Thinking About: The Cost of Things
I buy a Sunday paper on a semi-regular basis. A good part of the reason I do so is for the more in-depth analysis of world events you don’t get on most TV news programmes. Part of the rest is to see what’s going on in the world and finally to laugh at the stupid prices people (apparently) pay for pretty mundane objects.
Mostly the adverts are aimed at women – with handbags and shoes predominating. Frankly, if I was a woman I’d be insulted at the crap I’m supposed to spend my hard earned money on. Would I spend £325 on a pair of sunglasses even if they are by Prada? No, I wouldn’t. Apart from the fact that they are frankly ugly I just couldn’t bring myself to spend that kind of money on something that is probably no more functionally effective as something costing 10% of the price. Would I spend £150 on a (again) frankly ugly T-shirt by Levi’s even if it has a ‘vintage’ print on it? No, I wouldn’t. It’s a ridiculous price to pay for something like that, as is £120 for some beach shorts or £345 on a muddy brown beach bag. OK, I admit that a £120 pair of shorts will probably be of better quality than a £10 pair but will they be 12x better? 6x? 3x? What justifies the price tags except designer names and the willingness of some people (enough for the companies to keep selling them at these prices anyway) to pay for them? Why do people feel the need to buy over-inflated items and them display them to everyone else? Is it simply that people feel the need to show that they have enough disposable income to effectively waste it on expensive (and often hideous) items of clothing and accessories? Do they expect other people to admire their buying power or, harder to believe, their taste and therefore to look up to them and want to get to know them? Do other people actually look at someone with a Prada bag and think “There’s someone to admire. I wish I could get to know them or be them.” Really? Are we humans really that shallow? OK, stupid question…..
Oh, I am aware that, generally speaking, you get what you pay for. A case in point is my last wristwatch which I paid the princely sum of £8 for from my local supermarket. It looked OK and told the time accurately enough so why, I thought, pay a fortune for something else which would essentially be the same product? Within 3-4 months the watch strap has basically disintegrated forcing me to buy a replacement. This time I splashed out on a £14 watch of much superior quality and one which I fully expect to last several years if not longer. Conceivably if I saw a wristwatch that I loved the sight of (unlikely but let’s suppose) and which would last me the rest of my life I might pay £50 or even £100 if it was truly amazing but would I pay £200, £500 or more for something basically indistinguishable from the cheaper model because it had Gucci or Armani or Rolex stamped on it? No, I wouldn’t – no matter how much money I had in the bank.
I do wonder why I baulk at the prices of some things much more, generally, than other people I know. Part of it is probably my formative years when my family didn’t have a lot of money to waste on what might be called luxuries or fripperies. But I’ve seen that go both ways with people buying expensive items to somehow compensate for what they saw as a deprived childhood. I did a little of that when I got my first job. One of the first things I did was to buy myself a leather jacket and a denim jacket that I’d always wanted but could never really afford before then. But after that I pretty much bought what I needed, plus a bit more, and then stopped. I wore that denim jacket to death, had my Mum patch it when it started falling apart, and then never replaced it. I’d got what I wanted. I couldn’t really be that enthusiastic over buying another one. I do, inevitably, appear to be the odd-one-out here. I didn’t feel a huge urge at any point to buy the latest this or the designer that long before I stopped watching adverts. These days such things either leave me bemused or crying with laughter or open-mouthed in astonishment at what some companies try to (and often succeed in) get us to buy.
Of course if more people like me existed (heaven forbid) then global capitalism would come crashing down around our ears. After all the entire world’s economy is built on people like you and me buying things we don’t need, with money we don’t have, to impress people we don’t even like. But that’s just not me. Probably because I don’t even try to impress people I do like! Without that driving force there seems little to motivate me to get my wallet out and hand over my credit card. Maybe I have developed an immunity to advertising? Knowing that most adverts are designed to make the viewer’s feel inadequate in some way helps – especially when you often find their crude attempted manipulation hilariously funny. In the meantime I’ll keep my money in my bank and buy things when I want to or when things break rather than when an advertising executive or a designer thinks I should.
6 comments:
It is BEYOND me how people can spend $100 or more on a pair of sunglasses considering how little benefit is derived from them, and how easy they are to lose or break. I can understand $300 shoes -- they're put together well and can be repaired, instead of falling apart like a $20 pair. Even so, it'll be a looong time before I pay $300 for a pair of Allen Edmonds!
Something that's emerged from my reading -- I can't recall if it was "No Logo" or "Born to Buy" -- is that high prices have their own value by becoming a status symbol. If Nike sneakers weren't overpriced, no one would be interested in them.
Like you, I was a cynic at an early age -- I used to contend that my elementary school classmates would buy a rock for $100 if there was a Nike swoosh emblazoned on it.
Of course the question arises as to why so many people feel the need to wear status symbols.... Is it part of our nature or are we molded to be that way. Is it us or are we being manipulated (more than usual that is....).
I also grew up poor and wore the same hand-me-downs for years because my mother thought it was cute to dress my three older sisters alike. Think about having to wear the same dress in different sizes for years. Embarrassing. I feel bad when I look at catalogs that come in the mail because I know I can't afford to buy anything in them. I wonder who can. Nobody I know shops for their whole wardrobe from stores. Most people I know are like me. We buy from second-hand shops, we buy off season at reduced prices, we buy rejects from the manufacturers. I've often told M if we ever win a lottery, I'm going shopping, just once in my life, and buying everything new, just to satisfy that urge. Now all that said, I do wear nice clothes, I just have to really shop hard to find things at a reduced cost. I do the same for jewelry. The only thing I do always buy new and of high quality are shoes. I have bad feet from too many years racing around in very high heels and too many years in flat shoes with no support. As a result I have no arches which causes horrible heal pains and I have bone issues in my toes from the high heals. You don't get very far or do too much if your feet and back hurt. So I shop around and try to buy shoes off season and find coupons, but I will spend hundreds of dollars on shoes.
I walk a lot - both in my day job and because I don't own a car - so decent shoes are important to me.
A while back I was in a closing down sale where they had fairly good walking shoes (as opposed to dress shoes) at 75% off. I bought 3 pairs. The reason I bought 3 is because they only had 3 in my size. If they'd had 10 I would've bought 10. People generally laugh at me for this kind of thing.....
I do the same thing. I recently bought 2 pair of the same flats, same color too. In general I can't wear most flats because of my fallen arches, and it's hard to put arch inserts in them that won't fly out while walking. I found this orange pair of flats, that were comfortable, and would take my inserts. They also match a blazer I own. So I went back and bought another pair for when the first pair wear out. I have no problem buying multiples of the same thing if it works for me.
Oh, and I decided I liked them so much, I went back and bought another pair in a different color. :-)
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