Monday Musings: How Much Money Should You Spend On Your Clothes?
A few weeks ago, at the Project Vanity #EmpowerHer event, I gave a talk about how we can crystalize our personal style. I said, “Spend as much as you can afford on clothes!” I believe that it’s important to buy quality items that will last years if not decades. I spent so much money during my early 20s buying flimsy, cheap clothes that I ended up throwing away anyway. Now that I’m older, I know that well-made things are worth the cost simply because I never have to spend money on something like that item again - at least for the next ten years or so.
After my talk, someone asked a really good question: “How much of our budget should we spend on clothes?” I love that question because it brings things into a sharper perspective.
First, I want to establish that having strong personal style is important because it allows you to communicate things about yourself to the world without having to verbally explain all the time. It’s a great way to express yourself! It can also pave the way to get the right people to be with you, as well as pay you for the work that you want to do. The way you dress or look like is, of course, not the most important thing about you. Your talents, skills, personality, advocacies - these things are more important than a well-curated wardrobe. But appearances contribute to how other people make decisions about you, which is why personal style should be as much for others as it is for your own satisfaction.
Second, given the above, you have to be clear about the goals that you want to achieve in the near and distant future. Be brutally honest and painfully specific. Cut it out of you with a figurative knife, if you must. Do you want to be a stay-at-home mom ruling the PTA with an iron first? Do you want to be a stay-at-home mom cleaning and taking care of your family all day, exclusively? Do you want to be a high-powered executive in an extremely competitive multinational company? Do you want to be a a freelancer working at home at your own pace? Be honest about the life you dream of. This will help you understand the levers you need to pull to get there.
Third, the people who are living your dream - what do they look like? How do they dress themselves? What kind of people do they surround themselves with? What is their background? Then, take an inventory of the tools and materials at your disposal and see what you’re missing. Now, you won’t realistically be able to collect everything you need. It takes time, work, and laser focus to gather even just some of it. But hopefully you will have enough to propel yourself forward.
If you understand these parameters, then you will understand the game you need to play. I call it a game because there is a goal and there are conditions to winning. You need to figure out how much clothes, makeup, and lifestyle matter when it comes to winning points in the game. A rich housewife with a mansion who wants to be a celebrity via the viral YouTube route is playing a very, very different game from an office worker with a couple sources of income and aims to get a pomotion to Junior Manager by next year. Both are valid goals, but in terms of winning points via appearances, one requires designer clothes and the other a trip to Uniqlo or Zara. A content creator aiming to get more advertisers so she can make content full time is playing a different game from a freelancer who aims to secure a better paying home-based job. One needs to be dressed in trendy clothes all the time, the other needs to look professional while still being comfortable.
So how much money do we need to spend on clothes? For me, it’s as much as it takes to win the game you’re playing. If clothes do not matter in the game, then there’s no need to spend much (unless you just really enjoy dressing up, for fun). But if it matters then spend as much as you can afford to.
