clothing is a particularly nasty one. "brand" is sometimes inversely proportional to quality within clothing. Price and quality is just completely random.

Checking stitch length, stitch type, fabric feel, fabric composition, any known supplier information about cotton staple and origin of production, construction complexity.

It's alot of work to keep on top of.

I read an article once about how levi slightly vary the fabric and button quality between cities and countries under the same name (and quality binning); optimising cost to consumer tolerance. And Levi is a brand marketing themselves for quality and legacy pride.