Whose "budget" are these people on?
18 November 2008
I LOVE looking at house decorating and personal style books.
I never take any of their suggestions. I'm too lazy, and I'm too cheap. But I do get a kick out of what professional designers think it means to be "on a budget." Case in point: Isaac Mizrahi's new book How to Have Style. Now, this is a neat, slim little book that actually offers some good pointers. Mizrahi met with and photographed several different women with specific needs; e.g. how to have style...on a budget. How to have style...when traveling in business. And so on and so forth.
But the "on a budget" part? The woman in that section's outfits ended up costing $300 to $400 bucks. To me, that is hilarious. And it's not just because I work at home (although I was always pretty casual at work too). It's because I've been shopping at used clothing stores and online outlets for so long that the mere idea of spending more than twenty bucks tops on a pair of pants and a top is completely foreign to me. Also, consider this line: "her bra becomes a feature of her outfit." I'm sorry. Whenever I think about showing my bra off to the public, I think of that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine gave a bra to her chesty friend who never wore one, and then her friend wore nothing BUT the bra. In fact, I consider it a public service NOT to have my bra be a "feature of my outfit."
So it was a fun book to look through, but of course I'm not going to follow any of the suggestions. Which is okay. For me, that's not really the point of these books. That said, I don't really know what the point of these books is for me. Seeing how the other half lives? Learning how the grown-ups dress?