Cost per Outfit

Many people when they're in a clothes store agonizing over whether to buy the black dress pants or the fuchsia-sequined tank top do a mental calculation something like this:

Right if I buy the dress pants, then I can wear them to work and out at night. I will have to take them up though as they're a bit too long. Oh, maybe my black strappy sandals are tall enough, but then I can only wear the pants in the summer, and then I can't wear them to work as I can't wear my sandals to work. I could have them hemmed, but not this week, as I don't have time to go to the tailor's and if I don't take them this week, then I'll never get them hemmed. I could hem them myself . . . . The potential cost per wear is about ten cents after hemming.

Deliberation on the tank-top goes something like this: Well, I need something to wear to so-and-so's and this looks good and I've been looking all morning and I need something for tonight. Oh, I can probably wear it later in the month for x. Hmmm, but so-and-so is going to be at both events so I can't wear the same thing. I'm sure it will come in handy at some point. Fuchsia-sequined tank tops never come in handy. The potential cost per wear is the full price of the item.

The credit card is whipped out and a fuchsia-sequined tank top is put across it. It will earn rave reviews at the event and will never be worn again. The black pants lost because they were going to be too much work and quite frankly, they were boring.

I have several fuchsia-sequined tank top equivalents in my wardrobe. They never won over a more boring item simply because you don't pull the boring items off the rack. Or I don't. I only got black pants when I started work. I still don't own a proper white shirt. I do have a white shirt but it has a street scene painted on the back.

For this reason, I am not a big fan of the cost per wear school of thought. Why? You can buy a pair of jeans and wear them into the ground and congratulate yourself that it only cost you pennies each time you wore them. Of course, this isn't true. You forget the cost of upkeep - the proportion of laundry money and soap that the jeans soaked up. You didn't include the opportunity cost of not wearing every other pair of pants in your wardrobe or even of not buying a different pair. And you forgot to include the cost when you washed the jeans for the first time and they turned all your underwear blue so you had to buy new ones. Clearly, this is a poor estimate at best.

I do like to do cost per outfits though. Why? Because it's much more fun and much more startling. You start at the bottom and you reckon full price for everything - whether you paid it or not. Shoes, say $100. Socks, well part of a three set deal, so say $6.66, round to $7. Jeans, $75. T-shirt, say $25. Cute Sweater, $50. Jacket, $125. Watch, $100. Jewellery, $300. Purse, $100. Glasses, $300. New haircut . . . . add it up. Total cost of outfit: $882. It's even more fun on a day when you're going to work. Don’t try and figure out your cost per wear on the outfit. It will wreck your day.

You will probably soon buy a pair of black pants, hem them yourself, and wear a fuchsia tank-top all summer.

I, on the other hand, won't. I have several other items that I need to get the cost per wear down on before making such sensible purchases.