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Last week, Cathy Horyn -- who is easily my favorite fashion writer ever -- wrote a piece for the New York Times titled "You're Choosy. So Are We." Horyn went shopping with three New York City stylists, with the goal of finding looks for women over 40. Hooray! it's about time someone shopped for those of us who can actually afford the shopping!
Oh, except we can't, not the way these stylists are shopping.
I like Cathy Horyn because she's down-to-earth and realistic, at least as far as fashion writers go. She is able to translate what appears on the runway into looks that actual people might wear to actual dinner parties, for example. But she's still a fashion writer, which means that she's interested in fashion rather than style. And she's certainly not constrained by any sort of budget, which is both a good thing and a bad thing.
The problem with marrying fashion and budgeting is that eventually, you run out of money, or options, or both, because you only have this one pile of money to spend. It's much more fun to imagine what you would buy if money were no object, if the only important thing in the exercise were to create pragmatic, fashionable outfits suitable for women of a Certain Age. Horyn does an outstanding job of the latter, but for most of us -- women of a Certain Age and also a Certain Income, one that has to stretch to pay tuition and student loans, rent or a mortgage, car insurance and health insurance, and maybe, if we're really lucky, dinner out every so often -- for most of us, this kind of budgetless shopping is out of our reach.
Horyn and her stylists managed to find pieces that really would work for day and night, and that were sophisticated and chic. What they were not was budget-friendly, at least not in the way most of us, in Middle America (or even the coasts) think about budgeting. "It was easy to put together age-friendly looks that were reasonably kind to the purse. In fact, except for one or two pieces, most of the things we found were under $1,500, and some, like a cute Wayne silk dress, were less than $500. We paired that dress with a Row blazer, which Leslie liked for its modern proportions. One of our favorite looks was a long Balenciaga shirtdress ($1,195) in navy silk crepe. You could wear it during the day with sandals, or dress it up with chains at night."
I'm all about the dress that can go from day to night, but I cannot imagine spending over a thousand dollars on one dress. And I suspect I'm not the only one.
I surveyed readers at my personal blog, and they agreed. Kristie said, "The idea of spending $1400 on a dress is so out of the realm of what I would ever do that I can’t even imagine it …." STL Mom agrees: "I don’t mind that some people spend $1000 on an item, but like you I am annoyed that they call it 'investment dressing.' Admit that you are rich and call it what it is: 'conspicuous consumption.'" And that's the rub, I think: There's nothing wrong with a $1,400 dress, or a pair of $500 sneakers -- each of us should buy what we can afford, and if you can afford those things, then more power to you. What is frustrating is that fashion writers pass essays like this off as Actual Solutions for What to Wear if You are 40/Returning to Work/Just Trying to Get Dressed Because it's Tuesday and You Need to Put Clothes On.
You know what I mean.
So what are we splurging on? It depends. Maggie said, "Normally a 'splurge' to me would be a $150 pair of designer jeans. But my most recent splurge? TWO NEW TIRES FOR THE LOW LOW PRICE OF $250. I know." Missy splurges on good food: "I splurge on groceries. Seriously, this is my weakness - lots of good food. I will wear that $4 clearance-rack-at-Target tank top for 2 years just so I can buy really good gorgonzola." And when you are buying clothes, you're splurging on practical pieces, things you can wear all the time. Rebecca says, "I did just splurge on a pair of black Joe’s cigarette jeans. I work in a casual office, so jeans in all
