An IT specialist created a program to assess the wear and tear of clothes and made the perfect wardrobe

Have you ever wondered if expensive clothes are worth their price? Or did you have that subtle feeling of guilt when you bought something expensive and then justified it by saying that you would wear it for a very long time? What expensive things to buy more profitable, how to choose the right clothes and shoes, reports Reactor.

Photo: IStock

Olof Hoverfelt, chief strategy consultant for the design business, studied what and when he wore over the past three years, and then analyzed the data and learned wear rates.

“I took a deep dive into my closet to find out how much my clothes actually cost, and learned a ton about productivity, sustainability, and myself in the process,” he says.

Even with a little data, you can get important information — and get good shoes along the way, says Hoverfelt. He has kept a continuous daily log of the use of all his clothing for the past three years.

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Hoverfelt says that what started as a simple question about whether it makes sense to buy expensive clothes has now turned into a rather profound discovery in the field of cost-effectiveness of clothing.

His principles for more or less any consumption for a long time have been to buy what he needs, use what he buys, and take good care of what he has. However, Hoverfelt had no idea how things were with his clothes.
The lessons learned from this project have helped him improve the choices he makes. He also created an analytics platform to evaluate not only clothing, but any durable goods.

Hoverfelt hopes to help others understand the logic, methods and benefits of data-driven decision making. If you also want to create order in your wardrobe, the author of the project can help you - you can submit an application here.

Daily wear data

Hoverfelt's wear data is a continuous daily log of his use of each item of clothing since January 1, 2018. So far, that's a total of 426 items, 1106 days, and over 300 usage and non-use data points. All products are divided into a simple MECE structure of 000 categories: jackets and sweatshirts, blazers, jerseys, shirts, t-shirts, trousers, shorts, belts, socks, shoes, underwear, shirts and boxers. Sportswear is an additional category that is not included in the category of "casual" clothing.

“Data entry takes less than a minute a day. I spend four times as long brushing my teeth,” he says.

At the moment, the data entry interface in Google Sheets looks like this:

Screenshot: Hoverfelt website

Hoverfelt counts "wear and tear" by day. Every evening, he opens a browser tab and checks the clothes he wore that day in the list of active items. It takes less than a minute a day, which is about six hours a year.

Disclosure of the real value of clothing

Clothing is a durable commodity. Thus, by itself, the purchase price of a garment says almost nothing about its actual profitability.

“I had no idea what the lifespan of my various garments might be,” says Hoverfelt.

He tried to estimate his use of various items, but later found out that almost all of his initial assumptions in 2017 were too high.

“This is where daily usage data corrects the distorted picture and allows you to examine what usage actually looks like, stripped of bias and wishful thinking,” he says.

Actual and intended use

The picture below shows the total number of all Hoverfelt shoes.

In the case of shoes, there is a fairly large variation in wear time. This is understandable, since all shoes are unique.

“My black winter shoes—far right—really stand out: They've been worn over 300 times and are still going strong,” says Hoverfelt.

Screenshot: Hoverfelt website

Items that are identical or very similar, such as underwear, t-shirts, tend to have much less variation.

T-shirts for underwear usually last 20 to 25 times. This means that an active T-shirt with about 28 socks is probably nearing the end of its life cycle, and that a T-shirt that starts to fall apart after 10 uses is no good.

“Now that we know the number of wears for each item and the typical range of usage effectiveness for each category, we are finally ready to begin studying the cost-effectiveness,” says Hoverfelt.

Wear cost standardizes cost effectiveness

Tracking the use of clothing or any durable product allows you to study its true cost-effectiveness throughout its life cycle. In the context of clothing, Hoverfelt uses an item's Cost Per Wear (CPW)—dividing the item's cost by the number of times it is used.

The goal is to push each element as low as possible on the chart through constant use.

CPW is the actual cost of each time an item has been equipped until now. While this is useful on its own, perhaps the biggest benefit of CPW is that it makes clothes comparable across price ranges. This helps answer the question of whether quality correlates with price, as Hoverfelt suggests.

“In some cases, buying cheap ends up costing more,” he says.

The $97,99 Converse and $32,66 Mywears sneakers have the same CPW of $0,95 and $0,76, respectively. Their effective cost is about the same, meaning that wearing cheap Mywears is about as expensive as wearing Converses. It takes about two pairs of Mywears to match one pair of Converse. “From a sustainability standpoint, I would suggest that one pair is better than two, even though the items may have different individual marks,” says Hoverfelt.

The pricier shoe, the $163,32 Diesel, performs noticeably worse than the above two. Their actual CPW of $2,05 is more than double that. In this case, money cannot buy quality, at least durability, he believes. Diesels did last twice as long as Mywear, but they were five times more expensive, leaving them at a much lower cost-effectiveness level, Hoverfelt says.

Hoverfelt says the clear leader in his wardrobe right now is the Hugo Boss, which is still active and could get better. The $0,62 Hugo Boss CPW is $0,33 less than the $0,95 Converses. This may seem like a pretty small difference, but it's 34 percent lower. From a cost-effectiveness standpoint, that's quite a lot, he says.

“So the conclusion seems to be that, regardless of potential brand and style preferences, Boss sneakers are the best. We have also seen that in some cases, buying cheap ends up costing more. This would support the old adage, “I can't afford to buy cheap,” says Hoverfelt.

But it's not always like he says.

Price can buy quality, but it doesn't always translate into a relatively low CPW.

In Hoverfelt's wardrobe, this is the case with shirts.

“My shirts fall into two categories: relatively expensive ($100 and up) and less expensive ($40 and below),” he says. — Expensive shirts have an average CPW of $3,44. Less expensive t-shirts (all of which are still active) average $1,29 and continue to decline. While less expensive shirts are still in use and may be improved, we can confidently say that they perform significantly better in terms of cost-effectiveness.”

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Hoverfelt believes this leads to the obvious conclusion that quality is not limited to, and cannot be measured solely by, durability. In his opinion, expensive shirts are better in many ways. This means that each garment provides a more valuable subjective experience (better materials, style and cut, details, brand, etc.) that can justify the difference in CPW.

“The shirt example shows that for me, wardrobe efficiency is not about reducing absolute cost, but about finding the optimal balance between value and cost,” he says.

Frequency of use is the main performance driver

Since usage is a fundamental performance factor, it makes sense to look at what affects it and try to understand what might be limiting it.

The fastest growth in the use of an item is the use of it every day. Anything less than this means slower usage accumulation and therefore slower progress towards lower CPW. Thus, the “effectiveness of use” of an item can be measured as the frequency of use. In his study, Hoverfelt defined this as the average number of wears per month.

His measurements, in fact, show how “popular” each element of the wardrobe is. This is powerful because it shows a real preference, not an imaginary one, as he believes.

Elements can have good reasons for relatively low wearing frequency. They can be specialized for special occasions.

Since the total potential use of any garment is ultimately limited by the number of available days (there are only a certain number of days in a month), the available days become a scarce resource in this category. This is why frequency of use is so useful in expanding the understanding of performance.

“Someone once said that their goal is to have only the clothes they love in their wardrobe. This makes sense not only from a cost perspective, but in light of my data, it may also be a better alternative from a cost-effectiveness perspective,” he said.

Comparison of all categories in the wardrobe

With Hoverfelt's approach to judging items in your wardrobe, you can immediately determine which categories are expensive and which are less expensive, as well as which categories you actively use and which you rarely use. There seems to be a negative correlation between CPW and frequency or usage. It would seem natural - and justified - to accept a higher CPW for clothes that are rarely worn, provided, of course, that they last a long time.

“Blazers seem very expensive, and that is true when we look at CPW. They cost six times more than trousers per wear. On the other hand, they are used much less frequently, which means their annual cost may not be that much,” he says.

The final indicator of real costs and their possible trend is the daily cost built over time.

The Perfect Wardrobe: Wardrobe Tips

Find what you need and love, then buy. Sounds easy. However, building this discipline is difficult. “There's a difference between love in a store and love two weeks later,” says Hoverfelt.

Focus on usage, not price. Use is related to value. As with any trade-off between value and cost, it makes sense to look for value first and then figure out what constraints might be associated with cost. Remember that more expensive clothes may actually be cheaper.

Avoid "second level" clothing. These are things that seem to be good, but never put on, as there is something similar, but a little better. It makes sense to have only your favorite clothes.

Avoid clothing for rare occasions. Try to keep everything as compatible as possible with as wide a range of kits as possible.

Create maximum compatibility between categories. One way is to limit the color palette of things. Incompatible things increase the size of the wardrobe, reduce its use and its effectiveness. It also reduces the cognitive load on finding suitable combinations.

Shop for the long term. Some high quality clothing may have to be worn for years to be effective.

Take care of your clothes. Constant care and small fixes can double the lifespan of a garment. It may also make sense to send high-quality clothing to a tailor for repair.

Know when to quit. Although we aim for long-term use, there is a limit at which further advancement becomes unjustified. Enjoy the guilt-free experience of getting rid of an item that you know has served well.

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Make your clothes look good. Picking up clothes in your neat and well-lit wardrobe should be as enjoyable as shopping.

Accept your special weakness. “I think we all have our weaknesses. One of mine is blazers. Despite all this performance optimization, I still buy too many of them. At the current exchange rate, I have a reserve for 10 years. Reasonably - no. Nice - yes. And that’s okay,” says Hoverfelt.

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