Cost Per Wear Update

The CPW Update
Now that fall's here, we're seeing out cost per wear drop:

Neiman Marcus brick red cashmere turtleneck sweater - $61.00 (sale price and shipping)
divided by 8 = $7.60

Style & Co giraffe Print short trench coat- $35.00 (sale price) divided by 9 = $3.80/wear

Eddie Bauer cassis colored cords - $19.99 (sale price and shipping) divided by 9 = $2.20/wear

All of them getting down to a reasonable cost-per-wear without years and years of ownership.

It's also worth stealing a look at the latest InStyle magazine for November's Fundementals of Chiconomics feature. Some of it's fluff, but there is an excellent quiz on "What's The Real Price" that's kind of the flip side of cost per wear. The more you use the items and the more minimal care the item has, the item the more points you get.

My cords, for example, scored 160 points. Multiply the price (19.99) by 1.6 and you get $31.00. Yet, that's still far below the list price of $60 - if you do the math on the list price, they should be worth $96.00 to you. But that still doesn't justify full price in my mind.

A combination of both methods should work well, but if you have to pick one, go with Cost Per Wear.