Keeping Up With The Louboutins
Via Glenn Reynolds, I read this post at The Careerist:
What if a young associate dresses better than the partners? That question was obliquely posed on Corporette.com, a fashion blog for professional women. In a recent post, a summer associate at a big firm in Singapore asks whether she should carry her Birkin to work. (For those who are too embarrassed to ask, a Birkin is an Hermes bag that’s become an uber-status symbol; the price starts close to $10,000.)
The summer associate describes her dilemma: “I’ve heard two conflicting opinions: 1. You should dress what you would like to be, i.e., if you want to be a partner one day, dress as such; and 2. Dress appropriate to your level in the firm.”
Writer Vivia Chen gives her take:
While jealousy and competition among women in the office are not uncommon (see “The End of Sisterhood”), women, in my experience, are actually quite respectful toward those who are well-accessorized. From what I’ve seen, women are far more critical of those who don’t dress well than those who are nicely turned out. The comment is usually, “Why is she dressed in rags when she makes so much money?” rather than, “How awful she’s wearing that exquisite Armani.”
Why are we more forgiving about these luxuries? Maybe it’s a pleasure to see someone who looks stylish. Maybe we’d like to think that we’re in the same sorority of good taste.
So my advice is to bring out the Birkin, and prop it right on the conference table. And if it seems to be stirring jealousy or resentment, just hint that it’s a fake. In New York, at least, that would be completely plausible.
In the corporate law offices with which I’m familiar, that approach would go over just fine. But were I ever confronted with a lawyer or an agent or some other professional carrying a small leather bag that cost $10,000, I’d immediately conclude that his or her value system is astonishingly perverted, and that he or she lacks the judgment, perspective and ordering of priorities necessary to do business of any sort with me. Even the most hedonistic spendthrift is preferable to the superlatively decadent brand name status whore.
Then again, it is highly doubtful that I’d be able to distinguish a $10,000 bag from one purchased at that store on Broadway where people famously buy cheap but fashionable purses. Okay, that was a bluff, but surely such a store exists? Also, did the advent of cell phones place all wrist watches into the “purely decorative jewelry” category?
Birkin, merkin, blumlkin; it’s very hard to keep these all straight.
RE: Watches
After reading Dava Sobel’s “Longitude” I became semi-obsessed with the idea of owning a mechanical chronometer*; that is to say, a watch that did not use a quartz movement that kept time accurately enough to be used for navigation.
But after researching the purchase, I realized the that nearly any quartz movement watch was more accurate than even the most expensive mechanical movement, which left me somewhat stuck. I wanted the wrist jewelry, but all the fun had been taken out of it by the fact that the expensive watches do not keep time as well as the less expensive watches.
But upon re-reading “Longitude” I realized that Harrison spend the latter part of his life working to make his invention more rugged, more accurate, and less expensive. My watch lust subsided, and I went to K-mart and bought a Garmin handheld GPS for about $100 and a Casio wristwatch for about the same price.
—
A few years later a box arrived from my father containing various sentimental nicknacks; his father’s pipe and level, his mother’s playing cards, and other items of family memorabilia. Among them was a Rolex wrist watch; not the big chunky stainless steel oysters so popular today, but a more slender model on a black leather band.
The Rolex site offers no help in determining its age, or even what model it is. In fact, I think it’s a fake. I think my father bought it in Japan when he was stationed there as a Marine Corp officer. Reading your post, I wonder if he didn’t buy it because other officers were sporting fancy watches, and he thought he ought to have one too. (My father is Jersey city-raised the son of Irish immigrants. It’s not hard to imagine him all of 22 years of age trying to figure out the right things to wear to be a proper officer.)
Anyway, it’s mine now. I wear it when I have “important” meetings. People notice it, partly because being so old it doesn’t look like what everyone else has, and partly because it’s marked “Rolex”. I just say, “Thanks. It was my fathers, but he gave it to me a couple of years ago.” That seems to be just enough ambiguity about whether or not I personally have the means and the taste to purchase such a lovely and expensive item. In modern parlance, I believe that is a “full of WINS”, or some such thing.
— Tony Comstock · Jul 7, 11:43 AM · #
A word in defense of $10,000 Hermès handbags, and “luxury” items more generally.
I’m a defender of luxury items for a number of reasons. One of them is that they often represent the last way to patronize extremely good craftsmanship, which is a good in itself. Craftsmanship is an art and a discipline, it’s one of the thing that makes the world worth living, and it is not — nor should it be — cheap. Hermès for example is the only company I’m aware of to do such astounding work with leather. The reason its bags are so expensive is that they’re all custom made to the owner’s specification. That’s not cheap either. Do they make a large margin off of it? Sure. But if people are willing to pay that margin I see no problem with that.
Without luxury items we wouldn’t have Fabergé eggs and countless other wonderful and exquisite pieces of art. We would be living in a boring, colorless Protestant world.
Being a status whore is bad to be sure, but you don’t need to buy a $10,000 bag to be a status whore — look at all iPhone owners, including myself. You also shouldn’t buy a luxury item as an “investment” — you should just buy it because you want it.
I’m just saying: if I ever get rich and you see me with a $50,000 watch, I hope you won’t think that my value system is “astonishingly perverted.” You sanctimonious puritan.
— PEG · Jul 7, 11:44 AM · #
“I’m just saying: if I ever get rich and you see me with a $50,000 watch, I hope you won’t think that my value system is “astonishingly perverted.” You sanctimonious puritan.”
On this, and per our twitter exchange last evening, a not infrequent discussion here in Casa Comstock is the perversion of the word/concept of “need”.
“Need” has become sorely overstrained; providing fuel for Conor’s angst over handbags he’ll never be able to afford, and causing others (perhaps even Conor himself) to buy things they can’t afford.
Needs are not wants; wants are not perverse; and needing something is not the same thing as being able to purchase it without leaving yourself more needy than when you started.
— Tony Comstock · Jul 7, 11:54 AM · #
Re: have cell phones replaced watches.
Not yet, I don’t think. I have been a teacher, and given some speeches, and done other things that would seem to make a glance at the cell phone seem rude. You don’t want to sit down with a boss or a client and keep looking at your phone. Maybe you are checking the time, but they don’t know that.
I assume that cultural norms will change, however, and soon it will be completely OK to bail on a conversation with your boss to answer the phone. I understand it’s already like that in some Asian cities.
For now, I prefer a watch.
— Sam M · Jul 7, 12:40 PM · #
I suspect that the proliferation of cell phones will give wristwatches even greater signaling power for those who agree with Malcolm X:
“I have less patience with someone who doesn’t wear a watch than with anyone else, for this type is not time-conscious. In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.”
— Matt Frost · Jul 7, 12:47 PM · #
Ha! I don’t normally wear a watch. Except today I have to go to the airport to pick up sometime TAS commenter and dear friend Ell, who is coming from Australia for a visit. Of course I am bringing my cell phone, but you know – belt and suspenders – so first thing out of the shower I put on my wristwatch (the Casio, not the (fake?) Rolex.)
— Tony Comstock · Jul 7, 01:39 PM · #
FYI, the best rule for corporate climbers is to dress one level above themselves. This is tricky for summer associates, who usually dress much better than actual associates.
— J Mann · Jul 7, 02:41 PM · #
J Mann: “When in doubt, overdress.”
— PEG · Jul 7, 03:03 PM · #
“I’m just saying: if I ever get rich and you see me with a $50,000 watch, I hope you won’t think that my value system is “astonishingly perverted.” You sanctimonious puritan.”
I certainly will, you decadent Papist Eurotrash. :)
— Ethan C. · Jul 7, 04:51 PM · #
I think ten grand quite easily exceeds the point where you’re paying for craftsmanship in terms of the quality of the purse, and well into where you’re paying for craftsmanship in the quality of marketing and brand positioning that makes you think that it costs anywhere near ten grand to make a top-quality purse.
$800, I suspect, is about the most you could pay where you’d still be paying for premium leather and the expert craftsmanship to turn it into a work of art purse.
— Chet · Jul 7, 08:54 PM · #
A $10,000 handbag would make me assume that I was paying the associate too much. That goes double if a client sees you.
— Geoff · Jul 7, 10:14 PM · #
The bosses in sales organizations encourage their salesmen to overspend on clothes, watches, cars, jewelry, Grey Goose, and so forth. Being in debt keeps them desperate to close deals and not to walk away from soul-crushing jobs.
— Steve Sailer · Jul 7, 10:59 PM · #
There have to be at least three such stores on broadway, all between 5th and 4th.
— c.t.h. · Jul 8, 03:50 AM · #
PEG,
I don’t have any problem with paying for craftsmanship (or design, for that matter), its paying to make yourself feel superior for having money, and to make others feel inferior for having less money, to which I object.
Also, it’s a leather purse! My mom has leather purses that she’s regularly carried for years, and that remain perfectly functional — zippers still work, stitching intact, etc. It’s just a sack made of animal skin for carrying things. I have a hard time believing that anyone buys those purses for the craftsmanship, or that the craftsmanship is actually superior to what you could get for a twelfth of the price.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jul 8, 07:37 AM · #
“It’s just a sack made of animal skin for carrying things.”
Conner, a sack made of animal skin for carrying things can never be refered to as “just.” That simple sack is the equivilent of bronze-making or the sailing ship or the internet. It is a technological breakthrough that changed the course of human-kind. That sack allowed us to carry food, religious mementos, and tools—basically, civilization—and walk upright across the savanah. Carrying that sack we migrated and explored and wandered our way until we inhabited and conquered the entire globe. None of what we had now would have been possible without that sack (don’t get all baskety on me here, it’s the same basic principal). Thus, appreciation for a nice sack made of animal skin is bred into our collective unconscious. That there should be $10,000 fetish-ized version of that basic sack is a testiment to how integral the sack is to being human. Carrying that $10,000 version says all kinds of thing about the bearer and humanity, not just “look how rich I am.” So, say what you will, but do not denigrate the animal-skin sack by prefixing it with “just.” Not on my watch.
— cw · Jul 8, 02:51 PM · #
Lawyers, even at the highest rank, are basically upper servants. As such, they should dress for work at a quality level similar to what their clients wear, but with less flash.
It’s the same principle as men picking out tuxedos — you go for quality and fit, but not for items that are entirely different from what everyone else has.
But that’s just for work. On her own time, a lawyer who makes a lot of money can carry whatever kind of bag she likes. She can even wear a great big diamond in her nose if that’s her personal style. But personal style is no more relevant to the way lawyers dress for work than it is to the way airline pilots dress.
— M.C. · Jul 8, 04:22 PM · #
“But personal style is no more relevant to the way lawyers dress for work than it is to the way airline pilots dress.”
Got to signal that you are the servant of Mammon.
— cw · Jul 8, 07:56 PM · #
cw — You’ve got to look prosperous enough to be at the same meeting as your clients. If your clients are rich, you don’t wear discount store suits. But you are still in uniform, not indulging your personal peculiarities.
Good accessories? Fine. Conspicuous, showstopper accessories? That’s more for corporate wives than for working women, although of course the same woman might be both on different days.
— M.C. · Jul 8, 09:00 PM · #
Lawyers, even at the highest rank, are basically upper servants.
I’m more of a game genie.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jul 9, 12:42 AM · #
One more thing: the accessories matter only if they negatively reinforce behavior or stereotype, or if they’re tasteless. Convince a client you’re the keymaster, and that you give a shit, and they’ll process the Rolex in your favor. Hit the sartorial mark just right time-place-notionally, but come across as limp or overmatched or whathaveyou, then it won’t matter a whit that you shop at JoS. A. Bank and Overstock.com. Trust me.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jul 9, 12:55 AM · #
Kristoffer, how can we know whether to trust you when we can’t even see what kind of suit you’re wearing?
— KenB · Jul 9, 03:28 AM · #
cw: Very good.
M.C.: It sounds like what we need to do is bring back sumptuary laws.
— The Reticulator · Jul 9, 04:12 AM · #
Hey, Reticulator, I never said she couldn’t carry the silly bag on her own time. She can also wear spandex, or dress like an extra from The Lord of the Rings, when she isn’t on the clock. The only issue is how it looks at work in a conservative field.
For the guys who are comparing this bag with a Rolex, are you thinking Rolex with a lot of diamonds or Rolex without? I’m comparing it to a Rolex with the diamonds, and coming to the conclusion that both are too much for work in most cases. A no-diamond Rolex might be fine, as would a custom-made but non-flashy bag.
The reason I made the remark about wives is that I’ve been to a lot of professional conferences at which you can spot a real style difference between the women there for their own jobs and the wives accompanying husbands. The former blend in more with the men, and the latter have a whole different look. The clothes may be equally expensive in both cases, but work clothes “show off” with more subtlety. For the same reason that the way to “show off” in a tuxedo is NOT to make the whole outfit sky blue.
— M.C. · Jul 9, 01:06 PM · #
“Kristoffer, how can we know whether to trust you when we can’t even see what kind of suit you’re wearing?”
He used the word “sartorial.” The law is all about language and it’s clever manipulation.
— cw · Jul 9, 03:33 PM · #
This is true. Plus, you should be comfortable trusting me since I’m wearing a Michael Kors suit with a Citizen watch peaking out.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jul 9, 07:06 PM · #
For those of you who think this bag is comparable with a diamond-encrusted Rolex: here is an example of the bag in question.
Here is an article explaining why they are so expensive.
— Amber · Jul 10, 09:27 PM · #