What makes someone look rich / wealthy?

[cococovido]

Piggy backing onto the LV bag thread - so many responses saying you can tell if the bag is fake / real depending on the persons hair and general look.

I've really noticed this where I live during lockdown - even though we're all predominantly in scruffy clothes / gym gear (just me?!) you can just tell some people look 'rich' - for lack of a better word.

What is it? It's like an unspoken code or something.

@ViciousJackdaw that's a really interesting theory 😂
30 year old Barbour ✅
20 year old Volvo ✅
Dog hair everywhere ✅
Smoke ❎
Know a lot about whisky ✅ (summers spent working as your guide at Glenfiddich
Not got a pot to piss in 😂✅

I work at a college. Just an ordinary place in an ordinary town with an intake from the local schools. A few years ago a boy started and I could instantly tell that he'd been to a prestigious public school rather than a nearby comp. wasn't sure which one until I was going through everyone's records but it was just something about how he interacted and carried himself. And a slightly Prince William ish dress sense. This was at a time when the low jeans showing underpants was a thing for Mr Average. He didn't sound especially "posh" either.

A quick look on Tinder, especially on the city I live in, will show that a lot of chavvy men have hard features and rough aged skin for their age. And completely bald. Not balding but totally hairless, ala Phil Mitchell. How can I tell they are chavvy apart from that - the descriptions and also the photos of them with tbeir tongues sticking out or holding a can or bottle of alcohol in their hand.

You’re not letting this go, are you?

How do you know that non-wealthy people are more likely to have ‘hard features’? What even are ‘hard features’?

Why would somebody who eg worked on a building site necessarily have worse skin than a man of the same age who spent his days striding over grouse moors with his ghillie?

Why do you think that this subset of men on Tinder represent all non-wealthy men?

You generally can’t tell. People just project their own imaginations onto it.

There's a man I knew who's name is a household one, he was engaged to my SIL's mother at the time, although she wasn't rich. He came to the wedding in his handmade shoes, his vintage Rolex, but wearing beige Chinos! Ive got a photo of him after he'd been to the toilet and he's got pee drips all over his crotch.

I once went to pick up a coffee table from a woman who had put it on a local freecycle type group. The first sign she was rich was that she was giving away a gorgeous table that she could have probably got £100 for on eBay.

But she just looked SO expensive. Her hair wasn't over the top, just straight and shoulder length but it looked in excellent condition, really glossy, subtle highlights, no roots showing. Same for her make up and nails, very subtle but enough for her to really look like she was well groomed. She had a nice tan that was either an expensive fake or the result of some lovely holidays and a very good SPF. I think she was wearing something very simple like a plain white shirt and jeans and I remember she had a very small silver necklace on. Everything was understated other than her engagement and wedding rings which I couldn't help but notice because they were HUGE. I think I might have stared at them a bit too long :-D she probably thought I was going to rob her.

It did help that she lived on a private road in a huge house that was easily £1.5m and had a range rover and a jag on the drive outside. But i think even without those things I would have still thought she looked rich if I'd seen her in the supermarket (probably Waitrose, darling) because she just looked so polished and groomed.

Accent is a huge thing in people's perception of both class and wealth. The stronger the accent the lower the class and wealth. Which is stupid and regressive. Women are (surprise surprise) judged more harshly than men.

Interesting thread.....

My family have always been poor as church mice - my Nana grew up in service before marriage and learned from those around her - as a result I was brought up to talk "proper" and with a good grounding in "etiquette". I have been referred to as a "posh bird" and also as class-less which can be taken either way but it amuses me that people often find it hard to pin me down.

I don't give a stuff about money really, just survival and have mixed in a wide variety of circles. I'm a bit of a natural eccentric and can brazen it out in most environments - am good at "mirroring" those I'm interacting with. I wasn't confident when young but now feel much more confident in my own skin.

DP and I were handfasted at a small festival on a country estate which the owners were involved in. Didn't realise they were particularly titled as they just enjoyed the fun and frolics. After the event which was very laid back, I discovered that their pre-teen son who had spent the weekend in a variety of outlandish fancy dress was within about 25 of being in line to the throne...... I'd spent quite a lot of the time telling him to stop playing with the swords we had for the "bridal arch" using sometimes strong language..... neither he nor his parents gave a hint I was telling off one of my "betters".

I think my main takeaway from my life so far is actually, you never can tell, and more importantly, it really doesn't matter .

@OldQueen1969

You were lucky. There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.

Apologises if this has appeared earlier. TLTR

Nice hair and nails. Looking ‘well groomed’. Nice watch and shoes.

@ChronicallyCurious

Nice hair and nails. Looking ‘well groomed’. Nice watch and shoes.

Everything nice then? 😂

I've got a very very rich friend on FB. The whole family look rich because they are generally stood next to a private plane or yatch!

Sometimes I wonder how we still have a monarchy in these modern times.
And then I read a thread like this, and realise that yes, people really really do look up to 'the upper classes'.

If they are so nice and well-mannered, and help out with the papers, why shouldn't we pay for them to live a life of luxury?

So much shite on this thread

Why is everyone being so bloody deferential?

‘So much shite on this thread grin

Why is everyone being so bloody deferential?’

I know. I’m actually embarrassed for most of the people on this thread.

Not just deferential, but actively sneery at anyone who is not ‘wealthy’ (hard featured, ugly) or anyone deemed to be ‘new money’ (vulgar, splas money around, too big for their designer boots, should really be tugging their forelocks to their betters)

@TheSpottedZebra

Sometimes I wonder how we still have a monarchy in these modern times. And then I read a thread like this, and realise that yes, people really really do look up to 'the upper classes'.

If they are so nice and well-mannered, and help out with the papers, why shouldn't we pay for them to live a life of luxury?

Agreed we pay for the monarchy but we don’t pay for any of the rest of the aristocracy, do we?

I've not read every post, so forgive me if someone else has already posted the Miss Marple quote about the way poor/rich people dress.

Its in The Body in the Library, and she's asking about the choice of dress Ruby (common as muck but pretty and won the heart of elderly wealthy man, ends up dead) wore to go for a night drive.

It was saying that people of Ruby's class would always wear their best clothes for an occasion, even if they weren't the most suitable for what they were doing. That a girl of Miss Marple's class would have changed into a pullover and wool skirt for a night drive, but if a girl like Ruby was going to change, it would have been into her best dress.

And I think that's the bit that makes many designer bags look fake or fail to make you look rich when carrying it.

IME, "older money" types might own a LV Neverfull (the bag discussed on that thread), but they'd have bought it because they wanted a good quality canvas bag to use as a beach bag or for as a casual shopping tote. The women I know who grew up wealthy would always carry a bag that went with their outfit/was appropriate for what they were doing, not just always take their most expensive/best bag. They wouldn't take that casual bag to the office, if a £50 one was more appropriate, they'd take that.

(I am still rubbish at this, im definitely more Ruby than Miss Marple)

Well I'm making the logic leap that if the proper posh are so much better then us, then the monarchy just truly be deserving.

But yes, I'd also argue that we pay for the aristocracy through generations of tax breaks, through our deference, by allowing (some) inherited titles to rule over us etc etc.

Ok, so SOME girls attending state schools are allowed to be beautiful by sheer accident but the majority are mingers and lower life forms?

What on earth are you on about?!

What on earth are you on about?!

Remember that you said this?

Because not every girl from a humble background will have hard features. I said I'd observed a trend. And I have observed it now for many years

It followed a statement by you that you lived near some private schools and some state schools and that the girls attending the former had swishy hair and cheekbones etc etc whilst the girls attending the latter had, in your opinion, ‘hard features’.

When challenged, specifically about girls from poorer backgrounds making a living from their beauty, you backed up your statement by saying that you had “observed a trend” over many years for girls in state schools to be harder of feature, ie uglier, than the girls in private schools who, I assume, you consider to be members of a master race of ‘wealthy’ people.

Now do you get it?

My female exceptionally wealthy friends are mostly in very good physical shape, from lots of healthy exercise and negligible stress. They also have abnormally lovely teeth and hair! I’m making them sound like horses...I don’t mean to.

It’s difficult, I don’t think you can truly tell. I know people on benefits who wear designer, put their children in £300 moncler coats and rich people who put their children in primark clothes and hand me downs.

I don't doubt that wealthy people buy these things, but I don't think the main driving force behind it is to prove their wealth. I think it's just because they want it/like it, they saw their friend on a yacht holiday and thought it was fab or whatever.
Whereas I think people who aren't truly wealthy tend to be more driven by the desire appear wealthy iyswim.

Oops, that was a reply fail to

"In general people who are truly wealthy don't feel the need to prove it to anyone by being flashy or by buying certain things.

Once again, who is buying the superyachts, private jets, Aston Martins and couture Chanel? It’s not people using PCP schemes, is it? Or is it that the rich people who like buying these things are a bit vulgar and hence don’t qualify for inclusion in the ‘truly wealthy’ gang with their dog hair-covered Volvos?"