Money for nothing
Gillian Scott
IMAGINE sitting down to breakfast tomorrow morning to find a cheque for £3,000 in the post, with a note telling you to spend it all on yourself. Prudent folk would use it to pay off the overdraft, or a little more of the mortgage. Most of us would probably nip down to Oxford Street and blow a couple of hundred, then save the rest for a holiday. But there is a third group of people with a curious and insatiable appetite who, despite their debts, would see nothing odd about swapping the whole wad for one designer wallet.
I have just spent several years surrounded by people from this third group, and have emerged both wiser and poorer. Like everybody else in the late Nineties, I saw the virtual career as a fast track to fantastic wealth and prestige. Luxury items in particular seemed to be a fair bet within e-commerce, so I joined an online company in New York which sold them. I was prepared for the statutory requirements of working for a start-up: 12to 14-hour days; breakfast, lunch, dinner in the office; seven-day working week. What I wasn't prepared for was the obsessive world of the label whore.
Our business was to sell luxury accessories from a number of renowned international designers. There was an exotic range of 'indispensable' items to be had: shantung silk pashminas, Tasmanian wool throws, crocodile-skin belts, and fine whitegold jewellery featuring rare stones. There was almost as much for men as for women: ranges of fine silk brocade ties, pigskin belts (better in Italian: cinghiale), designer shades and classic leather wallets. Our designer umbrella (£50) was a bestseller, as were top-of-the-range handbags (£3,000); Wedgwood `tea-cup' ceramic cufflinks (£150); a chronograph steel watch (£3,300); and a 'must-have' (said the designer's press release) patchwork ostrich-leather clutch, which could (and should) be complemented with a matching wallet (£200) and keyholder (£100).
Being in the trade meant that I mixed with people who had personal shoppers at the likes of Bergdorf Goodman or Saks. Everyone who is anyone had identical ponyhair clutches, and probably the same dress, shoes, hairdresser and manicurist. There were elaborate and unbreakable rules about what could be worn by whom, which could only be learnt by humiliating trial and error. I remember eavesdropping on a conversation between three Virgin Suicides -esque blondes at an Art-for-Charity party. A striking woman — with a remarkable resemblance to Bianca Jagger — walked into the room, superbly dressed head-to-toe in haute couture. As the blondes checked her out, one of them whispered, 'Would you wear Jimmy Choo shoes with that outfit at her age?' She was about 35.
But the value of an object or item of clothing in these circles is, of course, dependent on the hype. Nothing is 'worth' anything until the designer's name has in some mysterious way been deemed desirable. The fuss about the latest and most absurd luxury item I have encountered — a new mobile phone called 'Vertu' — has already begun, several months before it can be bought. The phone comes in gold or platinum, has a scratch-resistant sapphire crystal face, ruby bearings and embedded diamonds. Only they don't call it a phone. To the Nokia marketing team, it is an 'instrument for personal communication': which is impressive only in being so profoundly irritating on so many different levels.
Marketing luxury goods is about conveying a sense that this little bit of metal or leather is both tremendously significant in some non-specific way, and somehow not available for just everyone to buy. The press release for Vertu claims: To invest in Vertu is to invest in a longterm relationship, and clients will experience a unique class of service. When acquiring Vertu, you join an exclusive community of people around the world that may take advantage of the Vertu Concierge.
The easiest way to ensure exclusivity, is of course, to jack up the price. Vertu costs $38,914.
In spite of the obvious silliness of beggaring yourself for a bit of tat, it is a very addictive game to play. Extensive research had been commissioned to gauge our 'target' consumers in the USA. As time rolled on, it became clear that there were three groups who were actually buying from our website: affluent New Yorkers, Texan women and, well, us — the company's employees.
Once sales reports were distributed, it was clear that there was a raging market on the 15th floor of an innocuous towerblock on Park Avenue. It got to us all in the end. Just imagine attending a company-wide meeting decked out only in Gap's best and jewellery from Accessorize! Perish the thought. There was a little skulduggery behind the scenes too. It became clear that as sample sales loomed certain key items were being hidden and purchased on the sly: Earl jeans sans belt one day, diamante-studded waist the next. This provoked outrage and animosity between the merchandising department and everyone else.
Getting the label bug is a serious problem. One of my colleagues had taken a 50 per cent pay-cut to come and work for a luxury retailer and spent the remaining 50 per cent on a new bag every week. I remember her first evangelical attempt to convert me over lunch, at a time when I was still uncorrupted. She was horrified to discover that I thought M&S underwear was the best and had no idea of the protocol of when it is 'right' to wear slingbacks and when you deserved to be thrown out of a party for doing so. But by the time [left the company I was hooked. So what if I couldn't cover my rent: I just had to have that scarf.
Thankfully, a few months down the line and in a sane environment once more, the desire to bankrupt myself over designer keyrings has waned. During a stint in Central America, I saw the wickedness of my ways and the height of luxury to me once again became Sunday in bed, preferably with a lover, magazines, papers spread around, and, of course, Dinah Washington. Recently I met the evangelical label whore to catch up on gossip. In a coffee shop on Union Square, she sat in ochre-tinted glasses, head to toe in black. As she saw me, dressed in khaki shorts and flip-flops, she dropped her shades and rolled her eyes. I'd proved to be Mission Impossible.
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