Cost Per Wear
Wondering what “cost per wear” means and how to apply it to your closet? You’ve come to the right place! I first learned about the concept of cost per wear when I started sharing my wardrobe additions and clothing budget, which led to me using the Stylebook closet app to catalog my closet and track what I wear every day.
If you’re aiming to be more sustainable with your current closet and your sartorial purchases, you are likely already taking into consideration price compared to quality (fast fashion pieces tend to be less expensive but also lower quality compared to slow fashion pieces). You might want to spend more for better quality but aren’t sure if it’s worth it.
Learning the concept of “cost per wear” will help you understand the value of each piece you already own and any new pieces you add to your wardrobe and will help you make better purchasing decisions in the future!
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What Is Cost Per Wear?
Cost per wear (CPW) is a way to quickly and easily determine the value of the clothes you own and/or plan to own based on how often you wear or plan to wear them. Mathematically, cost per wear is a calculation of how much money you spent for every day you wear a particular item. The more often you wear your clothes, the lower the cost per wear will be for each item. The more expensive an item is, the more times you need to wear it to reduce the cost per wear.
How To Calculate Cost Per Wear
I promise that it’s super easy to calculate cost per wear, even if you aren’t a fan of math! I like to call this fun math. 😉
For each garment you own, divide the price you paid for that garment by the number of times you’ve worn it to get the cost per wear.
Example: If you paid $100 for a coat and wear it 20 times, the cost per wear of that coat is $5 ($100 total price/20 times worn = $5 cost per wear).
My state charges sales tax on clothes, so taxes are always included in the total price paid. If you need to alter/tailor any of your clothes, you can also include that cost into the total price paid before calculating cost per wear.
Most of the time, you’d calculate the cost per wear over all time (the entire time you’ve owned a garment), but you can also calculate the cost per wear over a limited range. Below are two screenshots from my Stylebook closet app. The first one is the list of the items with the best cost per wear over all time (not including items with a cost per wear below $1, as I remove those—more on that below). The second one is the cost per wear over the past year.
Cost Per Wear over All Time
Cost Per Wear over Last Year
What Is A Good Cost Per Wear?
A “good” cost per wear will depend; it’s a personal number that only you can decide, but in general, the lower it is, the better. For me, I aim for the cost per wear of my garments to hit $1. I want to wear my things one day for every dollar spent. (Once an item hits a cost per wear of $1 or less on my Stylebook app as seen in the photos above, I delete the price so that I can focus on the other items close to hitting $1!)
If I have a sweater in my closet that cost $80, my goal is to wear it at least 80 times. If I am looking at adding a new item to my wardrobe and it costs $50, I purchase it if I think I’m going to wear it at least 50 times.
If you tend to spend more money on individual garments, you might aim for a cost per wear of $2 or $5 (or more). If you tend to spend less on your clothes but still like to hold onto them for as long as possible, you might aim for a cost per wear below $1.
You might have a few seasonal or special occasion pieces in your closet that you love but just don’t wear all that often. It would be silly to get rid of them only to repurchase something similar when you need it later! The cost per wear of these items is likely going to be higher than your everyday clothes. That’s fine and to be expected.
What matters most in the grand scheme of things, especially if you’re aiming to be more sustainable with your closet, is to purchase the highest quality garments you can afford and to keep and wear your things for as long as possible. Cost per wear is one piece of the sustainability puzzle.
Why Cost Per Wear Matters
If you’re not sure yet if you want to go through and calculate cost per wear on your entire closet, here are a few reasons why cost per wear matters:
Cost per wear enhances sustainability
Sustainable fashion is always a hot topic. If reducing your environmental footprint by limiting your shopping is something you’re focused on, knowing the cost per wear of the items in your closet will help you reach that goal. Additionally, purchasing slow fashion garments that are made ethically and constructed with care will last for years and result in a lower CPW even if they are more expensive upfront.
Cost per wear leads to financial efficiency
If an item in your closet is $30 and you wear it 30 days, that’s a cost per wear of only $1—an excellent “return” on your investment! Knowing cost per wear will help you realize if you’re really getting the value you think you are out of your clothes. You might be surprised at how infrequently you wear your items (I am!) and realize you don’t need as many items as you think you do.
Cost per wear is an objective wardrobe metric
Cost per wear takes the emotion out of the items in your wardrobe, especially if you’re trying to decide whether it’s time to let an item go. If you’ve owned an item for a few years and you notice the cost per wear is still much higher than you want it to be, maybe it’s time to remove it from your closet. If you really loved it, you’d reach for it more often!
Cost per wear helps you curate a wardrobe you’ll love
Once you fully understand and embrace the concept of cost per wear, you’ll be thinking about it every time you shop and add new items to your wardrobe. Keeping your goal CPW in the back of your mind will help you curate a wardrobe you’ll love with items you’ll wear frequently.
How To Reduce Cost Per Wear
The key to a sustainable closet is to reduce the cost per wear of all of the garments in your closet down to your goal (be it $1 or whatever you choose) before they need to be replaced.
Here are some ways you can reduce cost per wear:
Get rid of clothes you haven’t worn in a while and that don’t fit or aren’t your style anymore
Track what you wear every day using an app or simple spreadsheet; Stylebook calculates CPW automatically if you include the price
Limit impulse purchases by making lists of the holes in your closet and items on your wish list and checking those lists before buying
Only purchase new items you love and that you can easily wear in at least three different outfits with pieces you already own
Focus on quality over quantity; higher quality garments tend to last longer, so you can wear them more
Treat your clothes with love, no matter how much they cost; you can extend the life of even fast fashion pieces by washing and storing them with care