You can have it - you just can't flaunt it
"If you've got it, for God's sake don't flaunt it," as one retailer says.
Tuesday December 23 2008
Previously, the act of acquiring was touchingly simple. You earned, you spent. Sometimes you didn't earn and you still spent. Either way you were generally relaxed about broadcasting the act of acquisition, usually via a complex festoon of carrier bags and logos.
After all, you were merely indulging in an activity in which everyone else was busily indulging. Conspicuous consumption, whether it was frittering €1,000 on an 'IT' bag or €2,000 on a bottle of Chateau folie de grandeur was a national act of faith. It defined our work ethic. It was the spirit of the age.
And now, quite simply, it is not. Indeed, unless you are a teenager or phenomenally lacking in social awareness, you will have twigged that Conspicuous Consumption, by which I mean the act of acquiring stuff you don't need, is not really where it's at right now.
Since the fall of Lehman Brothers and the Madoff scam, it is uncool.
But it turns out that the hunter gatherer impulse is not easily suppressed.
From fine wines (or at least anything that costs more than €20 a bottle) or classic jewellery that may or may not have been in the family for generations, to suspender belts and stockings, sales of certain products are proving remarkably robust.
Extraordinarily so, in the case of stockings and suspenders, sales of which at one department have increased by 88pc on this time last year -- a good example of how to have fun privately at home.
In all these cases, discretion is a key factor.
For the Conspicuous Consumer, mastering the art of Furtive Shopping involves monumental amounts of internet purchasing.
The savvier retailers have been quick to cotton on. Netaporter.com has introduced a discreet brown parcel service, as an alternative option to the lavish wrapping that was one of its hallmarks when it launched eight years ago.
In New York, Hermes offers customers the choice of a white paper bag so that they don't have to brave Madison Avenue with the orange and brown stigmata of their traditional carrier.
Ingenuity is what it takes to consume these days, along, on occasion, with a willingness to self-deceive.
The Self-Deceiving Shopper (aka the Investment Shopper) is the one keeping luxury brands (just about) afloat.
The Self-Deceiver is why sales of Azzedine Alaia dresses (at up to €2,000 each) are selling well in Harvey Nichols.
"The bonus with something like Alaia," says Joanna Jeffreys, group press manager at Harvey Nichols, "is that he invariably designs in black and hasn't changed much since the 1980s, so customers can pretend that they've had it for years."
The Investment Shopper is terribly sensible. That's why she's forsaken satin Louboutins for patent ones, which go from day to night and wipe down in event of disaster.
It was probably an Investment Shopper who splurged €5m -- way more than the €750,000 estimate -- at Sotheby's in Paris last week on a gorgeous Seurat painting.
In times of uncertainty, oldies are goldies, especially when you can pass them off as something that's been in the family, ideally since 1066 but at least since 1996.
Just ask the artisans still toiling to keep up with demand for Hermes Kelly bags, or the men and women buying up duffel coats and trenches at Burberry, where according to a spokesperson, "sales of outerwear are still doing well".
But they must be discreet investments otherwise, like the Aston Martin, they will languish.
Those with private jets are notably warier about when they use them, especially after the heads of General Motors and Ford were lambasted for PJing it to Capitol Hill last month to ask for a cash hand-out. Foolish boys. Their fleets have now been sold.
Even those not in debt are slumming it in first-class -- one head of an Italian fashion label recently invested in a second plane to fly to China, but is too chastened by public opinion to fly it.
"If you've got it, for God's sake don't flaunt it," as one retailer says.
Or buy it in crocodile and pretend that your granny gave it to you.
Once an activity goes underground, it becomes splintered. So it is with shopping. Where once there was broadly one breed -- the 'I Exist Therefore I Shop' shopper -- now there are many.
Alongside the Self-Deceiver lurks the Invisible Spender; she (or he) who has ceased spending on consumer durables, but is determined that the show (ie, them) must go on. And crucially, a new haircut seems less flashy than a new outfit, particularly if it's a trim or a slight (but majorly confidence-boosting) update.
Those who can't afford the salon treatment are doing it for themselves -- sales of DIY hair-colour kits at Tesco have shot up by 200pc in the past month.
The Comfort Shopper finds retail therapy in buying for the home, or for the table. Sales of sofas have risen year-on-year at Marks & Spencer, while foods that can be passed off as unassuming or authentic are going down a treat.
"People are eating more at home now," says one butcher. "We really noticed an increase in sales of beef brisket and pork belly, although you still need top-quality meat to use the cheaper cuts -- and our pies are selling very well."
And that sofa, according to Victoria Hogan, who works for the very modish NY Interiors, is far more than just a sofa.
"When the problems of the world seem overwhelming, selecting a sofa is within someone's control."
And by the way, that modish, sleek mid-20th century sofa you picked out last year? So last year.
"There's a move back to softer, more romantic, old-fashioned looks," says Hogan. This is what Juliet Warkentin of WGSN, the trend forecasting group, calls Humble Luxury. There'll be a lot more of it around.
Those who never got round to buying the mid-20th century spiky version may well be Sanctimonious Shoppers.
Hard but not impossible to reach, the Sanctimonious Shopper is responding, after a certain amount of soul searching, to Products With Heart.
The Mulberry Gap bags, which dispatched half their profits to charity, sold out in hours -- all 800 of them -- a fortnight ago.
Still, there is a category of shopper for whom all concerns, other than the immediate thrill of acquisition, are irrelevant. This is the Defiant Shopper.
Defiant Shoppers are the ones still splurging on those 6in bondage shoes that even the fashion glossies have stopped calling a Must-Have, and the ones who have splashed out on a 69in HD TV to watch the finals of Strictly Come Dancing -- for no other reason than the joy of spending their hard-earned cash.
They'll be the ones at Sandy Lane in Barbados or Mustique, where every room this Christmas is taken because as one visitor put it, "it's just such a relief to be with like-minded people and not have to worry about being seen to enjoy yourself or spend money".
