Aspirational Luxury
…. Why do we have the need to fall for this?
Iwas recently lucky enough to enjoy a 2 week trip to Europe, part of which was to visit my mother-in-law in England, and part of which was to traipse around after my husband who had some business meetings (Belfast and Copenhagen — with a day off for a side trip into Sweden). As it was part business trip for him which defrayed the cost (in our minds!), we got to fly business class, stay in nice hotels on the Continent and hire a Jaguar F-Pace.
Lucky me, hey? I loved it. But please don’t think I am bragging here, because if you read on you will see how my shallowness was brought back to me with a bump by something that seems so small and inconsequential, but which made me realise that so much of what we do and buy and strive for is just for “show”.
So, what happened?
My 16yo daughter is a makeup junkie — always watching tutorials on YouTube, buying the latest fad products and she has enough makeup brushes to last 10 women the rest of their lives (I have had the same 3 brushes for years…I do wash them though!). I am always happy to have her cast offs (otherwise she would literally just throw them in the bin) and this morning as I was putting on some makeup I was thinking how a bronzer she gave me created a really lovely colour and sheen on my cheekbones and eyelids. “Hmmm”, I thought, “I wonder what fancy brand this is?”. I turned it over, and wouldn’t you know it: Kmart. There I was thinking it would be Nars or Bobbi Brown or a brand that I wasn’t even cool enough to have heard of. Kmart! I just googled it — it costs $5 Australian Dollars ($3.45 USD).
I suddenly had this epiphany about how I have been completely taken in I have been by brand names, by luxury, and by pointless aspiration. And I am not even an Instagram follower being bombarded daily with carefully curated amazingness.
That $5 bronzer is probably made with the same ingredients and in the same factory as an international, luxury brand. Sure, the packaging is not that flash (the lid has snapped off and so I am holding it together with a hair elastic), but the bronzer does the job and pretty nicely too.
And this takes me back to my recent trip … when I was swanning about international airports recently, I just loved — LOVED — seeing all the designer shops — Gucci, Chanel, Tiffany, Hermes — wandering in nonchalantly like I actually might buy something (I wouldn’t). I loved being in the British Airways lounge sipping champagne. I loved skipping to the head of the boarding queue with my business class boarding pass privilege, loved having space, attentive service and a flat bed on the plane, and champagne on take-off.
What a shallow bitch — loving not being one of the masses stuck back down in economy for the 20+ hours it takes to get from Western Australia to London. I realised with shame that at the time, I actually felt better than those people, I felt sorry for them when all along it was simply good fortune that put me in the position I was in.
So, what is it that draws us into this false world of glamour and entitlement and — let’s face it — imagined superiority? I actually think it is low self-esteem. I don’t really feel better than other people on an everyday basis. Quite often I don’t even like myself very much and don’t feel like I fit in anywhere, so maybe enjoying those privileges, as fleeting as they lasted, made me feel that I am apart from everyone else and so it doesn’t matter if I don’t fit in with any tribe — I am my own tribe and one that people envy. Pretty sad and embarrassing, hey?
In a similar vein, I have to ‘fess up to owning several very good quality designer handbag knock-offs bought in Asia. If you know where to go, you can find the real deal. There is no way these didn’t come out of the Louis Vuitton/Gucci/Coach factory in China. I even took my fake LV wallet into a store and compared it to a real one and there was no difference. At. All. Down to the tiniest detail — the lining, the zip toggle, the works. You can buy cheap copies in Asian markets, but these are vinyl with dodgy zips and stitching, but the good ones — they gotta be real! At Bali airport, there used to be a sign stating that it was illegal to import fake designer goods into France, but it is not there anymore, I’m thinking because the Indonesian Government doesn’t want to admit it is a problem. And they are cracking down on it, the stores are fewer and far between.
But why do I feel I need these flashy symbols of brand luxury? To show off to my friends (I usually admit the truth to them anyway). To show off to strangers? What is the point of that?
So this morning’s breakthrough was humbling but also very timely for me. I have recently become interested in Shamanic meditations and beliefs — focusing on your core self, your core light, and not being distracted or affected by the nonsense of the world around you other than to do good and be yourself and so what a bleeping hypocrite am I to tote around a bloody fake bag pretending I am some sort of suburban princess. I mean, at the end of the day its all just “stuff”. Clogging up our wardrobes, clogging up our lives and clogging up the planet. All that consumerism when deep down it is people, experiences and relationships that really bring us true joy. Look at little kids playing, or a dog romping on the beach, or a group of good friends seated around a table sharing a simple meal. No one is caring who is wearing what or wondering whether their bronzer cost $5 or $50. At least they shouldn’t be.
Maybe it is time to do a Marie Kondo on my stuff and my personal self and remember next time I start to feel a bit smug about my privilege that it is all pretty ephemeral and undeserved. That the people who are worth your time and effort don’t really care about those things — they care about you, the person and so as hard as it is to find that person sometimes, we should all just really strive to be our authentic selves.
Aspirational Luxury
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