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Consider paying more for everyday clothes
By Meg | July 12, 2007
Right now, my everyday wardrobe consists almost exclusively of dresses. In particular, they tend to be black and white dresses because I started my dress shopping this past winter and spring when “black and white” was huge. Now, I love black and white, but I want more color in my wardrobe and unfortunately there is a limited number of colors that I can wear well because I have very fair skin. Also unfortunate is that I haven’t found a lot of dresses in my colors and in my size and that I like and that fit into my normal $0-35 dress budget. So, I was getting a bit desperate when I went to Stein Mart this week. Normally I just buy accessories there because their clothing is generally out of my budget. I did find a beautiful brown dress, though. It was in my size, totally my style, in great colors for me (brown, blue, blueish green), and yes, I liked it a lot. But oh the horror, it was $60! What was I to do?
Well, I bought it. It was hard. The voice in my head kept saying, “That’s a lot for an everyday dress!” When I showed my mom, she said that the dress did look great on me, but she echoed my original concern that it was a bit much for an everyday dress. (Can you see where I get it from?)
Then it occurred to me. Why should I be so alright with paying that much and more for dresses that I wear a few times or even just once, but be so scared to pay $60 for an every day dress that I will get so much use out of! I remembered how my friend Rebecca at The Space Between My Peers stresses considering “cost per wear”. Well, over time the cost per wear of this dress will be a lot less than a lot of my other very expensive clothing (and even some very cheap clothing). Now, I don’t plan to give up my discount shopping totally. I left a similarly beautiful dress at Macy’s last night because it was $100. But I figure that my new dress is the cost of only two of my black and white dresses, a lot harder to find, and fills a need in my wardrobe. It just makes sense - but why didn’t I think this way before?
Tags: Fashion, Quality, Spending Money
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July 14th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
$60 is a very good price for a dress. Remember that you are buying a top and a bottom when you invest in a dress. You can barely find a nice pair of pants for under $80..let alone a fab pair of jeans. As you so astutely put - the cost per wear is paramount. I bet your dress looks fab! Enjoy!
July 18th, 2007 at 3:20 am
That is so true. I will definitely pay more for a dress than separates because a dress is top and bottom put together. The more I think about it, the better and better I feel about the price of the dress. I know for a lot of people that is nothing, but I was raised to be super price conscious (which overall is a very good thing) and so it’s easy to get stick shock. And I like the dress more and more, too. My friend that I counted on to hate it actually liked it - which is incredible since he’s very picky when it comes to what I wear.
Maybe that’s why I can hardly ever find good pants! Although, I have still had some luck, fortunately. It’s usually not worth it, though.