How and why do people who aren’t actually well off pay for this stuff?

Yes, it could be that. They could all be loaded. Or they could have an income commensurate with the area they live in and just make different choices about tgeir spending, which seems more likely but as you say. I could be wrong.

With your higher income, you can realistically save for a house deposit, or other genuinely high value items.
You can look at investing in yourself by taking expensive courses which will increase your employability or earning potential.
You probably have a decent credit record and access to funds most genuinely poor people can never dream of achieving.

When you are on a very low income, the things you can aspire to are items you might not value like a pair of trainers, because you as a higher earner can aim for things that they can never afford.

What would be the point of saving for years to get that much and have all the hassle of monthly proving how much you have in savings, with the threat that if you spend enough to drop below that amount of savings you can be accused of intentionally depriving yourself of capital in order to claim benefits when it's still never going to be enough to use as a deposit on a one bedroomed flat?

Aspiration for lower earners stuck in the poverty trap is punished in the UK unless you have the money/earning potential to blast past that £16,000 point, and the punishment begins at £6,000 when you start losing Universal credit so why struggle to even get that far so it can become harder?

Benefits are set up in this country to stop people being able to get away from them easily.

Most cannot even get to the point of saving £6,000 but they all know that they will lose help if they get that far.

Why not buy a pair of trainers today to make you feel good when you will never save enough in your whole life to pay what some people spend on a big holiday?
Why not get that car on finance when they couldn't afford the repairs on a cheaper car if it broke and they need a car for work?

When saving is punished, spending seems more reasonable and nobody chooses misery over happiness, however fleeting the happiness may be.

It's a way of buying status when you can't aquire it any other way.

Humans, innit.

And cheap clothes from supermarkets are a false economy anyway - IME they tend to get holes or rips or wear down much faster than better made brands

I think it is only on MN that people get too involved into what other people spend their money on.
Most people do not care.

Assuming people who live in cheaper houses have “less” than you and allowing yourself a “smile” at the fact is a bit smug.

My DH works with a lot of guys who have worked their way up doing manual labour jobs and now run their own companies. Many still live in cheaper areas, because that’s where they grew up and their friends and relatives are still there.

They could easily afford a big house without a mortgage, but choose to spend on other things. In fact now I think about it most of them have their mortgage free properties in spain. Giving them the best of both worlds.

I like your style!

If I told you what I spend on mascara you’d have a conniption. I buy it because I think it’s the best and I like it. Boots No 7 doesn’t cut it for me.

Why would I buy cheap nail polish when the expensive stuff works so much better? No one is going to know I'm wearing Holo Taco/Orly/ILNP instead of Barry M or Rimmel unless I tell them, but I know (and I don't stop talking about them if anyone stays still long enough to listen to me.)

You probably spend your money on things I find frivolous and wasteful too, horses for courses,

It’s so easy to get discount items in sales or from Vinted, eBay, etc. that look as good as new. But yeah I agree with pps about brand as status - something they can control even if they’re struggling in other ways.

posters who are “doing well” often want to hear it’s because they’re in debt, it’s bought on credit cards or stolen.

the truth is people prioritise different things and if you’ve no chance of owning a 5 bed detached house why not spend on fancy clothes or car repayments.

Fakes, discounted or in some areas near me, stolen to order. People use Klarna and the like too to pay off monthly, I did this with my sofa. Even on a low income people can save up monthly to buy expensive things for Christmas, birthdays. Or have them gifted by richer members of their family.

Or they steal it! 😂

It's the working class equivalent of a massive central London mortgage and an Audi SUV on finance. People on high incomes don't always make sensible financial decisions either 😂

This might be bit long! I'm not the PP you quoted, but a retired marketing (and ongoing fashion) obsessive.

Any social bonding value in jeans from Tu is about money not spent. If you're interested in fashion, you'll be familiar with the mutual delight in finding the unicorn barrel-cut jeans at only £20, when they're as well-made as a £200 pair.(FWIW, Sainsbury's sold out of those within days and replaced them with a similar-looking but inferior product).

This depends on a detailed knowledge of what £200 jeans are like, and on having made bargain-hunting part of your identity.

There's a strong qualitative difference between bargain-hunting because it makes you feel clever and being forced to hunt bargains on everything, always, because you're skint. I've been in both circumstances and, while the 'choice bargain' lifestyle provided an excellent background for the 'compelled bargain' situation, the latter quickly got wearying. There's little joy in shopping the yellow stickers because you can't afford a free choice.

Sticking with food for a minute, what did I buy when I had an unexpected £20 to spend? Avocadoes and £7 bread flour instead of the £3 flour? No. I bought a single, large, T-bone steak. Every time. I could more wisely have bought a roasting joint, which would've lasted for days with the same nutritional value. But a big steak is my 'thing'. It makes me feel more human, more worthwhile, and as if I damn well deserved a chunk of prime-cut cow.

Being entirely rational, all of the time, is joyless.

So back to the branded sports clothing. Labels afford a bonding experience, we know that. Look at the handbag discussions on S&B. A professionally-built brand isn't just a name on a manufactured item, it's a whole microcosm of values. Anyone who knows the brand also knows these values, identifies with them, and identifies similarly with others who share that microcosm. It matters quite a lot, especially to young people who are still finding their tribe.

I'm totally ignorant of the specific values communicated by sportswear brands, so I'll let @WanderingStar26 get on with that part!

not sure why observing that different people have different priorities in terms of their spending makes me smug but ok.

Your smugness is not becoming.

Oh so it's ok for you in your top earner bracket but the peasants can't have nice things.
I was a sp when my dc were younger and my youngest only wanted "the best" same as his pals. You know what I had to do? Work bloody hard to pay for them as I didn't want him to feel less -than, his 2 parent peers

It doesn’t sound like that at all.

Fair chance a lot of it is debt or they work a second job to pay for luxuries. Comparison is the thief of joy

My son has some essentials joggers - they were £15-20 in TK Max. He didn’t know who they were but liked the and was shocked when he googled their full price.

Ah Mumsnet.
OP: How can people afford these expensive things?
Poster 1: Some people earn more money than you. HTH.
OP: But I know these people don't have much.
Poster 2: You just don't want poor people to have nice things.
OP regrets she ever asked.

We are objectively quite wealthy and I have quite a high income (I earn about 150k and my OH used to earn more but he’s quit work to spend time with the kids). We have bought loads of kids stuff second hand and always makes me smile that when we go and collect these things (that we’ve bought on market place) from people who have bought them new and yet their houses are worth a fraction of what ours is worth. They’ve always got much newer cars than us too 🤷‍♀️

Different strokes for different folks as they say.

This.

A few years ago we moved about 5 miles, from a deprived area to a reasonably weathy one. There were far more £50k cars parked on the street where we used to live.