Clothing and homeware retailer, Chums, conducted a survey that spanned 10 major UK cities, with a mission to learn a bit more about the spending habits of consumers on clothing in particular. The survey explored just how much both men and women were willing to spend on attire ranging from t-shirts through trainers, work shoes, jumpers, jeans and underwear, all the way to bags and jewellery.

All sorts of interesting revelations came to light, such as the fact that women are naturally collectively willing to spend more on pretty much all items of clothing than men, while the men seem to match the ladies in some areas, one of which is that of work shoes. This brings into focus the general approach to fashion when it comes to the lads in comparison to the ladies, which basically focuses more on functionality over how the attire looks.

Generally speaking, in any area where you have the lads matching the ladies in terms of how much they’re willing to spend, it’s because they’re looking more for the durability to go with the functionality of the attire as opposed to focussing solely on how it looks, as is often the case with women. Also, men are more willing to repeat clothes or shoes, whereas women would probably jump at the opportunity to only wear each item once if they had the celebrity-sized budget to do so.

The clothing retailers are fully aware of these general trends, which is why men would for instance jump at the chance to walk away with something like a two-for-the-price-of-one deal on a pair of shoes which they’d effectively have two identical pairs of! It’s more about comfort, durability and functionality with men. How the attire actually looks is usually just an afterthought, although it’s not completely neglected. They do want to look decent enough.