"In order to stand well in the eyes of the community, it is necessary to come up with a certain, somewhat indefinite, conventional standard of wealth; just as in the earlier predatory stage it is necessary for the barbarian man to come up with the tribe's standard of physical endurance, cunning, and skill at arms.”
The impracticality of this recent purchase (the skirt) is kind of sad really, because as much as I love it I know it's not really going to be a staple wardrobe piece- I mean look at it- it's ridiculous. This one goes in the category of the cowboy jacket- but I love it so much I NEEDED it.
I really love that quote by Thorstein Veblen above because while he's not talking directly about clothes, its so much a part of the way we think about ownership- for me what I own most of is clothes. This notion that we have to "appear" to have an indefinite disposable amount of wealth is pure trickery of clothes. Today it's easy to own a lot of clothes because they're cheap, made by machines, and there doesn't have to be anything particularly special about it for us to own it. This abundance of clothes is the trickery of looking like you have money to spare and more importantly time to kill.
The leisure lifestyle that Veblen writes about is far from attainable to most people, but most people can alternate what they wear everyday, they don't look like their in a uniform because of work or social necessity, they can look like they can be as ridiculous as they want. Does wearing a skirt like this make me look like I have an endless amount of wealth the way that barbarians collected skill? No. But it does make me feel rich (because I'm obviously not doing any real work in this look) and awesome (because there's nothing better than vintage Lanvin bought on sale) and that's what it's all about and why I bought it.
