Here is a question for my male readers: Do you think your female partner spends more time dressing for work in the morning than you do? If your answer is yes, then I’d like to ask another question: does your wife or girlfriend have more choices for clothing than you do? If your answer is also “yes,” then I will argue that your partner takes longer because she has more options than you do, and choosing take more time. And it is likely that she spends more than you do on clothes, yet your most expensive suit costs a lot more than her most expensive dress.
The question is this: Why do men’s clothes cost more than women’s? The answer (though this conclusion will be argued here) is that women simply purchase more clothing than men do, and sellers of women’s clothing keep their prices lower to encourage women to keep buying. Yet, it really depends on where someone lives and the “buying culture” of the society in which someone lives.
In come cultures, for example, women accessorize more than men. They make more detailed choices than men do. Would women buy as much clothing as they do if their clothes were more expensive than men’s?
A recent study revealed two important facts about the way men and women shop. The study concluded that over 40% of women use online apps to shop, compared to less than half that number for men. The second conclusion the study made was that two-thirds of women shopped based on price, compared to less than 50% of men.
In the United Kingdom, women spend an average of $35,000.00 on clothes compared to about $20,000.00 for men. For shoes, that contrast is even more distinct: women spend almost twice as much on shoes as men do. The lower the price, the more women will buy.
Table of Contents
Do Women Buy More Clothes than Men During Sales?
Women are smart shoppers when it comes to finding a sale. Major clothing outlets and online clothing sellers will hype up a sale to attract the attention of women buyers, and women will purchase a lot of clothing at lower prices.
The difference, though, is that sales on women’s clothes, let’s say t-shirts for the sake of argument, can offer shirts for as low as $5.00, where a comparable sale on men’s t-shirts lowers the price of the shirt to $15.00. It is not the same, and women spend less on each item of clothing. This is because women have more buying power than men do, based on the sheer volume of their purchases.
Men don’t buy as much clothing as women, not because it’s more expensive, but because they don’t accessorize as much as women do. Because women have more buying power, purchasing more than men do, they are offered clothing at much lower prices.
Retail stores know that women will purchase more shoes than men, and more tops and bottoms than men do, and will keep the prices low to encourage women to keep buying; it’s often the case than women will buy clothing and shoes that they will never wear.
Do Women Think Differently About Clothing Than Men?
Many women I’ve met have related that the first activities they engaged in when they were children, some starting at five years old, was playing “dress up.” As little girls, they would try on clothes with their friends. This behavior carried over into their teenage years and adulthood.
Are women more concerned about their appearance in public than men are? Many women would say yes, but times have changed, as men begin to accessorize and have a variety of outfits to choose from like women do.
We wear shoes to protect our feet, but shoes play a role, especially for women, far beyond mere protection from the ground underneath their feet. Shoes make a statement today. Shoes convey messages like “I am keeping up with current trends,” and “These shoes give me sex appeal,” and “these shoes will perfectly match the dress I’m wearing to the party this weekend.”
Women often prefer shopping for shoes more than a trip to the spa, and many would rather spend money on shoes than getting their hair styled. In fact, women spend twice as much on shoes than men do. Usually, fashionable women’s shoes are much less expensive than a pair of man’s dress shoes.
The reasons women buy more shoes and clothing than men also has to do with the time of year. Men’s clothing fashions change only slightly between winter and spring. In warmer weather, men discard their coats and wear t-shirts or lighter dress shirts, but their shoes change little to not at all.
Women, on the other hand, have a closet relegated to winter clothing, and when spring comes, they wear an entirely different wardrobe. The shoes they wear are radically different than men’s and they’ll change from shoes that form around the entire foot, changing to sandals when the warmer weather comes.
But the starkest difference is that women will buy an overabundance of shoes, compared to men who usually only buy shoes they plan to wear. Women often buy shoes they end up never wearing, shoes they had saved for a special occasions, perhaps to wear only once or twice. They can buy shoes only for special occasions because they are less expensive than men’s shoes. If most women’s shoes were over $100.00 each instead of the average range of $30.00 to $40.00 for pair of stylish heels, they would not buy as many pairs.
Are Women More Competitive Than Men?
Women are under significantly more pressure from society to always look attractive and to wear clothing that makes them look better. Women compete with one another, commenting to themselves or others about poor clothing choices other women have made.
Is this competition built in to women’s DNA, or is their competitive nature due to the pressures of society? It is not an easy question to answer. Women do compete with each other. If a woman sees a man and finds him attractive, they will also want the man to find them attractive in return. Most women wait for the man to make the first move, and women believe that if a man sees two women sitting next to each other who are both attractive, the man will choose the woman who dresses more appealingly.
Women are correct about this. Men are visually hardwired, and most will gravitate towards the better dressed woman wearing stylish clothing and attractive shoes, than an equally attractive woman wearing faded, loose-cut jeans and a man’s t-shirt.
Are Men Visually Hardwired?
Many studies have shown that men are hardwired towards the visual than women are. This may have something to do with our ancient ancestors living in hunting and gathering communities. Men would go out on the hunt for food while women would gather fruits and berries and cultivate vegetable gardens for nourishment other than meat. Out in the jungle or on the savannah, men would watch and wait to detect the movement of their meat supply. They relied on their vision mostly, and their hearing too, but to a lesser extent.
Hunting for food, hunting for a mate. A colorful, appealing mate who comes into a man’s line of sight may draw the man to them more easily than another female whole does not stick out from the scenery.
What Do Women Look For in a Man’s Choice of Clothing?
The difference in purchasing behavior between men and women does not let men off the hook, though. Woman tend to evaluate their choice for a mate on how men focus on their own appearance. When women were asked where they look first when they see an attractive man, the majority of them answered that they looked at a man’s shoes first.
But it is more than shoes. Women focus on how much attention men have on their personal grooming. More than hair, women look at fingernails, then beyond grooming women determine if a man is fashion-conscious and color conscious, such as wearing blue jeans or slacks with a shirt color that matches the jeans as well as their skin tone. Women are attracted to men who have a good fashion sense.