I think you’ve got a lot of people who have never been exposed to the idea of long term use of clothes. If you have the idea that the most important thing is looking good, then it makes sense to get something that you intend to throw away.

Where I currently live it’s literally impossible to get clothes that last over a year or two. I’ve had shirts fall apart at the seams, shorts that developed holes in most unfortunate places, and garments that shrunk due to washing so much I can’t wear them anymore, all within the first year of use. I try to patch things up before throwing them away, but the synthetic textiles just get thin and disintegrate at some point, probably also filling up everything with microplastics along the way. It’s cheaper to produce flimsy synthetic shit, and also forces you to buy new clothes every year (even if you don’t follow “the trends”), thus more profit for the manufacturer.

I tend to buy second-hand stuff, because if it’s being resold after use it’s probably not as flimsy, and also it’s better for the environment. Even then most things I buy turn out to be shit.

I have a couple of good quality clothing items that I regularly wear, but I had to ship them in from another country, pay import fees, etc. Way too much fuss when you need a new T-shirt now.

The executives certainly deserve a lot of the blame. But most large corporations are owned by hedge funds, private equity and other layers of obfuscation that are designed to shield the powerful from accountability. After a few layers of abstraction nothing matters but line go up and if line not go up, the C-suite gets replaced before you can say “golden parachute”. These guys only care for the next quarterly results and are trying to ride the gravy train for as long as possible.