Cost per wear: the formula that tells you what clothes really cost

The price tag tells you what a piece of clothing costs to buy. Cost per wear tells you what it costs to own. It's one division, and it quietly reverses most of what feels cheap or expensive on the shop floor.

The formula

Cost per wear = price ÷ number of times worn.

A £150 coat worn 100 times over two winters costs £1.50 a wear. A £15 going-out top worn twice costs £7.50 a wear — five times the coat. The coat is the cheap one.

If you want to be strict, add upkeep to the price: dry cleaning, repairs, resoling. For everyday wardrobes the simple version is enough.

Worked examples

Two patterns show up in almost every wardrobe. Basics you wear weekly end up costing pennies per wear regardless of price. And "bargains" bought because they were cheap — rather than because they fit your life — end up among the most expensive things you own.

What counts as a good number?

There's no universal threshold, but these bands are a sensible compass:

• Under £1 a wear — workhorse territory. Jeans, daily shoes, plain knits usually get here within a season.
• £1–£5 a wear — fine for layers, smarter pieces and outerwear.
• Over £5 a wear after a year — the piece is either occasion wear (fair enough) or a mistake worth learning from.

Occasion wear will always have a high cost per wear — that's the honest price of occasions. The fix there isn't wearing a wedding dress to the office; it's renting, borrowing or reselling.

Using it before you buy

Cost per wear is most useful at the till, as a forecast. Before buying, ask:

• When will I wear this in the next two weeks? No concrete answer usually means no wears.
• Does it work with at least three things I own? Pieces that need a new outfit built around them rack up hidden costs. (This is the same matching rule as building a capsule wardrobe.)
• Divide the price by an honest wear estimate. Ten wears a season is a realistic ceiling for most non-basics. £60 ÷ 10 = £6 a wear — is it worth that?

The counterintuitive conclusions

• Expensive basics are usually the best value in the wardrobe. High wear counts forgive high prices.
• Cheap impulse buys are usually the worst. Low prices don't forgive two wears.
• The most sustainable piece is the one you already own. Every extra wear drives its cost — and its footprint per wear — down. Re-wearing is free.

You don't need to track every penny forever. Track wears for a season, look at the ten best and ten worst numbers, and your buying habits will adjust on their own.