Depends on your graphic setup.
You talk about Sprites, so I assume you choose 2D, and RPG, which normally implies an isometric viewpoint.
You just choose the hardest possible combination for creating visible clothing, sorry.... yes, you will have to create additional sprites for every animation phase of your characters in all possible facings, per clothing availalable. That is a LOT of additional overhead, and that is why usually, the isometric RPGs of old had no visible items on the characters.
Now, if you create a sidescroller, at least you can scratch off the facings as additional factor as you uasually have a single facing and mirror it for the other direction. For a sidescroller you might also get away with a bone-based animation system, which means you do not need to draw single animation phases, you can just attach the clothing to your bones (of course you might need to massage it here and there to look right).
Generally, if you are looking for an isometric viewpoint and want to go this much into detail, you should really consider going fully 3D. Lots of animation woes are less severe in 3D. Yes, 3D animations have something of an overhead, as you first need to rig your character and prepare all your objects for animation. But then you can just animate away, whithout redrawing your objects for every animation frame.
Of course this is assuming you do not go totally nuts on the details of your 3D objects and animations.