I had time to kill on lower Broadway and found the nautical shirt (this, but with light blue stripes and not at all the odd shape you see in that image thanks to pinning) of my dreams for a whopping $8.99. (Least plausible ever "original price": $35.50. I believe only the previous price of $14.99.) This was that much more exciting because the Uniqlo sailor shirt I'd been on the lookout for a) is no longer being sold, b) would cost $15.50 if it were, and c) isn't as interesting. This one has buttons on the sleeves! Extra nautical! (As if I know what that would even mean.) My loyalty to the Japanese chain has, it seems, been broken.
The funny thing about the shirt, though, is that its size is different in different countries, as per the tag. In the US, as in Germany and the UK, it's a medium (that, I should note, fits me just right even though I'm a small or extra-small in other stores); in France and Italy, a large. Maybe the discount comes from the implicit reminder that the wearer would be considered "large" in Paris or Milan...
Showing posts with label cheap fashionz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cheap fashionz. Show all posts
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Getting it for less
Monday, January 18, 2010
A limited defense of slow fashion
This is really Phoebe's topic on which I am basically unqualified to opine since I've never even read anything that used the term "slow fashion" that wasn't written by Phoebe, and my main guide to fashion at the moment is what the undergrads wear to the library. (I've been noticing a lot of sweatpants sloppily tucked into Uggs--this may be worse even than mom jeans.) HOWEVER. Last week, I had an eye-opening conversion experience to (what I think, based on Phoebe's descriptions is) slow fashion.
What happened was that I tried to consign my old clothes. This involved schlepping two huge shopping bags of stuff on the subway. Not only did I look like a homeless person en route, I was subsequently subjected to a 20-minute scrutiny of all my garments which felt distinctly like an intense personal scrutiny of my taste and judgment. Probably two-thirds of my stuff got rejected, but I did learn a very important lesson, and it is this: buying expensive clothes pays, at least when it comes time to consign them. Every single item with a J.Crew or Banana Republic label was accepted, and almost everything from H&M and Old Navy was denied (and that was, sadly, the majority of my offering). (Additional question: Who actually buys H&M from consignment stores?)
Moreover, even the deformed pricey clothes made the cut, including a J.Crew sweater I tragically ruined through machine washing (back before I discovered thrifty home dry-cleaning), rendering it at least two sizes smaller than the original and not quite proportional. And while this did give the saleswoman momentary pause, it did not ultimately lead to item rejection, whereas several mint-condition (on account of my having immediately reconsidered the error of my choice) H&M items did not get a second look.
The obvious conclusion of the day's adventure was that, if I want my clothes to have any resale value, I should henceforth shop exclusively at J.Crew, a view to which, like the many women who use "slow fashion" as a post-facto justification of their preference for expensive clothes, I can be quite amenable. Now, I understand that this logic is subject to some exceptions. For one thing, not every garment can have resale value. Underwear, exercise clothes, tights and leggings--basically anything that goes unnoticed or unseen by the general public will continue to be purchased at purveyors of fast fashion. Another problem is that the math doesn't strictly support the theory of recouping initial outlay on expensive clothes by consigning them. If I buy a $70 sweater at J.Crew and consign it two years later, I'll only get about $15 for it. It requires quite a bit of cost-per-wear imagination to believe that I wore the heck out of the remaining $55 in the intervening two years, though it's quite possible that, being a vain person, I would enjoy it more than a $25 sweater. But again, what would it mean to say my pleasure is worth exactly $55? And it's not as though J.Crew is the cost ceiling for slow fashion--the gulf between purchase price and resale value only widens from there. Finally, I suppose frequent consignment undermines the purpose of slow fashion, which seems to consist in wearing every $200 blouse for the at least 30 years.
Still, I think there is something to be said for this plan. Usually, expensive stuff is nicer--it fits better and looks better. (How long it lasts is rarely relevant given that I don't wear anything for 20 years, and so don't work as hard as I could on making my clothes last.) Since I have a monthly shopping budget to which I mostly adhere, it is quite likely that I would buy less stuff if I bought more expensive things less often. Plus, I would really like an excuse to shop only at J.Crew at this point in my life while I am trying to fight the sweatpants-in-Uggs powers and hang on to what I can of my hard-won and now receding pre-grad school adulthood.
What happened was that I tried to consign my old clothes. This involved schlepping two huge shopping bags of stuff on the subway. Not only did I look like a homeless person en route, I was subsequently subjected to a 20-minute scrutiny of all my garments which felt distinctly like an intense personal scrutiny of my taste and judgment. Probably two-thirds of my stuff got rejected, but I did learn a very important lesson, and it is this: buying expensive clothes pays, at least when it comes time to consign them. Every single item with a J.Crew or Banana Republic label was accepted, and almost everything from H&M and Old Navy was denied (and that was, sadly, the majority of my offering). (Additional question: Who actually buys H&M from consignment stores?)
Moreover, even the deformed pricey clothes made the cut, including a J.Crew sweater I tragically ruined through machine washing (back before I discovered thrifty home dry-cleaning), rendering it at least two sizes smaller than the original and not quite proportional. And while this did give the saleswoman momentary pause, it did not ultimately lead to item rejection, whereas several mint-condition (on account of my having immediately reconsidered the error of my choice) H&M items did not get a second look.
The obvious conclusion of the day's adventure was that, if I want my clothes to have any resale value, I should henceforth shop exclusively at J.Crew, a view to which, like the many women who use "slow fashion" as a post-facto justification of their preference for expensive clothes, I can be quite amenable. Now, I understand that this logic is subject to some exceptions. For one thing, not every garment can have resale value. Underwear, exercise clothes, tights and leggings--basically anything that goes unnoticed or unseen by the general public will continue to be purchased at purveyors of fast fashion. Another problem is that the math doesn't strictly support the theory of recouping initial outlay on expensive clothes by consigning them. If I buy a $70 sweater at J.Crew and consign it two years later, I'll only get about $15 for it. It requires quite a bit of cost-per-wear imagination to believe that I wore the heck out of the remaining $55 in the intervening two years, though it's quite possible that, being a vain person, I would enjoy it more than a $25 sweater. But again, what would it mean to say my pleasure is worth exactly $55? And it's not as though J.Crew is the cost ceiling for slow fashion--the gulf between purchase price and resale value only widens from there. Finally, I suppose frequent consignment undermines the purpose of slow fashion, which seems to consist in wearing every $200 blouse for the at least 30 years.
Still, I think there is something to be said for this plan. Usually, expensive stuff is nicer--it fits better and looks better. (How long it lasts is rarely relevant given that I don't wear anything for 20 years, and so don't work as hard as I could on making my clothes last.) Since I have a monthly shopping budget to which I mostly adhere, it is quite likely that I would buy less stuff if I bought more expensive things less often. Plus, I would really like an excuse to shop only at J.Crew at this point in my life while I am trying to fight the sweatpants-in-Uggs powers and hang on to what I can of my hard-won and now receding pre-grad school adulthood.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
And another
Did you know that buying loads of designer goodies is actually thrifty? Did you? Another entry to this unfortunate bandwagon. (Granted, this from a blogger whose comments policy bans all criticism, not merely trolling, personal-life and body-image commentary, and the sorts of things that are reasonable to discourage. I mean, why have a comments section on a fashion blog, then announce "I’m not looking for pointers"? But I digress.)
Remember, people: 'cost-per-wear' is just the reverse of the advice about how small purchases add up.
Remember, people: 'cost-per-wear' is just the reverse of the advice about how small purchases add up.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Sold out
Are we really supposed to be horrified when talented designers accustomed to making clothes the price of a grad-student stipend create a line for Target? According to Erika Kawalek, the Rodarte team sold out by doing just that.
The article itself is a bit confusing - the author announces that she just returned from China, and implies that the Target line was made there, but never says this outright, so for all we know it's not. But it has to be from China, and the result of poor labor conditions, for the argument to make sense. She calls the Target line's garments "Rodarte for Target clothes are commodities" - what, then, are the clothes from the pricier line?
And, um: "Rodarte is synonymous with craft, which means $3,000 to $12,000 price tags, but nobody calls the Mulleavy's elitist or out-of-touch." Because I read too many fashion blogs, I'm aware of who these sisters are, that they look much more 'normal' (read, non-emaciated) than most women in the industry, and wear jeans and not terribly cutting-edge sneakers, so I suppose compared with an Anna Wintour, a Karl Lagerfeld, the phrase "out-of-touch" wouldn't come to mind. But anyone responsible for clothing in this price range is part of the problem, if we are defining down-payment-on-house-priced clothing as a problem.
We are thus once again being confronted with the "slow fashion" argument. Hand-crafted, artisinal, quality, Investment Piece, blah blah, who cares that most of the clothing women actually wear-for-years is from places like Target. Kawalek writes of how the designers' regular line "practically howled with the sadness of environmental degradation, while at the same time inspired a poetic but equally practical mend-and-make-do approach to self-fashioning." Yes, because the solution for The Environment is to make clothing that costs $12,000, so that no one can afford it, so that no clothing - worn-to-shreds or otherwise - ends up in landfills, because there's no clothing left. As in, of course, it must be better to carry your great-grandmother's Hermes purse than a tote bag or backpack - perhaps if my own ancestors had carried purses and not pushcarts, I'd do the same.
OK, I realize the above is as populist as I've ever sounded, ever. My point, though, is not about Real Women who Wear Target, but about, once again, the nonsense that is pretending that there is Quality clothing, which is worn for years, and on the other hand, disposable junk. $40 clothing is only disposable junk if for you, the default is $4,000.
The article itself is a bit confusing - the author announces that she just returned from China, and implies that the Target line was made there, but never says this outright, so for all we know it's not. But it has to be from China, and the result of poor labor conditions, for the argument to make sense. She calls the Target line's garments "Rodarte for Target clothes are commodities" - what, then, are the clothes from the pricier line?
And, um: "Rodarte is synonymous with craft, which means $3,000 to $12,000 price tags, but nobody calls the Mulleavy's elitist or out-of-touch." Because I read too many fashion blogs, I'm aware of who these sisters are, that they look much more 'normal' (read, non-emaciated) than most women in the industry, and wear jeans and not terribly cutting-edge sneakers, so I suppose compared with an Anna Wintour, a Karl Lagerfeld, the phrase "out-of-touch" wouldn't come to mind. But anyone responsible for clothing in this price range is part of the problem, if we are defining down-payment-on-house-priced clothing as a problem.
We are thus once again being confronted with the "slow fashion" argument. Hand-crafted, artisinal, quality, Investment Piece, blah blah, who cares that most of the clothing women actually wear-for-years is from places like Target. Kawalek writes of how the designers' regular line "practically howled with the sadness of environmental degradation, while at the same time inspired a poetic but equally practical mend-and-make-do approach to self-fashioning." Yes, because the solution for The Environment is to make clothing that costs $12,000, so that no one can afford it, so that no clothing - worn-to-shreds or otherwise - ends up in landfills, because there's no clothing left. As in, of course, it must be better to carry your great-grandmother's Hermes purse than a tote bag or backpack - perhaps if my own ancestors had carried purses and not pushcarts, I'd do the same.
OK, I realize the above is as populist as I've ever sounded, ever. My point, though, is not about Real Women who Wear Target, but about, once again, the nonsense that is pretending that there is Quality clothing, which is worn for years, and on the other hand, disposable junk. $40 clothing is only disposable junk if for you, the default is $4,000.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Slow Fashion
Why is it that even when they have a point, the various slow-things-down movements - Slow Food, slow art-appreciation, anything else asking us to unplug and return to a simpler time, a slower time - are so very irritating? Is it because we're all in a race of one kind or another, and those telling us to slow down are doing so so that they can get ahead? Is it because pro-slow can mean anti-cosmopolitan which can mean xenophobic?
Or maybe it's because well-meaning attempts to get us to stop being such wasteful Westerners sometimes manifest themselves as pseudo-environmentalist, pseudo-pro-labor arguments for choosing Chanel over H&M, from someone clearly more concerned with helping people not wear what everyone else does to the ball than with landfills. (Via.) The blogger situates himself in a branch of frugality that eschews the obviously correct answer - buy cheap stuff and not much of it - in favor of the more fun-sounding 'buy expensive stuff but not much of it', praise the gods of Quality and I Will Wear This For Years, and feel both smug and thrifty.
Anyway, agreed that the less we spend on clothes, the more disposable we consider them. But! For whom, outside the fashion-and-socialite industry, are 'cheap' clothes that disposable? (And is donation of still-intact used clothes no longer socially acceptable?) For whom, outside these rare exceptions, does the fact that a skirt costs $40 mean huzzah, time to buy a new one every week? No doubt, if I owned a $4,000 dress, I'd take ridiculously good care of it, and could perhaps mimic Golden Age sartorial behavior, wearing just one set of clothes per season, thus saving The Workers and The Environment. But I'm rather fond of my $30 corduroys from Uniqlo, my $17 dress from H&M; for me - and I'm not claiming poverty here - these were monetarily-significant purchases. Designer clothes would mean inability to pay rent; the clothes I own and wear are not "fast fashion", purchased and tossed without a second's thought, but just... clothes. My 'cheap' clothes must be awfully well-made, because they have a tendency to last for years.
Or maybe it's because well-meaning attempts to get us to stop being such wasteful Westerners sometimes manifest themselves as pseudo-environmentalist, pseudo-pro-labor arguments for choosing Chanel over H&M, from someone clearly more concerned with helping people not wear what everyone else does to the ball than with landfills. (Via.) The blogger situates himself in a branch of frugality that eschews the obviously correct answer - buy cheap stuff and not much of it - in favor of the more fun-sounding 'buy expensive stuff but not much of it', praise the gods of Quality and I Will Wear This For Years, and feel both smug and thrifty.
Anyway, agreed that the less we spend on clothes, the more disposable we consider them. But! For whom, outside the fashion-and-socialite industry, are 'cheap' clothes that disposable? (And is donation of still-intact used clothes no longer socially acceptable?) For whom, outside these rare exceptions, does the fact that a skirt costs $40 mean huzzah, time to buy a new one every week? No doubt, if I owned a $4,000 dress, I'd take ridiculously good care of it, and could perhaps mimic Golden Age sartorial behavior, wearing just one set of clothes per season, thus saving The Workers and The Environment. But I'm rather fond of my $30 corduroys from Uniqlo, my $17 dress from H&M; for me - and I'm not claiming poverty here - these were monetarily-significant purchases. Designer clothes would mean inability to pay rent; the clothes I own and wear are not "fast fashion", purchased and tossed without a second's thought, but just... clothes. My 'cheap' clothes must be awfully well-made, because they have a tendency to last for years.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Report on DIY dry-cleaning
In the comments of a previous post, I lamented the hidden costs of wool and cashmere sweaters buried in the maintenance problem. You can buy 'em for cheap, but then you have to dry-clean when they're dirty, which, within a couple of years, means about a 500% mark-up on the retail price. In response, one of the commenters helpfully directed my attention to DIY dry-cleaning.
This is not dry-cleaning per se, since it is largely based on soaking the sweaters in water and seems like it wouldn't do much for stains, but my sweaters weren't stained so much as just sweaty, so I figured this method was worth a shot. So I bought a mini bottle of baby shampoo, squeezed some into a huge salad bowl (my sink is too gross for any cleaning to conceivably take place in it), filled it with water, and let my sweaters stew in it like marinating steaks for an hour. Then I toweled them per these instructions, and although drying had to take place on a different towel and took somewhat longer than might be hoped given that my apartment is not only dirty but also freezing, the results look good. The sweaters retained their shape just fine, and no longer smell overworn. Total cost: $2.19, for the baby shampoo. Cheapness success!
My roommate did think this was weird though, so maybe this is one of those thrift achievements not worth bragging about socially.
This is not dry-cleaning per se, since it is largely based on soaking the sweaters in water and seems like it wouldn't do much for stains, but my sweaters weren't stained so much as just sweaty, so I figured this method was worth a shot. So I bought a mini bottle of baby shampoo, squeezed some into a huge salad bowl (my sink is too gross for any cleaning to conceivably take place in it), filled it with water, and let my sweaters stew in it like marinating steaks for an hour. Then I toweled them per these instructions, and although drying had to take place on a different towel and took somewhat longer than might be hoped given that my apartment is not only dirty but also freezing, the results look good. The sweaters retained their shape just fine, and no longer smell overworn. Total cost: $2.19, for the baby shampoo. Cheapness success!
My roommate did think this was weird though, so maybe this is one of those thrift achievements not worth bragging about socially.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Cheapness tip: do not wear clothes as intended
All attempts to dress like an adult - a chic one at that - are rendered futile by certain shopping habits I can't seem to overcome. These are as follows:
1) Not shopping: I will look around a store, perhaps even try some things on, decide I really shouldn't buy anything, and leave empty-handed. This is probably a good thing overall, but explains those cotton tank tops from 2003 that I still think of as among my better clothes.
2) The kids' section: Yesterday my friend Nick and I went, among other more notable places, to the Gap. Before even looking at the women's stuff, I'd already tried - and ultimately rejected - both this girls' sweater and this boys' jacket. While I'm small enough for some kids' clothes, I'm not shall we say built for them, but this fact has not stopped me in the past. When choosing between one item meant for someone with curves, and an ill-fitting version $10 cheaper...
3) The underwear section: Why buy a dress when a nightgown will do? (Note: I am probably a foot and a half shorter than that model, so the thing is far less scandalous than it might appear.)
4) Refusal to wear garments as intended: It's my belief that if a shirt is long enough, it's a dress. Shirts are cheaper than dresses! Who are marketers to tell me how to wear this or that stretch of cotton-blend sewn together in Indonesia? What I fail to take into account is that shirts, with some exceptions, are quite clearly shirts, and that the ones that look like dresses in the store (and by 'the store' I mean H&M, where shirts-that-can-be-dresses now go for $7.95) are one round in the dryer away from being shirts. And it's not as if I need any new shirts, what with all the shirt-successes of 2003.
5) Self-declared retro revivals: I will find something from years ago that is not what they call a 'timeless piece' and think, 'I haven't worn that in a while,' and all of a sudden, the studded belt I adored when I got it senior year of high school has made its triumphant return.
These factors, and I'm sure others, prevent me from achieving the heights of glamor that would otherwise be mine. Till then, I've gotten a non-studded belt (70%-off at agnes b.! the upside of the recession forcing beautiful-clothes shops to close branches) to 'accessorize' the Gap nightgown and the H&M sort-of-dress t-shirt. Surely this will make all the difference in the world.
1) Not shopping: I will look around a store, perhaps even try some things on, decide I really shouldn't buy anything, and leave empty-handed. This is probably a good thing overall, but explains those cotton tank tops from 2003 that I still think of as among my better clothes.
2) The kids' section: Yesterday my friend Nick and I went, among other more notable places, to the Gap. Before even looking at the women's stuff, I'd already tried - and ultimately rejected - both this girls' sweater and this boys' jacket. While I'm small enough for some kids' clothes, I'm not shall we say built for them, but this fact has not stopped me in the past. When choosing between one item meant for someone with curves, and an ill-fitting version $10 cheaper...
3) The underwear section: Why buy a dress when a nightgown will do? (Note: I am probably a foot and a half shorter than that model, so the thing is far less scandalous than it might appear.)
4) Refusal to wear garments as intended: It's my belief that if a shirt is long enough, it's a dress. Shirts are cheaper than dresses! Who are marketers to tell me how to wear this or that stretch of cotton-blend sewn together in Indonesia? What I fail to take into account is that shirts, with some exceptions, are quite clearly shirts, and that the ones that look like dresses in the store (and by 'the store' I mean H&M, where shirts-that-can-be-dresses now go for $7.95) are one round in the dryer away from being shirts. And it's not as if I need any new shirts, what with all the shirt-successes of 2003.
5) Self-declared retro revivals: I will find something from years ago that is not what they call a 'timeless piece' and think, 'I haven't worn that in a while,' and all of a sudden, the studded belt I adored when I got it senior year of high school has made its triumphant return.
These factors, and I'm sure others, prevent me from achieving the heights of glamor that would otherwise be mine. Till then, I've gotten a non-studded belt (70%-off at agnes b.! the upside of the recession forcing beautiful-clothes shops to close branches) to 'accessorize' the Gap nightgown and the H&M sort-of-dress t-shirt. Surely this will make all the difference in the world.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Waist size, price tag
In the wise words of Miss Self-Important, on the eternal question of why women who write (sometimes) about clothes are taken less seriously than men who write (sometimes) about sports:
As far as I can tell, Megan McArdle is no less serious a blogger (insofar as one can be a serious blogger) than, say, Ezra Klein, who blogs on many of the same topics. But most people do not speculate about what size his pants are and whether he can get a date in his comments section.
And, more to the point:
Fashion is closely tied to bodies and love lives, and all the other subjects that are inappropriate for public discussion. Blogging about fashion usually means blogging about your fashion--it indirectly reveals things about your body, your income, your friends--in sum, your private life. And when the snipers come out, it makes some sense that they'll take aim not at the shoes, but at you, since you have armed them with all the relevant information and personal insults hurt more.
True, true. This explanation helped me understand why, though on my home blog I upfront call myself a Zionist, the greatest fury my online writings have ever provoked have been times I've written what I thought were innocuous posts about clothes. Even writing about clothing in general, your words will, fairly or unfairly, be read as statements about your own shopping habits and proportions.
One response would be to directly reveal all of this. Which is precisely what Virginia Postrel, the writer most cited as the 'exception' woman who can write about clothes and still be seen as serious, does in the lede of her 2007 story on jeans and vanity sizing: "As a teenager, I squeezed into size-12 jeans. Over the past three decades, I’ve put on about 20 pounds, mostly below the waist. I now wear a size 6."
Once that's out there (and self-deprecatingly so - imagine the fury if she'd opened with, 'I'm a size six, and finding jeans is so hard'), the speculation can end. We know the author's size, as well as her weight history, allowing us to move onto the more universal question of sizing generally.
But, as always, money complicates things. The only time Postrel mentions cost is to point out that custom-fit jeans are, at $900, "pricey." No one would disagree there; the danger is in making any sort of statement about what a pair should cost. (As I learned after mentioning my joy at finding a flattering $30 pair, only to learn that $15 was the socially-acceptable limit.)
So, questions, for my co-bloggers and others:
-Is it possible to talk about cheapness and clothes without inviting comments on our imagined incomes or sizes? Is there a proper way to deflect these, other than, 'No, you may not have the code to my bank account, nor my size at H&M.' I know that it's possible to blog about clothing without blogging about your own clothing (far more interesting is to blog about Zana Bayne's clothing), is it always really about you, in a way that other topics are not?
-Are size and income always off-limits? Obviously complaining about how the Chanel boutique is out of the dress you want in a size zero will get you as much understanding as confessing to being a Williamsburg hipster whose parents pay for her loft, but I'm not, of course, referring to extreme cases. This being a cheapness blog, the cost of clothes relative to funds already has come up, and surely will once more. And for all I know, my major complaint about clothing - that jeans These Days are cut to show the top of the underwear or worse, is in fact a statement about my size, and women with some other build (smaller? bigger? differently-proportioned?) don't experience this.
-Gender! Obviously. The relationship between cheapness and clothes relates at least as much to gender as it does to class. Female spending is more conspicuous because we often wear our most frivolous purchases. (I'm wearing the offending not-quite-$30 jeans right now.) But must every mention of clothes, by a woman, be accompanied by a discussion of the nonsense men also purchase, or can that just be assumed?
As far as I can tell, Megan McArdle is no less serious a blogger (insofar as one can be a serious blogger) than, say, Ezra Klein, who blogs on many of the same topics. But most people do not speculate about what size his pants are and whether he can get a date in his comments section.
And, more to the point:
Fashion is closely tied to bodies and love lives, and all the other subjects that are inappropriate for public discussion. Blogging about fashion usually means blogging about your fashion--it indirectly reveals things about your body, your income, your friends--in sum, your private life. And when the snipers come out, it makes some sense that they'll take aim not at the shoes, but at you, since you have armed them with all the relevant information and personal insults hurt more.
True, true. This explanation helped me understand why, though on my home blog I upfront call myself a Zionist, the greatest fury my online writings have ever provoked have been times I've written what I thought were innocuous posts about clothes. Even writing about clothing in general, your words will, fairly or unfairly, be read as statements about your own shopping habits and proportions.
One response would be to directly reveal all of this. Which is precisely what Virginia Postrel, the writer most cited as the 'exception' woman who can write about clothes and still be seen as serious, does in the lede of her 2007 story on jeans and vanity sizing: "As a teenager, I squeezed into size-12 jeans. Over the past three decades, I’ve put on about 20 pounds, mostly below the waist. I now wear a size 6."
Once that's out there (and self-deprecatingly so - imagine the fury if she'd opened with, 'I'm a size six, and finding jeans is so hard'), the speculation can end. We know the author's size, as well as her weight history, allowing us to move onto the more universal question of sizing generally.
But, as always, money complicates things. The only time Postrel mentions cost is to point out that custom-fit jeans are, at $900, "pricey." No one would disagree there; the danger is in making any sort of statement about what a pair should cost. (As I learned after mentioning my joy at finding a flattering $30 pair, only to learn that $15 was the socially-acceptable limit.)
So, questions, for my co-bloggers and others:
-Is it possible to talk about cheapness and clothes without inviting comments on our imagined incomes or sizes? Is there a proper way to deflect these, other than, 'No, you may not have the code to my bank account, nor my size at H&M.' I know that it's possible to blog about clothing without blogging about your own clothing (far more interesting is to blog about Zana Bayne's clothing), is it always really about you, in a way that other topics are not?
-Are size and income always off-limits? Obviously complaining about how the Chanel boutique is out of the dress you want in a size zero will get you as much understanding as confessing to being a Williamsburg hipster whose parents pay for her loft, but I'm not, of course, referring to extreme cases. This being a cheapness blog, the cost of clothes relative to funds already has come up, and surely will once more. And for all I know, my major complaint about clothing - that jeans These Days are cut to show the top of the underwear or worse, is in fact a statement about my size, and women with some other build (smaller? bigger? differently-proportioned?) don't experience this.
-Gender! Obviously. The relationship between cheapness and clothes relates at least as much to gender as it does to class. Female spending is more conspicuous because we often wear our most frivolous purchases. (I'm wearing the offending not-quite-$30 jeans right now.) But must every mention of clothes, by a woman, be accompanied by a discussion of the nonsense men also purchase, or can that just be assumed?
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