Independent buying guides
For shoppers who want the fit, fabric and cost per wear settled before checkout rather than after. Each guide takes one buying question, shows the arithmetic behind every number, and dates the sources it quotes.
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
Measurements, sizing systems and how to check before ordering.
What things are made of, and how long that lasts.
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: N509FZ · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Measurements, sizing systems and how to check before ordering.
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Photo: Retired electrician · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
What things are made of, and how long that lasts.
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Photo: Retired electrician · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Retired electrician · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Keeping it usable for years instead of months.
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Photo: Peter Griffin · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
What changes with the weather and the shopping calendar.
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Photo: Steffen Mokosch · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Four checks you can make in two minutes: the fibre label, the seams, the sole construction and fabric recovery. They predict year two better than price does.
Photo: Peter Griffin · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Price divided by wears, with repair and import duty included. A $240 coat worn 90 times beats an $80 coat worn 20, and the arithmetic is shown in full.
Photo: N509FZ · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Fit and sizing
No federal clothing or shoe size standard exists in the US. Measure your body and your foot, compare against the maker's own chart, and stop buying a number.
Photo: N509FZ · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
This site earns money from advertising and, where disclosed, from affiliate links. That does not change the order of a comparison or the conclusion of a guide.
Some links on this site can earn us a commission. That does not change which product a guide recommends, and it adds nothing to your price. Advertising is not enabled on this site yet. When it is, ads will be labelled and kept visually separate from the guides.
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
Price divided by the number of wears you realistically expect, with cleaning and repair added.
cost per wear = (price + cleaning cost per year x years + repairs) / (wears per month x 12 x years)
Compares your own measurement against a product's stated measurement and shows the gap.
difference = product measurement - your measurement; ease = difference / your measurement x 100
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate