Fashion: The Biggest Scam

The idle rich are not really idle, you know. Rich women must spend hours each season discarding bangle bracelets, fat heels, long skirts, and last year's colors and select all new sets of chokers, mules, short skirts, and the "new black" of the moment. It must be exhausting.

Now Mother Nature abhors a vacuum, so we might think of these hours at fashion shows and upscale stores (not to mention the considerable effort involved in turning the big pages of Vogue) as these women's vocations; they truly feel "called." Or perhaps these women are economists; they understand the critical nature of perceived obsolescence to the recovery of our failing consumer economy. They're patriots.

And, let's face it, the laundry isn't piling up in the garage, and they don't need milk and peanut butter for tomorrow's lunches.

But it's a little more difficult to understand those women who spend their precious time and limited money keeping up with fashion by ordering from Lands' End and walking the aisles of J.C. Penney at the mall. It's not as if the other moms at the PTA meeting will be judging you because you're wearing slim-legged pants in a boot-cut year, is it?

Most of us non-rich women have closets full of empire waists, twin sets, pleated skirts, and chunky heels that just won't do anymore. We have patterned hose (what on Earth were we thinking?) and tankinis stuffed in drawers and swing coats and funky little hats that never kept our ears warm in the extra closet downstairs. And next year, or maybe the year after, these must-have items will make a trip to Goodwill or Salvation Army and then into someone else's closet. It's part of our modern eco-system.

How did we reach this ridiculous point? First, I think we're hoping to buy the more than the garment. We're hoping to buy the look. That little dress looks so good on the size 0 manikin at Talbot's that I'm willing to pull out the charge card I should have left at home. When I get the size 10 home, though, it only looks fabulous on the hanger. So I think I will just leave it there. And what if I do wear it? After a couple of wears, I begin to worry that that $150 dress will be recognized by my colleagues or my students (they spend considerable time scrutinizing my apparel, I'm sure), so it's off-limits for a while. I hang it back and forget about it untilhorrorsthat straight skirt is just so last year.

I took a vow last month. I'm not going to buy any new clothes for a year. Already the fall catalogs have arrived, and there are all these fabulous clothes that are so-sowell, new. Surely research has shown that the new spike heels are better for my feet and back? Maybe the new swing jackets will lower my blood pressure? Possibly wearing that new shade of rose is the fashion equivalent of taking antioxidants. I know I'm risking my health by wearing my three-year-old shoes and the straight-legged pants I never gave up, but sometimes you have to just jump in there and risk it all.

Learn more about this author, Terri Combs-Orme Ph.D..
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