Conspicuous Consumption

Sarah Lazarovic

I am a compulsive shopper, with the embarrassing credit card debt to show for it. 

Conspicuous consumption is the spending of money for and the acquiring of luxury goods and services to publicly display economic power—either the buyer’s income or the buyer’s accumulated wealth. Sociologically, to the conspicuous consumer, such a public display of discretionary economic power is a means either of attaining or of maintaining a given social status. Thorstein Veblen, a sociologist and economist, first wrote about the idea in the nineteenth-century. With the growth of the leisure class, the acquisition and display of material goods that are not actually necessary to life became a way to flaunt one's class status. 

Growing up as a fat girl, I constantly struggled to find anything to wear, not to mention finding anything cute. Getting dressed for church, when I had to wear nice clothes, always resulted in tears because of how uncomfortable I felt about my body. Not because of anything my family said to me, but  because of the larger culture. Though I wasn't conscious of it at the time, I believe that part of the motivation for my decade of butch presentation was that it was (slightly) easier to find clothes, and I was able to hide my body under baggy clothes and layers. After my divorce, I started exploring the femme side of my identity, and accepting that side to myself that I had previously felt ashamed of. I started reading fashion blogs and discovered the world of fatshion blogging. There are so many amazing bloggers out there of all sizes, and through them I discovered a whole world of online plus-size retailers. At this point, just starting out, I didn't have a single dress, and I had a legitimate need for new clothes, having gotten rid of most of my wardrobe when I moved to a new town to start my PhD. I started buying clothes compulsively. Everything I saw on another blogger's site, I had to have for myself. I started blogging my own outfits, and that fed my desire to always have a new outfit to wear. There is so much pressure in the fashion blogging world to never repeat an outfit, which is ridiculous since few people have the funds to buy a new outfit every day. 

I kept buying and buying in order to blog about my outfits. I feel like there are some really wonderful things about the fatshion blogging community--I've never had many fat positive friends, so the community I found online was invaluable, but the subtle "outfit Olympics" across the blogosphere rarely makes room for considerations of class. I went from hardly ever shopping for clothing to buying something literally every day. I felt so much pressure to prove my femmeness through external signification. When Beth Ditto came out with a mini collection at Evans UK, I had to buy up all the pieces I could. I had this starvation economy mentality that caused me to collect and hoard clothes because of my years of never finding clothes that fit. 

So much of femme identity seems, deceptively, about external appearance, even though most of us believe that femme is more than skin deep. No matter what I'm wearing, I'm femme. I'm trying hard to learn that now, as well as combatting stereotypes about what a queer person should look like, and fighting femmephobia. 

Sarah Lazorovic painted a picture of everything she didn't buy for a year and wrote this brief piece on consumption. She writes about the trouble of instant gratification the internet offers. I would see a blogger with a skinny red belt, and I would google away and find a similar skinny red belt. By the time it arrived, I'd already forgotten about it. I'm ashamed to admit that my den/closet (my den is supposed to be the main bedroom, but I wanted a larger office than bedroom, so my large closet is in my den) quickly filled up with packages I avoided even opening because I felt so much shame and embarrassment over my conspicuous consumption. I bought indiscriminately because I had no idea what my style was, after so long presenting as butch. I bought whatever I saw other people wear, and looking back at outfits (even outfits from last year posted on this blog), I shake my head at myself. At the same time, I understand where this scarcity mentality comes from. Not just from the dearth of clothing options in my size for most of my life, but also the fact that I have, on several occasions, lost all my clothes, once in a fire, and twice in floods. This causes me to hoard and accumulate when I can, for fear of losing it all again.

I feel this pressure toward overconsumption especially in academia, where expensive suits are expected on the job market, and my size has changed a lot in the last few years because of various medications I'm on that yo-yo my weight and size. It's hard to invest in good pieces when your size changes the next year and you have to buy a new blazer. I'm not sure if I'm trying to live up to my more fashionable colleagues (which is difficult when their favorite stores don't stock clothes in my size), or combat the stereotype of the slovenly academic, but it feels to me like there is a lot of pressure to measure up in my personal appearance in the classroom.

Now that I have a better sense of my own style--what I like to wear and what makes me feel good--this year, I am hoping to combat my overconsumption by 1) selling and donating items that I no longer wear for whatever reason, 2) remixing my wardrobe and getting more use out of the clothes I already have, 3) making a list of clothing items I think I want and waiting to buy them unless I actually find a need for them (which will almost always mean not buying them), and 4) accessorizing 

How do you combat the pressure to (over)consume on a small budget and the drive to "prove" yourself as a femme and/or fashionista?