Dollars and Nonsense
It's much more fun to spend money on a Sacai top than a laptop, right? It's the ultimate apples-to-oranges comparison, but we make it all the time.
I need a new computer, so I’m browsing the Apple website and grumbling to myself about having to spend money on something so utilitarian. The prospect of having to drop $2000 is annoying me to no end. Leaving the Apple tab open, I wander over to Farfetch, and start eyeballing a paneled denim top by Sacai that would set me back $1224, plus taxes. Pricey, but so cool. Back to the Apple tab. Back to Farfetch. Thus, I while away my afternoon.
Prices are such a strange, elastic thing. When you consider how much I use my computer, how essential it is, how it is the only tool I actually need for my job, how it is the portal through which I can access the wonders of the universe, the full measure of human knowledge, and also make a living, the $2000 price tag is absurdly low. If you measured my minutes of computer use per dollar, you would be slicing pennies into microns. For that matter, the price of computers has actually gone down since they came on the market. If I recall correctly, my very first computer, an Epson, cost me (actually, my mother) more than $4000, and it was clunky and slow compared to what costs a third of that now.
Clothing, though, seems to be costing us more and more without offering any proof that it is worth it or that the price increase reflects some fundamental improvement in the product. I can recall every clothing price barrier I’ve broken with a huge wince, and each time I vowed that this was the one and only time I would spend THAT kind of money on THAT sort of thing. But a barrier broken swings in the wind, its shattered pickets rattling, waiting for you to pass through again, this time without wincing. I remember the first time I paid hundreds of dollars for a pair of pants; the first time I spent four figures on a pair of boots. For what it’s worth, I have worn the boots so often that I’ve had them resoled three times, so that renegade moment paid off. Other times I broke through price-wise and the item languished—well, let’s not think about it.
When I first got married, in 1982, I yearned to have a wedding dress from Priscilla’s of Boston, which was the preeminent wedding dress shop at the time. I found a lovely georgette-and-taffeta number there that cost around $800. That was on the low end for Priscilla, back then. My father, who grew up in the Depression, was outraged by the price and at first refused to pay such an unthinkable amount for a wedding gown. He reasoned, quite correctly, that the dress would be worn once and then sit boxed in a closet, no matter what nonsense you might spout about how you could dye it and use it for fancy parties, blah blah blah. Has anyone ever worn their wedding gown again? I finally prevailed in the Priscilla debate, but I have to admit my father’s argument was spot on. Moreover, the marriage didn’t last, so even the trophy of the pretty gown in the special storage box became a white elephant—too loaded with memories to give to Goodwill, too pointless and unpleasant to keep. I honestly don’t know where it is now.
If he were still alive, my father would have a big laugh over the fact that a gown that looks a lot like my Priscilla gown—this Vivienne Westwood silk item—costs $16,770. (Dad, I saved you 15,970 bucks!) Someone will probably get exactly as much use out of it as I did out of mine. Still, the math of our various acquisitions remains weird and relative and confusing. If I wear jeans every day, spending tons of money on a pair of them is amortized over those many wearings, and yet spending a fortune on jeans seems so wrong: After all, they’re just jeans, an item that is inherently inexpensive, workmanlike. And yet, doesn’t it make sense to get the very best version of the thing you wear all the time? Does it make more sense to spend $16,770 on a wedding gown you will wear once?
The problem is, it’s not a math problem or a logic problem: It is the slippery nature of what money means and what is a good “value” and what splurges seem reasonable versus those that seem completely insane. I wobble on this subject all the time, never settling on a posture that makes sense because a lot of what we humans do isn’t about making sense. I resisted that Sacai top (too special, too specific, and oddly too much like things I already own, as I am a Sacai partisan) and then decided to go to the Apple store and buy my computer in person, thinking perhaps it would feel a little more rewarding than just having it arrive in the mail. A nice Apple man persuaded me that I was wasting money on the $2000 version of the Macbook and that I would be well served by a more modest $1400 Mac Air, so in my special version of economics, I made $600. I came home feeling like a million bucks.
Show Notes!
—Apropos of nothing I’ve written above, a movie based on a story I wrote seventeen years ago is at last about to be out in the world! It’s called LITTLE WING (this is the link to the trailer), and it stars Brian Cox, Kelly Reilly, and Brooklynn Prince. It’s a coming-of-age story about a young girl who raises homing pigeons. I’m very excited, and the movie is wonderful.
—I’m listening to the audiobook of Carpenteria by Alexis Wright, an Indigenous novelist from Australia. It’s really, really good.
—The Marfa Stance trunk show was too much fun, and resulted in me ordering a jacket. Every single thing in the show was gorgeous. Now I hope the weather stays chilly and gray here in Southern California so I can start amortizing the cost per wear immediately…
—Thank you all so much for joining me here! I am still getting the hang of Substack but I’m really loving the freedom of writing in this format and having more of a connection to readers. I am really grateful for your enthusiasm.
nothing profound to say here other than i'm loving reading this newsletter. It's always such a pleasant few minutes in my day.
I think the $ spent on something cool translates into a feeling if fabulousness when out and about, even if the item is nondescript…. I calculate value in terms of visits to the shrink at $300+ a pop. Nice jeans and a shrink visit are more or less at parity and both give good value for the money.