Buy it for Life

So there are a few generalities that hold together for BIFL.

• First

BIFL is going to be for 20-25 years not 69-80. No consistently used item beyond cast iron cookware will last. If you never use an item they are all bifl.

• Second

Less complicated the items last longer I bought a really bottom of the line kenmore fridge when I needed a fridge and didn't have money. It's about 20 years old, keeps ice outdoors at 90 and have never been repaired. (who am I kidding it's 90 indoors) Castiron pans and wrenches will last multiple lifetimes.

• Third

Design matters Some styles of things just are more durable. My fridge above was picked because consumer reports reported the freezer top style was the more reliable. The worst of the top freezers in durability was better then the best side by side fridge. Material choice is part of design. Oiled canvas is great for an outer coat and terrible for underwear.

• Forth

The more repairable items last longer You can basically resole shoes and boots for ever as long as you take care of the uppers. Things made of mostly common off the shelf parts can last longer than custom high performance items because of part availability.

Most importantly

How well you learn to maintain and repair items is the greatest indication of BIFL. Cast iron is crap if you don't maintain it. Even expensive knives dull if you don't sharpen them.

My tiny contribution here is to look things aimed at commercial use, not consumer grade. For example, next time you need to buy a can opener, buy it from a restaurant supply shop instead of Amazon or Walmart.

I use Goodonyou.eco to check out fashion and beauty brand's ethical standards. It's not perfect but it gives a pretty good 'quick view' of whether they're dog shit or not.

In terms of BIFL, other than my Sunbeam Coffee filter machine, we've taken to buying second hand or locally made furniture.

I am suspicious that a lot of what is claimed as ‘BIFL’ has been enshittified

Sadly, I'm sure this happens a lot in the name of "marketing".

There are a few things that I look at to help ensure the best chance of getting something that's BIFL:

• Does the company or product have a good track record? I'd trust my Leatherman to be BIFL over whatever no-name clone you see on Aliexpress.

• Does the company offer a lifetime warranty (or one that's 20+ years)? If so, has the company been around for decades?

• Is the item repairable and easy to maintain? Even if something isn't marketed as BIFL, you can likely extend the product's life by decades through simple maintenance and care.

• Does the item have any built-in planned obsolescence features? Proprietary built-in battery? Components that are glued in place? Sealed shut so you can't open it without destroying the item? etc...

• Is the product simple or complex? The more complex, the more likely it will fail, but this isn't always the case if you are able to maintain/repair components.

• Textiles can be tricky, but not impossible to keep going for decades if the quality is good enough.

Sadly, I do think that many companies aren't interested in making BIFL products because PROFITS!!! I think the market for BIFL will be more with custom fabricators and small businesses.

i think one thing to keep in mind with BIFL is that it's gonna be painfully expensive, and we tend to have a skewed perspective since a lot of what people buy these days is second hand and thus nowhere near the original sale value.

Like has been said for new BIFL stuff you want to look for business/industrial stuff, or handmade things from passionate people, which is not cheap.

I think it's pretty unrealistic to expect most of your things to be BIFL unless you can get second hand/inherited things, i'd say think about what things are most important to you and try to invest your money into those few things and find ways to make everything else as minimal and sustainable (and cheap) as possible.
For example people in the medieval era and before generally just wore simple leather turnshoes in the warm seasons, which were fully expected to wear out and they'd need to slap together a new pair every now and then. But that's fine because literally all you need to make them is some crummy leather scraps!

American Giant (i think) grows and mills their cotton in America and the garments are made in the US as well. Last I checked. I don’t wanna say it’s BIFL, but I have an American giant hoodie I bought probably 9 years ago that I still pull out every fall and wear until spring. It’s got holes in the elbow patches, but the elbows are double or triple layered, so it’s still warm.

To a large extent I tend to think the same way I was taught with cars, simple is sturdy. Skip the fancy features and WiFi widgets and you'll replace things a lot less often. It's not always practical, but I'm willing to bet my cast iron cookware is going to be in roughly the same shape far longer than some stamped sheet metal with anti stick coating and a glass lid.

good advice for finding sustainable, local textile production

There largely isn't any of this. There's really very, very little in the way of locally-sourced textiles, and what there is is going to be art rather than functional. I don't know where you live, but in the US, there are only a handful of mills that remain, and you'd need to be placing a mill order (e.g., hundreds or thousands of yards of fabric) in order to do business with them. OTOH, there are often local tailors that will be able to order high-quality textiles to make bespoke garments for you. The downside is that this is REALLY expensive. For instance, I'm a bit slow at patternmaking, and not the best at fitting, and if I charged only $25/hr, you'd be looking at around $100 for the initial sloper, and probably another $150 to tune the fit. From there, patterning for a specific garment can take a day or more, depending on what you want, and that's not including cost of materials and sewing time. For a bespoke suit, you're starting at about $5000 from an experienced tailor.

That aside, there are certainly a large number of things that are buy once, cry once. Take kitchen knives; if you buy a Yoshimi Kato nakiri, a good set of Shapton glass stones (...which, TBF, will probably cost well over $1000), and take care of it, it will easily last your entire life. If you buy furniture from highly skilled carpenters, you'll likely be buying something that will last over a century as long as it's not abused; my grandfather made Craftsman-style furniture and cabinetry in the 20s-30s, and I know for certain that a number of his pieces are still around and in use. But buying the kind of quality and craftsmanship that will allow certain products to last for a lifetime is NOT cheap. While expensive doesn't always mean quality, high-quality is almost never inexpensive.

I was told the rotring 600 was bifl. Nah I put it through the ringer and it didn't last a year. The metal pusher thing just flew off because it's poorly designed.

I think it depends on exactly what item you're looking for. Plenty of vintage coats out there, I just bought two 40+ yo military wool coats this season since my old jacket is wearing out and isn't that stylish. There's probably local jeans manufacturers that also recycle fabric, like Jeansverket in Sweden. Rose Anvil on YouTube is a good source for finding boots that will last decades.

There is definitely enshittification out there, but it's not impossible to find BIFL out there.

Throwing in a little odd advice for the secondhand scene - even if the shops are bad, I've had some good luck with estate sales and cleanouts (where a family or realtor basically opens the home to anyone who'll cary stuff away and save them the trouble and cost of throwing it out). It can feel kinda bad, picking through stuff in that context, but we've saved a bunch of nice old tools and kitchen stuff that way, and the houses generally have everything else you might need for a house. Personally I think the best BIFL stuff is old and made before they really perfected enshitifying their products.

The cleanouts I've been to we found through postings on our local free groups (which I also really recommend) or word of mouth, but I used to know some folks who went to them professionally, looking for merchandise for their own businesses, so they must be advertised somewhere normal people would find them too.

BIFL is certainly possible, and there are some things that aren't for life but still last a long time.

Unfortunately you really need to look for them.

It's unfortunate that product reviews don't really focus on this kind of thing.

Another annoying aspect of searching for BIFL things is that (and I have no evidence of this, it's just a feeling), whenever I search for BIFL things and search results take me to BIFL communities, it's always the same companies mentioned, to the point where it often feels like company astroturfing.