Okay, so we don’t quite spend anything close to the time women spend in front of the mirror, but there definitely used to be a time when us lads didn’t really care what we looked like and could go out with what is essentially the most comfortable pair of clothes you’ve had on all week even. Times have changed a bit and there is a little more pride in looking after oneself a little more, but now that has opened up a can of worms because men’s clothes are getting even more expensive and we all already know just how expensive they are in relation to women’s clothes.
If you even tried to keep up with the latest trends you might find yourself a little short on the amount of money you have left a few days before each next pay day, so the aspiration of having a collection of at least one suit for each day of the month (just for the heck of it) can get quite expensive. Don’t forget that you’d also perhaps need a few good pairs of shoes to match each occasion, so the modern man finds himself with a lot more worries than what our forefathers were faced with.
There is a great way to look good on the cheap though, which is not to say that you’ll be turning out in cheap-looking clothing at all. For the most part, men’s clothes are only as expensive as we collectively allow them to be. I mean what on earth do the clothing retailers do when nobody seems to be buying some stock they have? Well they put it on sale of course – they put it all on a real sale after perhaps trying to fake it for a bit by slapping a bright yellow sticker on which says something like “WAS £110, NOW £50” or perhaps something like “50% OFF!”
That in itself should serve as an indication of just how overpriced clothes generally are, irrespective of the consideration that clothing retailers are after all in it for the money and have to make profits. If someone can mark down their price on a garment by up to 50% and more, that speaks a lot of their profit margins, ordinarily.
So if you trace your way up the supply chain all the way to the factory shops from which the retailers source their stock you can get up to twice as many clothes you’d otherwise get buying from retailers.
The absolute best way to save money on clothes however and look really, really good on the cheap is by buying so-called “second-take” clothes, which are often worn just once before being sold on, if you can call wearing something for a TV commercial, movie or TV show actually wearing it. Clothes that roll off the set of movies and TV shows are sold on for very cheap and these are usually very expensive clothes which would cost you so much more if you were to source them from their original retailers.