Overall, fast fashion is more expensive than designer clothing
Designer clothing is usually significantly more expensive than the goods from large fashion chains such as H&M, Zara and Primark. This fact is well known, but what the consumer may not be aware of is that buying expensive clothes can actually save money.
That sounds counterintuitive at first, but the buying behavior stimulated by cheap clothing often means that the consumer has new clothes hanging unused in the closet every year, or wears certain items of clothing only a few times before they lose their shape and color.
The so-called “Fast Fashion” is a phenomenon that is particularly due to large fashion chains. The department stores lure with generally relatively low prices and often give them additional discounts, so that in many cases more products end up in the shopping cart than originally planned.
The high-frequency purchase of cheap clothing, as well as the purchase of clothing items that go beyond what is actually needed, ultimately lead to a higher overall expenditure than when buying designer clothing.
A billion unused items of clothing
As a study by Greenpeace on clothing stocks in Germany revealed, there are a total of 5.2 billion pieces of clothing in German possession, not counting socks and underwear.
Women have an average of 118 items of clothing in their closet, while men have 73. According to the study, income, origin and education also determine how many items of clothing an individual owns, in addition to gender.
Of these 5.2 billion items of clothing, 19 percent are only worn a maximum of two times, meaning that every fifth item hangs unused in the closets of Germans. Extrapolated to the federal government, there are a billion items of clothing lying around almost unused.
On average, every consumer has unworn clothing worth 240 euros in their closet every year.
In addition, if the clothing is worn, 50 percent of consumers only wear it for one to three years. This is often related to the quality of the product. Because clothes are thrown away in 90 percent of cases when they are broken, worn out or washed out. And according to a study by the Competence Center for Consumer Research, this is the case for just under 25 percent of cheap clothing after the third wash. This means that fast fashion breaks down just as quickly as it was bought.
The savings potential of expensive clothing
A sample calculation shows how a change in buying behavior can save money:
If 50 fast fashion items of clothing are bought per year, which cost 20 euros each, 10 items (20 percent) lie unused in the closet. So 200 euros were wasted in one year. Over three years, this adds up to 600 euros. The consumer invests 1,000 euros a year or 3,000 euros in three years for clothing, but only uses products worth 800 or 2,400 euros.
If you exchange these 10 unused items of clothing for 10 long-lasting products that can be worn over several years, the following savings potential results:
40 fast fashion products at 20 euros each are bought annually for a period of three years. This results in a total of 2,400 euros. The previously unused clothing portion of 10 items of clothing is replaced by slow fashion products, which at 37 euros per item are considerably more expensive than fast fashion clothing, but these 10 products only have to be bought once every three years. So, on top of the 2,400 euros for fast fashion, an additional 370 euros for slow fashion is added. This now results in a total income of 2,770 euros in three years.
In this way, the total costs of 3,000 euros are reduced by 230 euros, i.e. by 7.67 percent. In addition, clothing of higher quality is now available.
It is important to note that expensive clothing is not automatically of higher quality, so quality features should be taken into account when purchasing. Pieces with sustainable materials such as organic cotton should preferably be bought. The seams also provide information about the quality and durability of the product.
Henry Ely / Editor finanzen.net
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