How much money do you spend in a year on clothes?

And do you think it's too little, too much, or just right? Do you think you dress fancy, sloppy, or what?

not much

^^^

Very little. Sometimes I get sick of what I own and think I should probably spend more, but it's hard to justify when it all still fits.

including shoes, probably two thousand bucks? fifteen hundred? man, it's hard to say. years i've bought suits skew this.

I'd like to spend more money on clothes.

me too...I could take more risks then

Slightly scared to calculate this.

i'd spend more money on clothes if they didn't all look so stupid

(on me)

Actually no, that's not true: it's surely below $2k, and I don't think I'd feel frivolous unless I was pushing $3k here.

xp There's that, too.

But then I'm forgetting shoes and coats here

30 to 50 quid a month, say. i usually buy one or two things. lets say 40 x 12 = 480 quid, and i buy a suit maybe twice a year at about 150, so i'd say roughly around 800 pounds.

Not a huge amount; I've been harvesting vintage clothes since I was 16 and most of them a) still fit and b) I go over them once in a while to slightly tweak my own style and to reference what may or may not be in certain mags next month. I'm not a pack rat - I do get rid of things eg. casualties of Great Moth Invasion of 2005 or outdated British high-street clothes. Theoretically I am allowed to 'call things in' at work but have never really done so. /fashion writer

I get sent lots of big fat art books for work rather than handbags or other fashionista catnip most of my colleagues mostly whack onto eBay. Today I am wearing an '80s geometric b/w batwing blouse purchased from local community centre rummage sale for 20p.

I hate shopping for clothes. I tend to despise people who pay too much attention to clothes, including those that go for a calculated slovenly style. Last month I spent 30 bucks on two t-shirts bought on the internet (Southern Lord and Amazon).

$200? I've had the same shoes for 10 years. My sneakers last for about two. Otherwise I mean.. some years I don't buy clothes at all.

I should though. I like my clothes but most of them aren't vivid enough.

yeah, i'm with tracer, here. i got a new tech-y outdoor jacket this spring ($125) to replace one that i purchased like 6 years ago (80 UK pounds, at the time).

i just don't care that much

I am in the "hate shopping for clothes, spend very little per year" camp. But I feel like I need a clothing infusion.

Including shoes maybe £150?

before i had to start going all 'business casual' a few weeks ago, it was about $50 a year

POLL

not enough certainly since having a kid. maybe $1000 these days. and that is not actually very many things considering the last hoody I bought cost $80.

No idea, but not enough. I'm trying to spend more and look more like a grown-up, but men's fashion kind of sucks on the shirt end. Stripey shirts or wild and crazy embroidery - in my price range it seems you either have to dress like a middle-aged dude or a 17-year old.

Actually, I see stuff that I'd like better all the time, but it's mostly cold-weather clothes, layering etc.. We don't get to do that down here.

I should probably start a recommendation thread on I Love Style.

As I have explained elsewhere, I normally dress just a half-notch above hobos. My annual clothing budget, averaged over the past decade, would probably come to about $100/yr, including all my shoes and the specialized clothing I wear when trekking.

Thusfar in 2008, I have spent only $40 or so on clothes (bought a pair of jeans and a sweater on clearance after the holidays). But my girliefriend buys me a fair amount of clothes b/c she likes to see me looking presentable. I dunno about other years. I think it largely depends on whether or not I"m in a relationship and, if so, how long I've been in it. If it is a short-term thing, or if I am single, I am going out a lot and trying to look as foxy and awesome as possible. But once a relationship shifts gears into "comfortable" status, not so much. Damn, I could use a new pair of sneaks. Thanx for reminding me ILX!

$200 or so...maybe +$100 of that if I buy some extra shoes or boots. Which is too much on my budget, tho it wld be nice to spend more.

Plus maybe $50 on top of that counting undergarments.

Probably not alot. Pants & socks mostly.

i'm in the middle of trying to update my wardrobe and get rid of all the cheap awful crap i have, so i'm spending more this year than i have like, ever. but... hopefully in the end it will last longer and i won't have any of the crap i look at now and can't wrap my head around wearing much less why i bought it. like, i was buying cheap shoes for a long time. now i need all new shoes. so this time i'm buying nicer ones, and hopefully i'll be set for a while. staples. yes. but i've spent several hundred in the last month or so probably...

ummm...i don't know, but probably several hundred. i've found myself having to buy new winter boots and coats in the last year or two, and that's a couple hundred right there if you want something actually waterproof and warm, which i do.

(and the winter boots i got last year broke down - the sole came off! i hope that counts for the llbean warranty. my sneakers last exactly a year, at which point i notice that parts have begun to fall off and i'm getting blisters running. how do y'all do it, wearing shoes for so long?)

Went through a Jigsaw phase where I spent a lot, but got over it. Now in the phase where I try to avoid buying new stuff just because I can't fit into the old stuff (too annoying).

probably 300-500 dollars a year, mostly because of shoes. i don't have to wear anything particularly nice to work, so i just wear comfy shoes, jeans, t-shirt, hoodie. plain colors, i dislike providing companies with free advertising.

i have spent nothing on clothes thus far this year, and it won't change much from that. I still wear all my old clothes from years ago, socks and gruts usually get as gifts at xmas, most of the time my new clothes are hand me downs.

such a tight arse.

Maximum €400 a year I'm guessing....

Interesting question. I don't buy clothes often, but I like to buy decent clothes when I do; I probably spend an average of £30-£40 a month on clothes, but that'll be nothing for three months and then £100 on a pair of jeans.

Buying expensive jeans is silly, like of all the clothing items to spend money on that seems like the daftest ones. Expensive jeans don't last longer and don't have a great record for being cut better either.

Jeans I buy: Levi's on sale, Cheap Monday.

Jeans I have inherited from friends: Helmut Lang, Paper Denim & Cloth.

It's weird, I actually don't like wearing a bunch of HEAVY HARDCORE FASHIONISTA stuff because it's become more about a remix of a HS clique planning what to wear tomorrow than about personal style, which I've always respected more.

I think I would buy more clothes if I didn't hate the whole experience of clothes shopping so much. It's probably pretty low, around £100-£150 maybe? I tend to not buy anything for nine or ten months and then go out and spend loads at once.

I might need a winter coat though, which will probably bump this up considerably.

I don't go in shops that much but this weekend made the mistake of going into All Saints and now I want to buy 1/3 of their stock.

I tend to do a massive shop about once a year and spend about £200 - £300 all at once, and then don't buy anything else the rest of the time.

Hmmmmmm, no more than £10-£20

... a year that is

I wish I could get away with spending only £10 - £20. I go up and down in weight too much to get away with that. :-(

All my clothes come from birthday and Xmas presents. Then I wear till they fall apart - but I don't mind fraying, holes etc.

Thankfully Paisley is well catered for with charity shops, so my mum keeps up a ready supply for me of corduroy jackets and the like

i don't keep track...i never particularly budget for clothes but go shopping v irregularly and spontaneously. i'm v fussy about what clothes i buy though, they have to be ~just right~, and always need to compare several places' stock before committing to a purchase, which often means i forget the whole enterprise and absent-mindedly wander home empty-handed, which i guess is self-budgeting of a sort. i want more T-shirts at the moment and indeed found an awesome design in one of those shops in kingly ct, but they didn't have it in my size :(

Haha I totally get that. Although buying winter clothes is like eight million times easier.

no it's harder b/c winter clothes need to be practical and look right! my winter coat looks amazing but doesn't have a hood which is just stoopid

And fuck washing a hat, eh? A winter coat is a grand thing.

Winter coats shouldn't have hoods. What are you, Liam Gallagher?

i know this is why i bought it, it looks better without a hood, but this is of scant comfort in times of torrential rain

i was recently donning a hat in front of a few friends, it was a cool scarf/hat hybrid thing. They asked me where I got it, and I said oh i found it in the road one night on my way home. "That's not like you ste" and everybody in the room laughed heartily.

Buying expensive jeans is silly, like of all the clothing items to spend money on that seems like the daftest ones. Expensive jeans don't last longer and don't have a great record for being cut better either.

If I could find cheaper jeans that fitted me well, I'd be delighted to buy them! £100 is exaggerating, though, it';s more like £60-£80 generally.

Cheap Monday or American Apparel jeans should be £45 or thereabouts; is there not somewhere Gander Streetish you can go to get the former, at least?

Thankfully Paisley is well catered for with charity shops, so my mum keeps up a ready supply for me of corduroy jackets and the like

This is why I have spent approx £20 on clothes this year, and that includes £10 on two pairs of brand new trousers in a sale (£6 and £4), and £3 on a brand new pair of shoes for work. I go for price rather than style, and buy everything in sales/from charity shops/at carboot sales.

I only like old clothes. 60s styles are the best <------------- pathetic old indie kid

Prob around $500 with shoes -- a trip to the discount shoe place can run me $150 easy but that'll be for about four pair so I don't regret.

I'm obsessed with TJ Maxx, of course, and also like suzy I buy a lot of second-hand, scoring $100-200 Pendleton wool skirts for thirty bucks or whatever, and getting a mid-century look that I prefer.

I used to sample-sale religiously when I worked in and around Chelsea, but I work in east midtown now and it's not practical. Plus the sizes are often tiny...still, I'm still wearing a number of things from those sales, and I feel virtuous and lucky and "only in New York" whenever I put them on.

My best scores are really vintage dresses from ebay in 1998-99 when no one seemed to know what they had, or how to price it (of course you never know what'll fit but for $10 I just gave some stuff away, or traded it). Ditto my Vera scarf collection, which I got for under $5 apiece.

i, too, mourn for the golden age of late-90s ebay vintage shopping!

Oh gosh, probably far too much - I think on average about £50 a month, sometimes more to fuel my AP lingerie lust.

But I get shopped out pretty quickly due to the hordes of people on a Saturday (I can't go after work anymore), so I often end up grabbing things and buying them, only to return them later because they're either too big or far too ridiculous. Like that pink sequinned miniskirt with a huge puffy bow on the bum I picked up at Topshop. Fantastic? Sure. Completely inappropriate an un-Marianna like? You betcha. So I end up taking most of my stuff back, which actually has the knock on effect of woo - buying rush, but without the decreasing bank balance.

I have friends who don't try things on in the store, they buy them and take home, then return. Maybe they have credit cards; I only have a debit account so I'm paying REAL money for my shopping. Plus let's be honest, I can try on twenty-seven things and buy none of them, so it's just not practical.

Oh, I would prefer to do all my trying on in store, but when the queue in some places is regularly 50-people long, I just can't do it. If that's the case, a lot of the time I'll then just dump anything I've picked up and leave, but some things are too cute not to try on.

I really hate that. I am not averse to taking the clothes pile to the men's section and using those fitting rooms, which are always empty, because all the guys are sitting in Man Parking waiting for female friends rather than shopping. Fortunately, I'm pretty good at eyeing up things and determining fit and/or deciding to pivot and buy things like jackets that I can try on the shop floor or dresses I know will work.

Buying expensive jeans is silly, like of all the clothing items to spend money on that seems like the daftest ones. Expensive jeans don't last longer and don't have a great record for being cut better either.

This explains why my We jeans (cheap, about 50 euros) last about three hours and my Levis (15O euros maybe?) have lasted for about three years. Not. Also when I wear my "expensive" Levis, everyone commenst on how skinny I have become. (Which is silly cause I'm not, but hey I'm not complaining when they throw those compliments at me.) Oh yeah, I still have my Sevens. Yay. But these days I spend far FAR less on clothes. Two kids and a multitude of hobbies resulted in me spending a lot less on clothes. Maybe 500 euros per year? Probably more though. I don't keep track.

I realize "labels" do ask a ton more, but a tiny bit of that price is due to better quality. The rest is the name of course. :-)

my giordano jeans (from hong kong - about £20) last about 5 years.

I know it's silly to buy expensive jeans (or clothes). But I just can't help it. :-)

i think i pay about £100 a year on clothes, it's hard to spend money on clothes that are mediocre in design and quality, but then now i wear the same clothes all the time..

I have been lucky enough to have been over to the states quite a few times this year and have been really lucky with sample warehouse/sales. However I did buy a new suit for interviews this year which kicked me off with $600 right off the bat so I think I have probably spent somewhere of the order of $1000-1200.

Paper Denim & Cloth

This is apparently what Filene's basement is for. They always seem to have Men's PDC jeans for $50 or less often with a buy two get three or buy 1 get one half price.

most of my clothes expense actually nowadays seem to be for fancy dress

my parents, who live in Tokyo, visit their outlet shop on a daily basis. i am really jealous as they can get designer clothes for such cheap prices. grrrr. :-)

I hate shopping for clothes. I tend to despise people who pay too much attention to clothes, including those that go for a calculated slovenly style. Last month I spent 30 bucks on two t-shirts bought on the internet (Southern Lord and Amazon).

― Vision, Monday, October 13, 2008 7:16 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i got a free subscription to GQ (i don't remember how) and it's making me feel like a disgusting inhuman slob who needs to go out and spend thousands of dollars on clothes and watches and cologne like today

i have certainly not been spending a lot on clothes. and always have good luck with 2nd hand. i am all about staples now. which makes clothes spending kind of easier, now that i have suddenly come up with this totally unique theory lol.
all i need:
another pair of skinny black jeans
a pair of rulin' kneehigh leather boots (not high-heeled)
a to-die-for black or charcoal wool-cashmere wrap sweater

i could prob spend $600 on this and be done for the season.
i am so bored by most of the stuff in most of the stores.

I think maybe £400+ a year. I am including trainers.

I don't think for a moment that I dress fancy.

I only really shop in TX Maxx and Uni Qlo, and sometimes Gap (only if the shop assistants don't approach me).

I currently have over 50 shirts, more than 15 pairs of trousers/jeans, at least 8 jumpers/sweaters in various colours, 5 jackets, 3 winter coats, 8 pairs of shoes. A ton of socks and underwear.

wtf, did Nabisco really start this thread by saying he probably didn't spend two thousand dollars a year on clothes ???

This year - well I think it was this year, just about, maybe, that I bought two new coats that must have cost up to about £100 or even more together ... and in NYC I bought a pair of second-hand vans for $10. Oh and I bought a couple of ties for £20 total. And I did buy something or other in Primark, a few times. So I think it's way under £200.

If you include shoes and running shoes, I've probably spent $500-600 so far this year.

Or do running shoes go in my "athletic/recreational gear" budget, along with all of that scuba-diving equipment and those titanium golf clubs I purchased.

I feel as though this thread's self-selected sample is skewed towards either extreme, or at least was at first.

i dont think $2000 is ridiculously high. Ive spent maybe $200 and thats just jeans and some tank tops. On the kid, however, I think last year it must have been in the thousands. Clothes arent really in our budget anymore though.

I would've thought I came out on the low end but am surprised to see some thrifty folx here. I estimate $1k-$1500 a year, including shoes and accessories. I'm not really good at hunting down bargains.

Probably less than $100 dollars.
I dress sloppy usually but can "clean up nice" when necessary.

I can get by cheaply with thrift shops if it's just for casual everyday clothes or random neat finds. But when I actually need something that has to fit right, look respectable, or be functional - like a pair of shoes appropriate for a funeral or job interview, or proper outdoor clothing - thrift shops aren't dependable. You'd have to really shop around to have that luck, and if there's only one or two in town the odds are low. And that's where the bulk of my spending goes, even though the physical bulk of my purchases may tend toward the thrift shop end.

I buy a new pair of sneakers every year, year and a half. And like Maria, just one or two purchases might make up a bigger percentage of money spent. Maybe this year was a little higher, because I bought some "presentable" clothes (from Target) this August. You know, short sleeves but with a collar. The rest is thrift stores & hand-me-downs. Oh, except for socks & underwear and stuff but they are cheap.

I don't own an interview suit, which I really should buy, so that'll put my total up $200-300 or so whenever I get around to it. My workday tastes run to patent leather heels and "styley" stuff rather than sober, neutral-colored office-wear, which I think is mostly awful and boring. I understand why people wear it, like putting on a uniform because work isn't your real life, but I spend too many hours of the day in my work-clothes, and go out afterward, and I'm not willing to be invisible/anonymous/interchangeable from 8AM to 11PM.

Years of attempting to shop the thrift way have led me to regretfully conclude it just doesn't work for me. In all my current wardrobe, only one skirt and one t-shirt are secondhand; the first from a Value Village and the second from ebay. I'm not very good at 'vintage', either, although I have some stuff that I bought new but could pass as vintage.

I tend to be lucky with catching sales and discounts, though. I'm also not in the habit of updating my wardrobe to fit current trends, so whatever I buy tends to last for years -- either until it falls apart or I stop wearing it. And when I had a sewing machine I would make some of my own dresses and skirts, which was not only fun! and creative! but usually cheaper.

In university I spent maybe $100-$200 a year of my own money on clothes; my parents were usually pretty good about helping out there (ie, they felt bad that I didn't have a lot of money so sometimes they bought me stuff when we visited one another). But I think in the last 12 months I've spent £400-£500 on clothes. This is partially due to having more personal income now that I'm not in university and partially due to liking more of the styles and options and stuff in the UK... and relative to my income, buying stuff is cheaper than when I lived in Canada (pair of jeans = 4h wages in UK; same pair = 7h wages in Canada).

Buying a suit when you have some money but not, like, professional level is a bitch. They are all ugly and tell an interviewer you are boring. Man, Macy's should have something that has some personality in my price range and they don't.