise to as many people as possible, we've created a society in which most people never buy anything of value. We get to feel wealthy with our disposable fakes, while the wealthy continue to enjoy quality goods and services.

I hate the idea of looking costumey, and given the choice, I'll keep cycling out 90 percent perfect shirts. Maybe that's the tradeoff. But judging by the photo of the Clerk and Teller shirt linked above, it shouldn't have to be.