Appearance Matters

Rent or Buy?

The article by Sameer Reddy is titled "Keeping Up Appearances". It talks about how a character in a US prime time TV show, "Gossip Girl", "goes to great lengths to project a soignee appearance in order to court popularity at her exclusive Upper East Side prep school. She saves her allowances, frequent second hand shops, stitches her own party dress and does whatever else it takes to keep up with her better-off peers." In the end, she succeeded and even made it to "New York Post's Page Six gossip column."

The theme of the article is that a lot of people still want to project an air of well-off-ness in the economic downturn we are facing today. The gist is, we could do it with a little creativity and imagination. The author cited 2 luxury items, jewelry and bags, that women seemingly could not live without.

In this day and time, money in the pocket makes more sense than plunking it down on a sparkly diamond or a must-have bag. Popping up are lab-cultured diamonds and rent-a-bag shops. You could buy a diamond so real that diamond experts have a hard time to tell apart, and rent to own bags that could satisfy the urge to look hip.

I had a secret smile after reading this article. It reminded me of Jennifer Hudson's character, Louise, in the SATC movie. There was one scene when Carrie was interviewing her for an assistant post, and Louise was saying how she was living in a tiny room in NY city. Carrie then asked her how she could afford an LV bag, Louise smugly replied that she rented it, and said to Carrie, "You have a lot to learn from me, girl".

I still want to look good, but spending money in these tight times just doesn't make sense. Yeah, there are still a Chanel bag or 2 that I would looove to have, but parting with my money is not that easy now. I guess it has more to do than the economic crisis, I would want to believe that I have gotten wiser.

Weighing the US$2,000 I'd have to spend to get the coveted bag, is the amount of work I'd have to put into to find the money. Nowadays, I would ask myself, does the bag justify the extra stress? Well, the answer is a definite "No". My investment has shifted, from owning things to investing in myself, in knowledge and in values like empathy, integrity, and freedom.

Afterall things are just things and will fade away, or more likely, we'll be bored with it sooner than we think and will be stumped by the question, "Why the heck did I pay so much for this?"
Investing in oursleves, in the core of our being, is more long lasting. In the end, we'd appreciate the better person we have become.

(photo : http://www.purseblog.com/chanel-bags/)