You spend hours trying on clothes, you spend hundreds (maybe more!)
Its a common dilemma and a financially wasteful one, too.
Go for quality
Fast fashion is tempting, but cheaper clothes usually mean cheaper material and construction.
We are a culture that buys a lot of junk.
My guess is that most of us wear about 20% of our clothing 80% of the time.
That is a lot of wasted space and wasted money.
These fast pieces also wear out quickly.
To combat the trend, crunch the numbers.
Tyner suggests:
The average American household has a median annual income of approximately $50,000.
There are a couple of caveats to this.
Quality doesnt have to be expensive.
you’re free to find secondhand quality clothing items at consignment stores or even on eBay.
Second, dont useI buy quality!
as a justificationto spend even more on stuff you dont need, which is a tempting alternative.
Part of the appeal of fast fashion is that it allows us to indulge our shopping impulse for cheap.
If youre always giving into that impulseandyoure buying quality, your clothing budget will add up fast.
As personal stylistLauren Messiah says,just because you might get it on doesnt mean it fits.
Invest some time in researching how different items are supposed to fit.
In fact, considertaking your existing wardrobe to a tailorbefore shopping for new clothes.
One trick for finding agood tailor: give them a test run.
Did that stop me from buying many, many heels for years, though?
For one, your clothing pieces come with complicated symbols that explain exactly how they must be washed.
Learn to decipher those symbols (this handy chart can help).
If possible, avoid the dryer.
Onestudy presentedto the American Chemical Society found that drying cotton garments repeatedly caused the clothing to crack.
This caused pilling and reduced the garments fabric strength by 25 percent or more.
At the very least, you definitely want to keepdelicates, like bras, out of the dryer.
Most of us dont give our wardrobes much thought.
We shop when we feel like spending money.
The post was originally published on September 28, 2017.
It was updated on March 11, 2020 by Lisa Rowan.
