Women have 22 items of clothing that they'll never wear... still with tags on.

In every woman's closet, 22 items she never wears

By SEAN POULTER
Last updated at 1:45 AM on 26th January 2011

Their wardrobes are bulging with dresses, tops, trousers and skirts.

And with so much to choose from, it’s hardly surprising that most women don’t actually get around to wearing everything they own.

In fact, the average woman has about 22 garments in her wardrobe that she will never wear but absolutely refuses to throw out, a survey shows.

Guilty complex: British women waste £1.6 billion on clothes they never wear - but the idea of wasting money stops them from clearing wardrobes out

Added up across the country, women spend more than £1.6billion on more than 500 million items of clothing they will never wear. Placed on a clothes rail, the great unworn would stretch 15,534 miles.

That is equivalent to four and a half times the distance between London and New York.

Millions of purchases that were a good idea in the shop – perhaps they were a bargain or a design worn by a celebrity – have turned out to be a waste, it seems.

Some may have been vanity purchases; little designer numbers selected as a reward for losing weight.

Rash buys are the main reason for the unworn clothing pile-up, according to 45 per cent of those questioned.

And despite these items taking up as much as 5 per cent of storage space, just one in eight women regularly clears out their wardrobes.

As many as one in nine say they would not dream of culling their wardrobe more than once every three years, while one in 50 delays the dreaded day for at least ten years.

UK SHOPPERS 'MOST SWITCHED ON'

British shoppers are the internet kings and queens of Europe, it seems.

They spend more and buy a greater number of online items than any other nations, research shows.

UK online retail soared by 16 per cent last year to a record £44billion, easily the highest of the 11 countries surveyed.

It means that each British shopper spent a total average of £1,284 on 41 items, compared with a European average of £908 on 25. This may be because more people has fast broadband access at home and work, researchers suggest.

Extreme weather conditions could also encourage them to stay at home to shop.

UK shoppers also saved £18billion finding online bargains.

The trio of Britain, Germany and France make up 71 per cent of European retail sales, price comparison site Kelkoo found.

The total amount spent across the continent was £145.63billion.

Jeans are the most common item of unworn clothes, with 88 per cent saying they own at least one pair that they would never be seen out in.

One in five hoard up to six pairs of shoes that will never be worn. And almost everyone owns at least one top they ‘would not be seen dead in’.

More than half of women say that guilt over wasting money keeps them from throwing out unwanted clothes.

And 41 per cent insist they are planning to lose weight before getting some use out of their unworn outfits. Some 17 per cent are hoarding particular styles in the hope of a fashion revival.

Women from London are the nation’s top hoarders, with an average of more than £300 worth of clothes lying unworn in their wardrobes.

The Scots ranked second in terms of money wasted on items that never leave the wardrobe.

But before they start pointing the finger, men are not much better, it seems. They have 19 items of unworn clothing lurking in their wardrobes.

Impulse buys are just as apparent in their shopping baskets, with more than a third admitting their unworn items are largely sales items.

Sue Leeson, a spokesman for shopping channel QVC – which carried out the survey – said: ‘Hoarding clothes is a form of nostalgia – but it’s impractical.

‘Whilst sale shopping can be the downfall of many bank balances in January ... our informed shopping approach means you buy the right item in the first place.

‘Having a regular clear-out allows you to reassess your wardrobe and make sure that new purchases are thought out and calculated.

‘Finding out what you have already means that you can become a smart shopper and focus your wardrobe, buying key pieces that coordinate with each other properly.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1350447/Women-waste-1-6bn-clothes-Guilt-prevents-wardrobe-clear-out.html#ixzz1C7Gx6Zj0