Suits making a comeback – but it’ll set you back R642 to have one dry-cleaned in Oslo

George Clooney almost never puts a foot wrong on the red carpet when he is dressed in one of his tailored suits. Had the Hollywood actor and activist dry-cleaned one of his suits in Oslo‚ it would have set him back almost R642.

In Cape Town he would have had to fork out about R179 and if he were to count his pennies Jakarta would be the most affordable - just R27.14.

This week dry cleaning company Zipjet released the 2018 Dry-cleaning Index which ranked 100 cities around the world according to the average price of cleaning 2 and 3-piece suits.

While Oslo in Norway is the most expensive place to clean one's suit‚ Cape Town was ranked 40th.

This comes as suits‚ according to Craig Jacobs - designer for clothing label Fundudzi - have been "making a resurgence".

"I would say the average well-dressed South African man owns at least one suit. After all‚ no self-respecting man would get married in anything less than a suit‚" said Jacobs.

In South Africa suits can set one back thousands of rand but it does not cost an arm and a leg to have it professionally cleaned.

“For traditionally business-oriented cities‚ such as Oslo‚ Helsinki and Zurich‚ our study shows that citizens are paying between 13-30% more to dry-clean their suits than the rest of the world. Although you could consider this a ‘suit tax’‚ our data also shows that as salaries are higher in these nations‚ it would only take around 1 - 3 hours of working at minimum wage to afford such a service in these cities.” said Zipjet founder and managing director Florian Färber.

“We hope therefore that this index might serve as a useful tool for young professionals searching for a lucrative yet affordable new city to call home. Geneva and Copenhagen‚ for instance‚ are great examples of how the index acts as a useful indicator of overall affordability‚ as the data illustrates that despite high dry-cleaning costs‚ the cities also offer higher wages.”

The index further revealed how much each country spends on dry-cleaning. Russians pay over US $ 3.2-billion annually. The US is not far behind at over US $3-billion. And in South Africa we fork out more than US $ 389-million.