Put simply, Cost per Wear is the price you pay for an item of clothing, divided by the number of times you wear it, plus any costs of cleaning. In recent years, the notion of Cost Per Wear or CPW has become popular. With studies showing that woman on average wear only 20% of their clothes, it begs the question, what happens to the rest of the 80%? Where does that end up and how much money do we as consumers waste in the process?

While there are some items of clothing which will naturally have a high cost per wear, a wedding dress perhaps the best example, there are others which need not.  For a daily and working wardrobe there is really no need for us to buy clothes and not wear them.

Being the passionate advocates of Cost Per Wear that we are, here at The Fable we’ve compiled some tips on how to build a CPW friendly wardrobe.  

• Avoid dry-clean only. Adding the cost of dry-cleaning on to each wear will kill your CPW. Also, the shear fact that you know you have to dry-clean an item will reduce the likelihood of you wearing it in the first place.

• Avoid shades and styles which are highly seasonal. It’s always fun to have something in the wardrobe which is “in”, however the reality is that these pieces don’t stand the test of time. You will not want to wear them next season leaving you with only a few meager months to amortise your CPW.

• Buy Quality. This one is simple. Quality lasts longer, extending the period of time you have to wear your chosen purchase. Affordability comes into equation here of course as well. Solution: where ever possible opt for affordable quality.

• Consume consciously. How many times have you bought something in the spur of the moment or on sale only to regret it later? Realise it doesn’t actually go with anything in your wardrobe and send it off to the sallies with the next Spring clean. While there is no hard and fast solution here, shopping mindfully and making considered purchases will help minimize the number of “bad buys” made and go a long way to helping your overall CPW.

Here at The Fable, we are great believers in the importance of CPW. So much so that our silk shirts have been designed around it. They are washable, so you can farewell the dreaded dry-clean. They are available in a range of trans-seasonal shades as we want you to wear our silk shirts for more than a few months. Finally, they are built to last and designed for versatility. Wear them to work, brunch, drinks and beyond. Wash, wear, repeat. Then eventually, when the time comes for you to farewell your silk shirt, we want it to owe you absolutely nothing and part you with only memories.

The Fable Silk Shirts = Low Cost Per Wear. That’s our promise.