On Finances and Aspirational Shopping

 

My friends and I sometimes chat about wealth in the context of our classmates at graduate school. I'll be the first to confess that I think about these things a lot more than is entirely polite or sensible: what people are wearing, what people are buying, and what I might like to buy in order to "keep up" (usually in terms of things I might wear to work). The costs of tuition and costs of living in NYC are both substantial. It is probably natural enough that I am insatiably curious about how people can afford certain things such as living in a more desirable neighborhood far away from student housing, an Equinox membership supplemented by a generous dose of SoulCyle classes, a Celine bag here, a pair of Charlotte Olympia shoes there, and a few Theory dresses just because it was a bad day (each of these things refers to a different person). It is probably not at all classy of me to wonder about these things, but I confess that I can't help it. 

Sometimes that thinking and speculation might start to look like judgement and, implicitly, a desire to shame or take the moral high ground. I would never, by the way, actually claim the moral high ground on anything consumption related. I took one long European vacation as a student, knowing full well that I live largely on loans. It wasn't wise. I own at least a few expensive items while my loans render my net worth solidly in the red to the tune of... well I won't get into specifics. What I can say is, it will be at least a half decade before I can conceivably finish paying off my student loans. That is a very ambitious timeline.

So I don't ever mean to imply my own moral superiority when it comes to these questions. I look closely at my budget daily and look even closer before making major spending decisions, some of which are still less wise than others. I am comfortable with the decisions I make for myself. I know that I cannot fully know and don't have the right to know about anyone else's finances.

 

Relatedly, I am also not immune to the desire to consume in order to aspire to be someone else, to fake it 'til I make it. My own experiences with heart-stopping, "what did I just do" expenditures were not at the Rick Owens leather jacket price point. Sometimes, even a Longchamp tote (purchased at a much cheaper price than the American MSRP in London while the GBP was weak that semester I studied abroad, I'll have you know) can embody something much like the "distillation of everything [one has] ever found seductive about not only living in [insert setting of choice here] but the prospect of belonging there, too." Sometimes a too expensive for you normally item can make you "feel thinner, taller, and infinitely more interesting." That's certainly what the marketers want.

It isn't a good thing to give in to that advertising and image-driven impulse, that much is obvious. What I mean to say, though, is that I understand it all too well, even if my price point and the items I long for are different. Some people I've talked to about this beg to differ, but even if my dream item is something like a Theory sheath dress or suit, that desire to shop to become a newer, better version of yourself still comes from the same place.

Can any of you relate to that article I linked about the Rick Owens leather jacket? Do any of you sometimes find yourselves curious about classmates' shopping? Maybe I am alone in overthinking these things. I do admit that it all comes from a place of relative financial privilege...

All photos via Pinterest.