You wake up every morning, roll out of bed and rummage through your closet until you pick out an outfit and accessories you’re satisfied with. But while you may not be aware of it, a simple outfit to school might still mean you are wearing hundreds of dollars. Whether you’re dressing to impress or just throwing on some sweatpants to stay comfortable, students at VHS don’t realize how much money they are actually walking around in.
Recent interviews showed that the average amount of money students are wearing on any given school day ranges from 200 on the low end, up to the thousands. In rare cases, an accesive amount of expensive jewelry raises the price. While a few students are wearing chains and jewelry passed down from ancestors or gifts from family, the cost still adds up.
After scavenging the halls for students to ask them to add the price of each item of clothing they were wearing, some students were shocked after realizing how much they actually had on.
“I was actually really surprised because you really don’t know how much you’re wearing until you total everything up,” says Senior Laura Hart.
Senior Joe Cordasco and Junior Emily Keane are two specific people who took the time to give the exact price of each item they were wearing, including accessories and electronics, and they almost didn’t believe the total.
Featuring a shirt priced at $50, jeans at $25, shoes at $100, electronics at $200 and other items not even listed, Joe Cordasco’s total added up to the hundreds before he even counted things like socks. Emily’s total was even higher. She was wearing a shirt costing $15, a sweater for $30, leggings for $10, boots for $150, and jewelry adding up to $70. In the case of most females, they are also wearing a number of makeup products as well.
Even those students who favor a casual look of sweatpants or hoodies had to admit that they too had spent thirty or forty on each of those and maybe had some ninety dollar sneakers on. And rare is the VHS student who is not carrying that always-present accessory, the cellphone, representing another few hundred dollars.
Barely anyone wakes up in the morning even thinking about money when they put on their outfit, but whether it was your own income buying this, your parents income, or it was given to you as a gift, a lot of money went into getting you dressed.
Rarely do VHS students think of themselves as wealthy, and even as you read this you are probably thinking – no way I have hundreds of dollars on right now. Well, when you have a little down time, take a moment to add up the cost of everything you’re wearing. You may even surprise yourself.