If you wear designer items what is your HHI and/or net worth?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of wearing designer items is about striving to appear wealthier than one is or it's about keeping up with the Joneses in order to maintain social status. These are natural impulses but it's good to step back and examine them and see if they're serving us. If we're having actual anxiety about whether we can pull off an item then maybe that's more about self-esteem.

Our HHI is $800k and I can barely convince myself to buy a shirt from Athleta. I just don't care about brands for their own sake and I'd rather get 5 items for $200 instead of 2. I've been very conscious to keep my sense of what is good enough for me to where it was in my 20s so that I don't just keep increasing our spending to match our income. So I'm still happy to drive a $30k car . . . I just got the highest trim package so I could have heated seats and a moon roof, which were splurges for me.

It's funny because the one thing I've always loved was diamonds and gemstones. As a kid I used to go to the gem store and buy uncut hunks of amethyst to admire. So diamonds are probably the one thing I would have upgraded to match my lifestyle, but in the last few years the technology for moissanite and lab diamonds has really improved, and so I can have my sparklies without spending $10k+, more like $1-2k. Yay! I understand that for some people, wearing my $250 moissanite ring from Alibaba that looks like a $20k diamond is a form of lying because society uses luxury items as status signifiers, but I'd rather hang out with people with similar values who wouldn't judge me either for loving sparkly gems or for buying cheaper look-alikes.

So you would rather support fast fashion and kill the earth?

Yeah, my concept of luxury is not having to drag 5 pieces of junk into my home.

[Anonymous]

Few pairs of Loubs, 650k

[Anonymous]

I'd gamble that the women who are inclined to by designer stuff are either in the $80k-$200k range or are sahms with husbands with high incomes.

Women with good jobs ($200k+++) work pretty hard and in my opinion appreciate just how hard they had to work for that money and are more likely to realize how little value they get from buying a $6000 purse. It's pretty easy to spend that money though when someone else earned it and you're not doing much during the day. That's just my anecdotal experience of knowing a lot of households with $1m+ incomes, where some of the women work and some don't.

[Anonymous]

I have designer clothes and few designer bags, I am in much lower income range than most people who posted above. BUT, I love well tailored good quality clothes. Saying that, my wardrobe is very very small and I am very selective about what I buy. I do keep some pieces for years. I even have YSL skirt that my mom purchased in Paris more than 50 years ago, I wear it a lot and every time get a lot of compliments. I have few vintage items as well. I never bought anything from H&M, Zara and alike, so overall I probably spent less on my wardrobe than most of Americans.

I agree with the pp that woman who make $200+ usually don't spend a lot of money on designer items, but I think it is for a different reason. Those women tend to work 10+ hours per day, 70-80 hours per week. When you work like that, there is no joy in your life and they hardly care what they wear. They are pretty much in survival mode all the time. To wear designer items, you have to have time in the morning to put it on and to enjoy it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is a little over $400k and I don’t own any luxury items. I don’t judge people who do (unless they go into debt to do so) it’s just not worth it to me. I like nice middle of the road brands from Nordstroms and J crew. Anthropology still feels like a splurge to me! But I’m very lazy and finding good deals or comparison shopping and have no interest in spending time finding deals. So I guess I’m just middle of the road all around.

+1 This is me, as well. I don't think I have ever owned a single luxury item. I once won an $1800 Gucci bag in a raffle, but I gave it to my SIL. I usually shop the sales at Loft, Ann Taylor, Macy's, and StitchFix. I probably overspend on eating out or Amazon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have designer clothes and few designer bags, I am in much lower income range than most people who posted above. BUT, I love well tailored good quality clothes. Saying that, my wardrobe is very very small and I am very selective about what I buy. I do keep some pieces for years. I even have YSL skirt that my mom purchased in Paris more than 50 years ago, I wear it a lot and every time get a lot of compliments. I have few vintage items as well. I never bought anything from H&M, Zara and alike, so overall I probably spent less on my wardrobe than most of Americans.

I agree with the pp that woman who make $200+ usually don't spend a lot of money on designer items, but I think it is for a different reason. Those women tend to work 10+ hours per day, 70-80 hours per week. When you work like that, there is no joy in your life and they hardly care what they wear. They are pretty much in survival mode all the time. To wear designer items, you have to have time in the morning to put it on and to enjoy it.

That's quite an assessment!

[Anonymous]

So many veiled digs at high earning women here haha. I’m a lawyer as are several of my friends. Many physicians and consultants too in our g pup. Trust me - there’s enough Chanel, Celine, Cartier etc to create our own Fashionpnile. We all know the value of the dollar, but appreciate well designed items. Also like to reward ourselves in reason, so now that we’re all late 30s, we’ve built up nice collections. Nothing like the monster $100k collections you see on purseforum, but well loved and chosen nonetheless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is a little over $400k and I don’t own any luxury items. I don’t judge people who do (unless they go into debt to do so) it’s just not worth it to me. I like nice middle of the road brands from Nordstroms and J crew. Anthropology still feels like a splurge to me! But I’m very lazy and finding good deals or comparison shopping and have no interest in spending time finding deals. So I guess I’m just middle of the road all around.

Same

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of wearing designer items is about striving to appear wealthier than one is or it's about keeping up with the Joneses in order to maintain social status. These are natural impulses but it's good to step back and examine them and see if they're serving us. If we're having actual anxiety about whether we can pull off an item then maybe that's more about self-esteem.

Our HHI is $800k and I can barely convince myself to buy a shirt from Athleta. I just don't care about brands for their own sake and I'd rather get 5 items for $200 instead of 2. I've been very conscious to keep my sense of what is good enough for me to where it was in my 20s so that I don't just keep increasing our spending to match our income. So I'm still happy to drive a $30k car . . . I just got the highest trim package so I could have heated seats and a moon roof, which were splurges for me.

It's funny because the one thing I've always loved was diamonds and gemstones. As a kid I used to go to the gem store and buy uncut hunks of amethyst to admire. So diamonds are probably the one thing I would have upgraded to match my lifestyle, but in the last few years the technology for moissanite and lab diamonds has really improved, and so I can have my sparklies without spending $10k+, more like $1-2k. Yay! I understand that for some people, wearing my $250 moissanite ring from Alibaba that looks like a $20k diamond is a form of lying because society uses luxury items as status signifiers, but I'd rather hang out with people with similar values who wouldn't judge me either for loving sparkly gems or for buying cheaper look-alikes.

So you would rather support fast fashion and kill the earth?

Oh please. Women who buy designer clothing are the ones who are supporting fast fashion -- who do you think fast fashion is copying??? Also, do you think these women are wearing last season's clothing in the current year? No. Hello no! Wouldn't be caught dead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So many veiled digs at high earning women here haha. I’m a lawyer as are several of my friends. Many physicians and consultants too in our g pup. Trust me - there’s enough Chanel, Celine, Cartier etc to create our own Fashionpnile. We all know the value of the dollar, but appreciate well designed items. Also like to reward ourselves in reason, so now that we’re all late 30s, we’ve built up nice collections. Nothing like the monster $100k collections you see on purseforum, but well loved and chosen nonetheless.

Dear god, I hope you're a troll.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In what financial situation does it make sense to splurge a little?

FWIW our HHI is 230k.

It depends on whether you care. We will make $1.2 million this year and I like buying band t shirts from Target.

[Anonymous]

Even as a graduate student, I shopped at Nordstrom Rack, and stores like Saks the morning after Christmas — when things were 60% off on the sale rack. I have a few truly awesome pieces — that I bought for 25% or less of their original prices, sometimes much less. So, as my income has seriously fluctuated, I’ve bought designer clothes and even a few custom made things and unique items from sample sales because I used to love shopping.

[Anonymous]

Dear god, I hope you're a troll.

NP. I don’t understand this comment. PP who you quoted said nothing offensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Dear god, I hope you're a troll.

NP. I don’t understand this comment. PP who you quoted said nothing offensive.

PP and I don’t get this response either. I think the comments implying that high earning women all have miserable lives / that only women who are “spending their husband’s money” so to speak are purchasing these goods are far move offensive, but YMMV.

I’m simply saying that a woman who has earned, say, north of $200k for over a decade has probably picked up a few nice clothing items along the way. No one is obnoxiously instagramming themselves in Chanel or trying to keep up with the Joneses. We have discretionary and like nice things.

[Anonymous]

HHI about $2-4m a year and I don’t own a single designer thing (like real designer, I do own $200 “designer” jeans). Athleta, quince, jcrew (on sale) etc are my norm. A Theory work suit are by far the most expensive things I own, my most expensive pair of shoes are my running shoes and I don’t think I own a bag over $100.

I’m not bragging that I’m somehow better than people that do spend their money on designers, it’s just not my thing. I’ve even tried to go by something designer and always end up either thinking it’s fairly plain thing I could get for 1/10 the price or less elsewhere or that it’s super cute but out there enough I won’t wear it often and it’ll be out of style in a couple years so not worth the money.

We are boogie in other ways, more convenience and service type things