Pulling in a second salary, I did a little guilt-free shopping for clothes this spring. My usual black t-shirts and jeans weren’t going to cut it in the classroom. I’m still compelled to only buy things on sale, but I was able for the first time to move a step above my usual spending caps. I bought 4 pairs of $100 pants from Banana Republic (sale price $49.00). Three cashmere sweaters from J. Crew ($140 reg; $40 on sale).
I’m rather shocked at other people’s spending caps. Who spends $200 on jeans? $100 on a pair of flats? $100 on a bra?
Though there are a few things that I can no longer wear, I am able to afford better quality clothes than I could in the past. Sure, I can’t wear those super short skirts and black tights that I used to favor, but now I’m snuggling a black, v-neck cashmere sweater. And I’m on the hunt for the perfect t-strap pump.
Question of the Day: How much would you spend for a pair of jeans?
Apt. 11d 
I (male) have never spent more than $30 on pants (I would never wear jeans). My expensive taste is a nice button-down cotton white shirt. V hard to get, esp since I’m unwilling to pay much money for my own clothes. I found that our Lands End reject store sells them for less than $10, sometimes as low as $2 if you are willing to buy them with other people’s initials mongrammed on them. I have a lot. (People think that RJR and LLJ are brand names).
Now, this might sound odd, especially given my clear stingyness and general lack of femininity, but if I were a woman I suspect I’d be willing to spend a lot to get a good bra.
(Thanks for the APSR article tip, btw, just downloaded it and will read tomorrow)
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I wouldn’t spend more than $80 bucks on a pair of jeans, but I’ll spend a lot of money on handbags. I decided that handbags are art and so $300+ for some wearable art that allows me to carry lipgloss and tampons at all times is a steal.
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I just spent $150 on a pair of jeans. From one of these “our computers will figure out which brand fits you” places. And? Not perfect, but pretty darn good, and certainly by far the best fit on a new pair of jeans in years. (The site also recommended some $75 jeans, but the colors were nasty.) And I didn’t have to spend hours admiring my cellulite in dressing rooms, either.
Harry, I think _really_ fitting jeans is at least as hard as _really_ fitting a bra; similar number of parameters, similar diversity in body shapes, similar lack of information about differences between manufacturers. And the results are even more visible to the world at large.
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Ooo I LOVE my jeans – I have certainly spent an embarrasing amount of money amassing my small collection. I justify this in many ways, my favorite being that when I used to weigh about 50 lbs more than I do now I would drool all over the skinny, flared, stonewashed designer collections that I could never hope to fit into. Now that I have lost a good deal of weight and can wear them I use them as a source of motivation not to slide back into old habits. My top jean price – $250 on a pair almost 4 years old now and they still look great.
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I think the most I have paid for jeans is about $60 – I would pay up to $80, maybe $100 if they were something really really special (I have easily paid $100 for good tailored pants, though, so it’s not that far off. I should say that I don’t do this all the time, but I have!). I wouldn’t spend as much as Carrie, but that’s not out of disapproval, it’s just because I feel uncomfortable teaching in jeans, so they have to be “time off” clothes for me, and I can’t justify spending that much on them. But really, if suit pants cost $100+, I think it makes sense to spend that much on jeans. (Though I haven’t. Yet.)
I’m much less willing to suffer through cheap shoes these days, so those are often $80-100 as well (though I realize for some real fashionistas those are still cheap shoes!).
As for the bras – I have to confess I can’t bring myself to spend more than $50 (and $30-40 is much more likely). But I also wear a really really REALLY standard size. And could probably go without in a pinch. If I had a less standard size, I’m sure I’d spend a great deal more!
What I want is to know where Emma Jean got her jeans…
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Do the $200 jeans really make your ass look better than a $50 pair or is it worth the price just for the convenience? I’ll have to try a pair on. I’ve been just going with the GAP boot cuts for years, but I’m curious.
I’m so scrawny that I don’t need too many bells and whistles on a bra. And my size is always on sale, so I can get away with $20 per bra.
Shoes. I have complete struck out with the last couple pairs of cheapo shoes. Blister-city. So, I’m going to have to get a proper pair soon. I have one pair of $90 shoes, but usually it’s $40-$50 for me.
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I’m a bloke, and my favourite pair of jeans cost £100 (200 bucks) when I bought them two years ago. That’s almost as much as I just spent on a very nice looking suit.
I’m a straight american male with limited fashion sense, but this much I have learned: living in London, I cannot get away with the very affordable american casual/quirky look that guys wear in the US (and which used to be my hallmark). The sort of shirts that Harry’s talking about would have my girlfriend* throwing me out of the house. In the UK, if straight men wanta get laid, they’ve got to be dressed smartly enough to feel somewhat gay. (At least in my experience – I suspect that Harry’s mileage may vary.)
In Italy, it’s even more extreme – regular guys will spend $200 on a t-shirt.
*She’s by no means a clothes fascist or exceptional by London standards, and if she’d grown up in the US, I’m sure she’d give me the same almost free pass that nearly all American men get re their clothing.
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reuben — I’m distinctly middle-aged and long married. I’m an englishman in the US, and it occurs to me there might be something in your observation about the US — my (american) wife took me on despite me being enormously worse dressed than I now am, and fat with it (and, I should say, she was spoiled for choice, so I was very lucky).
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Harry
It’s better to be lucky than good, as they say.
My English girlfriend has dedicated herself to purging my wardrobe of American-ness, and I’m far too sensible to fight her on it. And it certainly doesn’t help that of all the males in our group of friends, I’m the only straight one – the standard of dress they set is frightfully high.
(Thank god she doesn’t demand that I have the nice body that so many gay men seem to demand of each other. Selfridges is lovely, but you can’t buy a flat stomach there.)
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I have a couple of different metrics for “daily use items” (underwear, “uniform items”, purse/handbag/tote/whatever)
1. Cost per wear/usage: 15 years ago, I bought a tooled leather 3-ring-binder / daytimer-container thingy with a strap. As I recall, I paid about $450 for it — a fortune, and it sprained by credit card. But I’ve used it, and enjoyed it, every day since: 8 cents per day (aside — it is losing its utility, because it doesn’t have a convenient cell-phone toting capacity, but I could fix that if I were more ingenious)
2. Fit is function. I am fortunate in that most off-the-rack clothes fit me in a plausible manner. My daughter is not so fortunate. After trying on 37 different brand/cut combinations (and yes, I am a geek, I kept track with paper and pencil) we agreed that ^%# brand, !@ cut and *( cut, really did fit and flatter her figure.
Ooops. They are the >$80 variety. However, she is finished growing, and her weight is stable. With the understanding that those jeans would have to last for at least two years, I bought several pairs of each.
Oh, and the bra thingy: I have a modest chestal area.
My friends with the bodacious tatas, well, you have to pay for good and efficient engineering.
Oh: the uniform basics: cotton short-sleeve shell tops, and sort of generic, easy to care for trousers — look for bargains.
Shoes, socks, and jackets: look for quality that will last.
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Horrified to admit that just a few months ago I paid $140 for a pair of jeans. It took me several days just to *admit* to this purchase in front of my husband.
But I am of the age where I can no longer just buy whatever’s on sale. And I get approximately twelve seconds of shopping time — with two kids in tow — twice a year. So when I went to that on-line site that tells you what jeans will fit you, and they recommended some costing $140, I was in no position to argue.
I should mention the big trade-off involved in this purchase: time. Usually buying jeans is a several-week affair, sometimes including follow-on therapy. But this one was different. It required about an hour of on-line time to get a recommendation and a pointer to a store carrying that line. Then 45 minutes to drive to the mall with my two screaming kids, than LESS THAN HALF AN HOUR at Nordstrom’s trying on maybe six pairs of jeans. Five minutes to pay and a quick stop at the Nordstrom coffee bar for a cookie for the kids, and I was gone. The most non-negative shopping experience I’ve had in years.
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What’s this website?
Harry, I love your mis-mongrammed shirts. Very cool.
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http://www.zafu.com. It totally worked. If only they did sandals!
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http://www.truejeans.com is like zafu, except they sell the jeans themselves — even less time commitment! The $75 jeans were actually recommended for me by both sites… but this season’s selection in that brand are ugly.
See, if Gap jeans, or any other mainstream brands, had ever fit, like, at all, I wouldn’t have gone to such extremes! The low rise era has been especially bad for me, fitwise. The new expensive jeans are secretly midrise, but don’t look unhip.
And, Liz, I’m totally with you on cost per use. I wear glasses all day every day, and I, um, don’t stint on cost. (Thanks, aging boomers, for inspiring the development of so many high refractive index materials!)
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