IF YOU thought that you may waste the good part of a year waiting for your mother, sister, girlfriend or wife to get dressed, well, you may be right.

A survey in Britain concludes that women there take up nearly a year of their lives deciding what to wear.

The study, conducted by clothes giant Matalan, was based on a poll of 2,491 women, reported the Daily
 elegraph. It measured the average adult lifetime as between 16 and60 years old.

Choosing outfits for work, nights out, parties, holidays, gym and other activities means the average woman will spend 287 days rifling through her wardrobe.

The biggest chunk of that time is spent picking a killer ensemble for Friday or Saturday nights out and selecting the right clothes for a holiday.

The researchers found that on average, women spend 16 minutes every weekday morning choosing an outfit and 14 minutes on a Saturday or Sunday morning.

Matalan spokesman Sarah Gilmoresaid: “Whatever the occasion, your clothes portray an image and we understand this is fundamentally important to women.”

Most women spend around 20 minutes deciding what to wear on a weekend night, the same as for a weekday evening out.

Deciding on what clothes to pack for a holiday uses up to 52 minutes each time. While on holiday, 10 minutes will be taken up each morning trying to find an acceptable outfit, with another 10 minutes spent on picking evening clothes.

On top of that, dinner parties, Christmas parties and black-tie events – at 36 minutes each time, six times a year – add up to 31/2 days.

And women will try on two outfits each morning before coming to a final decision.

And the time spent discussing clothes with other women?

That clocks in at 64 hours a year.

This article was first published in The New Paper