Everyone has had a bad customer service experience… but how much worse could it have been? Well, this NYTimes article might make you scared to shop online ever again. SPOILAR: your typical charming, unscrupulous, conscience-free sociopath exploits negative feedback to his advantage.
The best part might be this reader comment—
I’d like to invite all of those who reflexively go for the lowest price to reflect on the phrase “Costs more…” and try to replace it with the phrase: “has a smaller number after the dollar sign”. There are so many ways for something to “cost more”.
Thanksgiving is upon us. Manipulation season has begun. Sale prices surround us. What’s a recovering professional shopper* to do!? (*actual job I used to have)
I like to think of it like this…
1. Objects.
Everyone has at least one piece of favorite clothing. It hits you right in all the right places. You can eat in it without feeling uncomfortable afterwards. The color and fabric are just your style. Hell, it makes you look attractive.
Similarly, the entire conception of signature perfume is based on the same foundation. It’s a smell that clings to you just right. There’s no time of day or night when it feels wrong. Every note is just your style. And it makes you smell whatever “good” is to you.
Owning the right object can feel really good.
2. Feelings.
There are many reasons why people tout “signature” perfumes and fits, but generally it’s about money. Your insecurities are the best money-making tool any retailer can have… and urging you to find that “just right” thing is a brilliant way to put a benevolent mask on blatant exploitation.
The unfortunate thing is: signature fits and smells actually exist. Wrapped up in my black pencil skirt, probably the most simple and perfect skirt I’ve ever owned, and smelling like lemony raspberries, I feel like the best possible version of me. If you’ve ever cared enough about fashion and beauty to find an actual just-right thing - you know how magical it can be.
So how do we know who to trust?
3. Answers.
It’s obnoxious to me, as a writer, that all of our culture’s trite truisms are true. Be authentic. Follow your heart. Listen to your needs. Be honest. It would be way more fun to write something else. The truth is, we already have the answers. We already know what we need and want. We already know what works for us! But sometimes our insecurities guide us, instead of our beliefs and values.
We let our friends and loved ones pressure us, we let retailers bully us, and we sublimate our real desires into manufactured ones. These are first world problems, for sure, but buying the wrong thing feels bad. So why do we continue to let our decisions be made by others?
This is the season of over-indulgence and anxiety. Whether it’s also the season of mindless, unsatisfying consumption is a choice that we have the power to make, ourselves.
You know how, when you’re watching sports, there are “exciting” parts where people feel the need to loudly yell or groan? Well, I like to be polite. So when I’m forced to watch football and it gets to one of those so-called exciting parts, I always yell “SPORTS” in my best loud deadpan.
If you’ve never tried this, a loud deadpan is surprisingly difficult to achieve.
I’ve been doing this for years. The problem is, now, when I’m engaging in the usual banal chatter with coworkers, I get this terrible urge… I just want to stop mid-sentence and yell out, “SMALL TALK” - like I’m watching a sporting event.
Milton Glaser’s Ten Things I Have Learned has stayed with me for longer than I anticipated it would, back when I first read it. But there’s one rule I would add: a rule for the dreamers, the big thinkers, and the goal setters.
If you aren’t going for it… maybe you don’t actually want to.
Some words aren’t just labels, but scourges. Has so much potential. Jack of all trades, master of none. Or worst of all: Smart. Hear any of them enough times and they can consume you.
The problem with being smart, or full of potential, or even just competent, is that you can do anything. Let that sink in: anything. Everyone has their own uniquely flawed method of dealing with this overwhelming truth; for me (and admitting this is difficult), I adopt the dreams of others.
I earned a Bachelors in Engineering from a top university, despite my enduring love for language and the arts, because my parents wanted it. After one published research paper, I left engineering… something just wasn’t right.
I DJ’d for a local radio station, while acting as Promotions Director, because my college crush wanted it. I developed a following. I developed my personal taste. I was invited by Clear Channel Communications, the evil media conglomerate itself, to become one of them. I didn’t. Instead, I left radio.
I started a print publication celebrating the work of local writers, artists, and musicians - because my co-publisher wanted it. I wrote and edited and coordinated and planned. I helped secure a $10,000 grant. And then I quit, citing creative differences.
I started an online retail business, despite my distaste for adding more meaningless stuff to peoples’ lives, because my business partners wanted it. We became wildly successful, and secured millions in investment dollars. Of all the dreams I’d adopted, this was the most fun, the most rewarding, the most challenging and simultaneously satisfying. When the business partnership ended, I thought about starting the same business again, but on my own. So I took serious steps to make it happen…
And then I stopped.
I stopped everything. For a long time, I did nothing but kick myself: I was lazy; I was a quitter; I wasn’t good enough; I was a failure. Why so hard on myself? Because I was supposed to be smart, and to me smart meant always doing and always knowing what to do.
I wish someone had told me: If you aren’t doing it, maybe you don’t want to - and admitting what you don’t want to do might be better than going in the wrong direction. It’s ok to try everything until something sticks, but it’s also ok to leave old dreams behind. In fact, that’s how most people who find their true calling get there.
If you aimlessly go and go and go, you’ll end up worn out and just as lost as you started. After all my experiences, I had to consult my grade school education to learn what matters: be yourself, and realize that actions speak louder than words. In this case, I’ve learned to look at my own actions. Maybe it will help me discover where to go next.
The last day of Summer is September 21st, and all I can think about is how every ending Summer is one less Summer I’ll experience in my supposedly irresponsible youth. I can think of no song that sums up the nostalgic pain of the sentiment more nonchalantly - and more accurately - than this one.
If you’ve forgotten what I’m naming You’re gonna long to reclaim it one day Because that summer feeling is gonna haunt you One day in your life.
Don’t tell me it’s silk/cashmere/wool if it’s mostly something else.
Don’t tell me it’s “faux leather” when it was made in a chemical plant.
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I have a lot of pet peeves when it comes to fashion retail, sales people, and even friends with insecure motives. Some days, when I find myself surrounded by underhanded duplicity and insincerity, unable to get away, it damn near drives me crazy. Honesty seems to be an alien language in the world of fashion. Why?
Abandon hope, all ye who enter here should really be written above my closet right now.
I’ve always hated uniforms. I wouldn’t even wear a tunic + leggings, back when that was new, because it felt so common and uniform-y. I’m a dyed in the wool social contrarian, never able to leave things be, and never able to agree with the common opinion. So lately, the “uniform” of my place of employment (in truth just a particular series of pieces and stylistic choices), feels like shackles.
I’ve been buying carefully, lately. Just 2-3 pieces a month, and only things that meet my standards of perfect*. Seeing those pieces waving about in my closet - unworn, and with tags still on - is just beyond demoralizing. If my work place were different, I could wear them. Instead, I spend 8+ hours a day in work clothes, and the rest in work (as in, do renovation work on the house) clothes.
Reading a closet is the fashion version of reading tea leaves. The meaning in my closet is clear: I’m not having enough fun, and I really need a new job.
*perfect: adj. On-trend but timeless, with a fit that is uniquely flattering to my figure, and in colors that suit my skin tone. Finding something perfect sounds simple but it is not.
"We’re moving from a conspicuous consumption — which is ‘buy without regard’ — to a calculated consumption"
—
By now, you’ve probably all ready the NYTimes article about consumer spending, and how decreased consumption seems to correlate with increased happiness. I usually find the Times frustrating, short-sighted, and poorly thought out (which I’ve complained about here), but I’m commenting this time to say that I 100% agree.
It’s simple but it’s true, owning less makes me happy. I have 6 cups and that’s enough. I have just enough tupperware containers to get me through a week. I’ve stopped buying version after version of the same 5 favorite clothing pieces!
There’s a certain freedom that comes from bowing out of the acquisition rat race: the freedom to relax, the freedom to savor the experience of wanting, and the freedom to turn your attention elsewhere without fear of missing something important. I find that consuming with intent makes the experience of shopping (which I will always love) a pure joy instead of an urgent need.
Sure, our decreased spending may bring the United States economy screeching to a halt, but isn’t ”the pursuit of happiness” supposed to be our birthright?
Woman goes on clothing “diet”, eschewing all other clothes for a month-long “fast” of only 6 pieces. The New York Times picks it up; glorifies it. And me? I’m mad. Stuff like this makes me mad.
When I moved into my house, and all my clothes were in boxes, I ended up on an unintentional 3 month “diet” exactly like this. I carefully selected 5-6 pieces of clothing, and I temporarily said goodbye to the rest. The experience helped me understand who I am from a fashion perspective, and it made a hectic time in my life that much simpler. I would recommend it to anyone. That’s not why I’m mad.
I’m mad because, to me, this article is no better than one promoting the equally extreme opposite that is rampant consumerism. It’s not smarter, it’s not more thoughtful, and it’s certainly not more inspiring. I get that we’re all broke, and we’re all trying to spend our few shopping dollars wisely. Is plain black clothing, or those lofted “basics” that generally fail to excite us, really the best place to spend our time and our funds? Does self-denial - and reversible shorts - spell happiness, and the end of our financial worries?
This article could have focused on why people chose their 6 pieces, how their relationship with clothing (and shopping) changed, and whether the 6 piece limit felt to them more like a temporary cleansing, or like a new lifestyle. It could have talked about the impetus to shop and wear new things, that pleasurable urgency so many of us feel so often, and how it felt to step away from it.
Instead: a brief mention of a girl who became depressed by the diet, a significant focus on how no one noticed the diet, and a slide show complete with jeggings and quotes about wearing only black. Do you see why I’m mad?
Fashion journalism is responsible for reporting objectively on new developments in fashion and style, and for inspiring us to explore that world. This article does nothing but glorify the exclusion of choice, and highlight the removal of pleasure from clothing. And I mean come on… jeggings?
