Ages ago, I wrote about my internal price thresholds. Mostly, they apply to lunch. It still burns me that lunch at restaurants and take-out joints is so expensive. In my mind, lunch should be $5 because that’s about how much I paid when I first started paying for lunch out of my own earnings. (As you can imagine, I wasn’t dining at the fancies. What with being 13 and all.) But these internal price thresholds also apply to fashion purchases. I am still stuck on the idea that jeans should be around $40, and am perpetually surprised that they’re generally more like $70, even at the Gap. When I first started buying shoes on my own they were right around $40, too. (Though I spent my money at Payless back then, and you can still nab new kicks for that amount now at your friendly neighborhood Payless.) My shoe price thresholds rose quicker than my clothing price thresholds because I could see the direct correlation between paying more and getting better quality and construction.
Recently, I realized that most things I see and covet hover right around the $100 mark. I WAS HORRIFIED. When did “stuff” get so expensive? And what am I, made of money? How did this happen? I mean, I still thrift like a pro, nab bargains on eBay, and shop the sale racks, so I’m not saying that everything I buy is $100 or more. But many, many things are.
And, ya know, inflation happens. Lunch isn’t $5 anymore because 23 years have gone by and everything is more expensive than it used to be. Also I’m a grown-up now (or so I’m told), and my tastes have become more refined over the years.* I have a defined style and more adult tastes that weren’t present when I first began to shop for myself. So there are larger forces at work, here.
But some of it is also acceptance of what the market has deemed “normal.” Dresses? $100. Dress pants? $100. Cashmere sweaters? $100. Casual, unlined blazers? $100 or more. Many tops cost less than $100 and many shoes cruise past $100, but supposedly mid-market brands like Banana Republic, J.Crew, and Ann Taylor are consistently pricing clothing basics at fairly high price points. In a down economy. And people are somehow paying for them. So to be clear, I’m not shopping at super high-end boutiques and Net-a-Porter, friends. I’m looking at the same mall stores and ubiquitous shopping options that much of middle-class America uses to procure new duds. And I’m not ending up with fantastically high-quality purchases, either. I’m getting the same middle-of-the-road design and construction we’re all getting these days.
There are many ways to get great clothes for less. Buying used is the big one, but making your own is another fabulous option. Clothing swaps, repurposing what you already have, and clipping coupons can help you stay on budget. But there’s no denying that prices rise, and the market expects us all to keep up.
I’m curious if you’ve seen your own internal price thresholds rise over the years. Do you see your fashion-related purchases hovering around a certain price point? Do you set that point yourself, or does it rise (or fall) on its own?
*Sidenote: I remember being a kid and eating frosting out of the jar with gleeful abandon. These days I scrape off most frosting because it’s too sweet and makes my teeth ache. Literally. Frosting hurts my teeth. Is losing the taste for super-sugary foods an aging thing? Is that palette refinement? Or is it just me?
Image courtesy Anthropologie. Striped skirt? $98. Very close to $100. Paid it. (Then returned it because that skirt felt like it was made out of burlap and looked absolutely comic on me.)
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(navy)
