I’ve written before about determining the cost per wear of a piece of clothing. I wanted to touch on it again. One of my ongoing goals currently is to be constantly evaluating my purchases and how much they’re actually benefiting me, and given the size of my wardrobe I’m wondering the real value of each piece that I own. So, I’ve started guesstimating the cost per wear of some of my clothing.
Here’s how it works.
Take the cost of the piece. Divide it by the number of times you anticipate wearing it. That’s the cost per wear. See? Math can be fun.
Besides for the benefit of my numbers-obsessed, perpetual listmaking imagination, why do I do this? Well, it’s like this: figuring the cost per wear of your clothing can be helpful in determining whether you’re getting enough value for your money. I obviously don’t expect you to keep a tally of how many times you wear each pair of underpants or every single tank top, but even the approximations are helpful. If your clothing budget is more restrictive than you’d like, this can help you evaluate whether you’ve gotten a good buy—and help you choose how to make purchases in the future. By looking at the styles, brands, fabrics, and cuts of the pieces with the lowest cost per wear ratio, you know what to buy that can give you the most for your money.
Price per wear might be higher on evening dresses and work wear than on jeans, tees, and everyday items. But this depends on your sartorial lifestyle—what you wear when, how often you wear it, or if you choose to have duplicates of a certain type of clothing like tank tops or just wear the same ones all the time—as well as how much you paid for your clothes. If you wear a piece often, your price per wear will be lower. If you pay more for your clothing, your price per wear will be higher. The math isn’t too hard.
Let’s do an example, shall we?
The single item in my closet that I wear more than anything else is my [[[high-waisted jeans]]]. I paid $39.50 for them in September 2007—let’s say 64 weeks ago—and since then I’ve worn them about three times a week. (I really like these pants.) This makes about two hundred wearings, which means my cost per wear is under twenty-five cents. What’s more, I’m likely to wear them for at least another two years—they’re in great shape, and I don’t anticipate pregnancy or any serious bodily change that would necessitate my buying new jeans to fit me. If I continue my three-times-a-week trend with these jeans, the cost per wear will be down to about fifteen cents. Even accounting for my recent trip to the tailor’s to get the zipper replaced, the current cost per wear is about thirty cents, and the anticipated cost per wear after another two years will be about sixteen cents.
Likewise, the item in my closet that I’ve owned the longest is a white vintage cashmere cardigan that I bought at Goodwill for $3 when I was nine. I was interested in it because of the sequiny beadwork, not because it was a nice vintage piece. I used to wear it to church over sundresses, to school to keep myself warm during my unfortunate tube-top phase, and to fall and spring dances and dinners when it was too chilly for bare shoulders but too warm for an actual coat. I’ve put a fair amount of work into keeping this sweater in good shape—when I was about fourteen I replaced the pearl buttons and re-strung all the beadwork by hand, two things that have kept this sweater in amazing shape to this day. I’m 100% certain that I’ve worn it more than three hundred times while I’ve owned it, and I’ll likely wear it again at least that many times. Hence…the cost per wear is less than a penny, y’all.
I’d say that my jeans and my sweater were both pretty good buys, wouldn’t you?
A way better buy, in fact, than, say, a dress I impulse-bought on clearance for $29 several years ago and wore twice before giving it to Goodwill. Or the $20 sweater that, after about five wearings, is covered with pills, coming undone at one of the side seams, and is on its second set of buttons (the ones it came with fell off on the second wearing)—I don’t think it’ll last much longer, and I’ll probably repurpose it or donate it before long. At $14.50 and $5 per wear respectively, I don’t think I got my money’s worth at all, especially given the math I just did on my favorite denim and one of my best sweaters. The lesson here: even though it might seem like a good price, it’s not a good value if you’re not going to wear it. You’re better off buying something at full-price that’s sturdy and that you really love.
Does anyone think in pure mathematical terms when they buy a piece of clothing?
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