Because people expect to pay the same price they've been paying for twenty / thirty years with no drop in quality? Meanwhile, fast fashion has become a cultural norm driven by social media so people are more likely to buy crap from Temu and Shein they only intend on wearing once. https://youtu.be/VaS-iVwaOLw?t=267

Interesting take in this video about A&F given I just watched a WSJ video about how they've turned the company around, in part, by marketing towards older millennials who care more about the quality and the fit of the materials - "this older audience cared more about an items quality" and "they changed their fit models to better align with their average customer ". The context of this WSJ report is how their stock price has skyrocketed to levels faster than Nvidia.