How often do you replace your wardrobe?

[raeoflyte]

DH's wardrobe is in need of a complete overhaul. He used to buy clothes like crazy, and had a few years where he went up and down in sizes quite a bit. Now it's probably been 5-7 years since he has spent any real money on regular clothes and I think he practically needs to toss it all and start over.

How long does your wardrobe last, and do you continually update it, or do a big trip when needed?

[Deleted]

I read an article in Businessweek that your average person buys 62 pieces for their wardrobe every year. That seems like a lot. My weight swings up and down so I'm always updating. DH does a big trip when needed.

[973beachbum]

Jun 26, 2012 14:26:28 GMT -5 @anne81 said:

I read an article in Businessweek that your average person buys 62 pieces for their wardrobe every year. That seems like a lot. My weight swings up and down so I'm always updating. DH does a big trip when needed.

Wow because my first thought was never. ;D

For the adults I just replace things as needed. I don't think I have ever completely got a new one for anyone that wasn't a newborn baby. Some years we don't spend much of anything. This year DH needed a bunch of new clothes and the kids needed some things.

Even so I don't think I own 62 different pieces of clothes unless you count socks and separately.

[Deleted]

It's a review of a book called "Over-dressed"

In the last decade or so, advances in technology have allowed mass-market labels such as Zara, H&M, Uniqlo, and Forever 21 to react to trends more quickly and anticipate demand more precisely. Quicker turnarounds mean less wasted inventory, more frequent releases, and more profit. These labels encourage style-conscious consumers to see clothes as disposable—meant to last only a wash or two, although they don’t advertise that—and to renew their wardrobe every few weeks. By offering on-trend items at dirt-cheap prices, Cline argues, these brands have hijacked fashion cycles, rattling an industry long accustomed to a seasonal pace.

The victims of this revolution, of course, are not limited to couturiers. For H&M to offer a $5.95 knit miniskirt in all its 2,300-plus stores around the world, it must rely on low-wage overseas labor, order in volumes that strain natural resources, and use massive amounts of harmful chemicals. One day last August, Reuters reported, 284 workers in a Cambodian factory that made clothes for the Swedish chain collapsed after “smelling something bad that came from the shirts.” (The exact cause of the problem wasn’t determined, which illustrates the difficulty of proper oversight in such sweatshops.)

Overdressed is the fashion world’s answer to consumer-activist bestsellers like Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. “Mass-produced clothing, like fast food, fills a hunger and need, yet is non-durable and wasteful,” Cline argues. Self-deprecating about her own lack of style—she has a thing for fleece-lined sweatshirts—Cline writes with the zeal of a reformed shopaholic. Like Pollan, she traveled extensively to follow her subject along the whole chain of production. She visited factories in China, gaining entry by masquerading as a clothier; learned sewing from Dominican seamstresses; and went shopping in Manhattan with “haulers,” fast-fashion addicts who brag about their purchases in YouTube videos. Haulers are Cline’s antiheroes.

Americans, she finds, buy roughly 20 billion garments a year—about 64 items per person—and no matter how much they give away, this excess leads to waste. The “clothing deficit myth” is what she calls the notion, comforting to fashionistas, that giving discards to charity offsets consumption. In fact, Cline reports, “charities long ago passed the point of being able to sell all of our wearable used clothes.”

www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-21/book-review-overdressed-by-elizabeth-l-dot-cline

[movingforward]

64 items per person per year I couldn't imagine that. I replace things as needed or every now and then I may see something in passing that I really like. This generally happens if I am on vacation somewhere and there is an article of clothing that is unique and something I wouldn't find just anywhere. My best guess is that I buy 7-8 pieces of clothing a year

[raeoflyte]

Jun 26, 2012 14:36:22 GMT -5 @anne81 said:

In fact, Cline reports, “charities long ago passed the point of being able to sell all of our wearable used clothes.”

[/blockquote]

www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-21/book-review-overdressed-by-elizabeth-l-dot-cline[/quote]

I can't imagine buying 64 pieces of clothes a year! But I have worked with people who never seem to wear the same thing twice so I suppose it's out there.

But the quoted sentence stood out to me. I get emails when Goodwill does their 50% days, and usually I go first thing in the morning (if I'm going). Once I stopped in around 6pm on a sale day because I had a donation. I was amazed to see the racks as full as ever. No sign that they had probably sold at least a 3rd of their inventory (at least that was out) that morning, and probably more.

[973beachbum]

Anne I swear to God. I haven't bought 64 pieces of clothing for our entire house ever in a year! I own

4 pairs of jeans,
10 short sleived tops, 8 long (some do double duty as
5 dress pants
2 dress tops
4 skirts
6 dresses
12 pairs of shorts

Unless we are talking underwear and socks and shoes I can't even get to owning 64 things let alone adding them every year. That must look like a mountian after a few years.

[movingforward]

The supervisor where I used to work never wore the same thing twice. She was constantly bringing her clothing in for those in her dept. to "pick over" before she took them to the consignment shop. A lot of things still had the price tags on them. She probably bought well over 64 pieces of clothing a year. I was always shocked an amazed at the crap she would bring into the office.

[Deleted]

I don't think of myself as a clothes horse, but I'm probably contributing more than my share to that 64 items figure.

Prior to going out of town, I bought 6 new shirts for the summer (2 for running, 1 for work, 3 for weekends), 5 pairs of underwear, 2 bras, a new pair of ballet flats for work and flip flops for not work. So, 15 pieces of clothing was my plan for summer.

When I was out of town, the airline lost my luggage. I bought a tshirt and a 3-pack of boxer shorts and a 3 pack of underwear. I only needed 1 pair of shorts to sleep in, but they came as multiples, so that is 7 items.

The next day, I bought a skirt, a cardigan, 2 tank tops and a pair of sandals to wear to dinner (the second tank top was insurance if my luggage still didn't come). So, 12 items in 1 weekend where I hadn't intended to purchase anything.

Earlier this month, I participated in a mud race where I (a) ruined my sneakers and (b) caught poison ivy.
When I went to replace my sneakers, I ended up buying 3 pairs (1 for dog walking, 1 for running, 1 for dance class). They should last me as long as 3 sequential pairs of sneakers, but it still elt ridiculous at the time.

Because of the poison ivy, my summer work wardrobe of knee-length skirts wasn't working. So I ended up buying 2 pairs of gauze pants and 2 ankle length skirts so I wouldn't be so dang uncomfortable all of the time.

I'm at 19 items in the past month that I didn't plan on in addition to the 15 I did plan on...
I'm pretty sure I'll hit 64 for the year.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

I replace things when they wear out. Nothing more, nothing less. But I'm not a typical girl in that, I'm sure.

[Sum Dum Gai]

I've never replaced my entire wardrobe... unless getting all my uniforms issued in basic training counts.

When I separated I had to put together a business wardrobe pretty much from scratch. Since then I just replace or add a couple things at a time.

[happyhoix]

Hmm, since I only buy maybe 15 new clothes all year, someone in America is buying at least 79 new things to make up for my lack.

I did work with a woman once who insisted it wasn't fashionable to wear the same outfit two days in the same month.

Of course this is also the same woman whose long time live in BF wouldn't marry her because of her debt load. He didn't want his credit rating to tank.

Could be the two things are related.....

[reader79]

My wardrobe lasts a long time, generally because I have problems with throwing out clothes that either don't fit anymore, or are worn out. But I am getting better at that. I have been continually updating it, mostly because I fell into the trap of buying from Old Navy, and the clothes don't look so good after a few wears. My big purge this summer is going to be going through my fall clothes, and actually buying a nice winter coat.

So far this month, I have shopped at the Eddie Bauer outlet (jacket, sweater,) Nike outlet (Airmax sneakers, shorts, drifit tee,) Old Navy (three sundresses, two tank tops, three pairs of flip flops, two shorts) KMart (gym shorts, socks,) Modells, (gym shorts, two workout tops,) so I am well on my way to the 60+ units for the year. I have started to buy my work pants from Banana Republic, as they seem to fit better, and last longer.

ETA: I have joined a gym for $20/month, and a lot of my summer clothes from last year do not fit anymore. The shorts were really saggy across my ass, and the dresses were big as well.

[muttleynfelix]

I replace items as needed. I might add one casual and one work summer outfit and one casual and one work winter outfit per year. It keeps things from getting too boring. I give away or throw out things i haven't worn in a year or two. I tend to replace shoes about 6 months after I should have. I've done my maternity wear shopping for this pregnancy, so clotheswise the only thing i might buy between now and the end of January is a pair of shoes. Oh and underwear, I usually replace socks and underwear about 6 months after I should have as well.

[wvugurl26]

Jun 26, 2012 15:40:58 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

I've never replaced my entire wardrobe... unless getting all my uniforms issued in basic training counts.

When I separated I had to put together a business wardrobe pretty much from scratch. Since then I just replace or add a couple things at a time.

Says the guy who wears jeans to work

[Sum Dum Gai]

Says the guy who wears jeans to work

Yeah, but I can't wear t-shirts. The only non t-shirt I owned when I started here was the one white dress shirt that I wore with my interview "suit" (read slacks and a sport coat). And I had to go buy a noose, err tie.

[wvugurl26]

Jun 26, 2012 16:13:46 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

Says the guy who wears jeans to work

Yeah, but I can't wear t-shirts. The only non t-shirt I owned when I started here was the one white dress shirt that I wore with my interview "suit" (read slacks and a sport coat). And I had to go buy a noose, err tie.

Oh poor baby! You buy five polo shirts and you are set.

[Sum Dum Gai]

Oh poor baby! You buy five polo shirts and you are set.

You know that women can do the same thing right? My former supervisor wore jeans and polo shirts everyday. That was her unofficial work uniform. I went with sweaters because they were on sale, then at Christmas we get a certain amount of money to spend at Land's End so I bought dress shirts with the company logo on em. Still wearing them years later, even though we were bought out at the beginning of 2011 so the company doesn't actually exist anymore.

[wvugurl26]

I actually only get to wear jeans on Fridays. That is a recent development. When I started the guy in charge was miffed that we'd gone to guys only needing a tie for meetings/audits and not every day.

Meetings and audits call for a jacket so its not even like I could get away with khakis and polos all the time.

[Sum Dum Gai]

I actually only get to wear jeans on Fridays. That is a recent development. Meetings and audits call for a jacket so its not even like I could get away with khakis and polos all the time.

Man, strict dress code and crappy pay. Why are you working for the man again? Join the dark side.

[wvugurl26]

Jun 26, 2012 16:25:52 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

I actually only get to wear jeans on Fridays. That is a recent development. Meetings and audits call for a jacket so its not even like I could get away with khakis and polos all the time.

Man, strict dress code and crappy pay. Why are you working for the man again? Join the dark side.

I have yet to see any contractors on the audit side dressed differently than me. Finance and accounting are just conservative. We don't get to dress like those IT bums

[SVT]

Hey now.

[Sum Dum Gai]

Our internal counting mutants have the same laid back dress code as the rest of the company. The only employee I've ever seen in a suit was one of the founding partners. The other one wore jeans and t-shirts.

[wvugurl26]

Jun 26, 2012 16:30:56 GMT -5 SVT said:

Hey now.

You can still be my sugar daddy

[wvugurl26]

Jun 26, 2012 16:31:23 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

Our internal counting mutants have the same laid back dress code as the rest of the company. The only employee I've ever seen in a suit was one of the founding partners. The other one wore jeans and t-shirts.

You are on the wrong coast though. And California's the one place with worse air quality than here.

[Sum Dum Gai]

You are on the wrong coast though.

The wrong coast for what; stuffy people and bad weather?

[wvugurl26]

Jun 26, 2012 16:34:25 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

You are on the wrong coast though.

The wrong coast for what; stuffy people and bad weather?

For me to work there. My weather's fab this week, the air quality's just shitty.

[swamp]

Jun 26, 2012 16:34:25 GMT -5 Sum Dum Gai said:

You are on the wrong coast though.

The wrong coast for what; stuffy people and bad weather?

I'm not stuffy anfpd the weather is beautiful this time of year. February kind of sucks though.

[susanb]

Jun 26, 2012 14:21:22 GMT -5 raeoflyte said:

DH's wardrobe is in need of a complete overhaul. He used to buy clothes like crazy, and had a few years where he went up and down in sizes quite a bit. Now it's probably been 5-7 years since he has spent any real money on regular clothes and I think he practically needs to toss it all and start over.

How long does your wardrobe last, and do you continually update it, or do a big trip when needed?

Last summer my 12 year old Old Navy Khakis split when I went horse back riding . Now you know what kind of heathen I am.

I think that we have a lot of pent up demand in our house because, like your DH, we avoid shopping until it becomes ridiculous. Then, we have to spend a lot on maintenance, clothing, whatever, because we do it all at once.

[swamp]

I do one big shopping trip a year where I spend about $600. I buy a few things during the year, but not many.