An appreciation for expensive clothing, and a closest which runs parallel to it, calls for a specific phrase which we have all murmured. As an individual passionately drawn to racks of Alice and Olivia and Dianne Von Furstenberg clothing, I too have let this common phrase pass my lips anytime I feel the need to justify my clothing addiction. “It is just made better.” It, of course, being any highly price and highly marked up merchandise, which I have just spent my money on. This phrase was even said during this week’s class. Why buy designer jeans as opposed to a cheaper variation of perhaps the exact same pattern? Because they are just made better. My argument however, is that these designer pieces are not. It is, instead, I believe that the upper class does decide what is “fine taste,” and the masses justify their succumbing with the aforementioned idiom.
Last summer I had ventured to Bloomingdales in order to purchase a Marc Jacobs dress that had caught my eye. I justified the purchase, of course, by commenting that the price was worth every penny because of its fine quality. However, when the entire dress fell apart after one wear (a wear that did not consist of great force on the dress in any excess) and I brought it back to the store, I was shocked. I was told that nearly all silk dresses from Marc Jacobs have the tendency to disintegrate, falling apart at the seams, after only one wear. Why on earth are the masses buying Marc Jacobs, with its high price tag, if it has the tendency to fall apart? And why on earth, after this experience, have I, myself, continued to purchase Marc Jacobs clothing?
Fine taste is absolutely something socially constructed by the elite. It has become, however, so routine that we subconsciously justify our expenditures for not-so-worth-it clothing.
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