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

[Watersunscream]

If I told you our income I would be told we are in the top percent of earners etc but I honestly couldn’t actually justify or financially manage these sorts of purchases.

Has anyone heard of the essentials brand? Literally hundreds for a tracksuit. I think another is Bergen? Expensive t shirts. Then there’s the usual like Fred Perry etc.

Obviously I know lots of wealthy people buy these things too but it’s mostly people from low income backgrounds. How do I know this? Because people I work with who live in deprived areas and not paid much are forever talking about these things! They actually buy the stuff for holidays or as gifts at Christmas etc. Is this a misguided attempt to gain status? An insecurity thing? I find it really bizarre, it wouldn’t ever cross my mind to spend this.

You're claiming that you have a high household income but also that you can't financially manage to buy expensive items so either you're very bad at managing your finances or you're deluding yourself about your income. The high earners I know have vast amounts of disposable income.

I own a lot of FatFace stuff, all of it’s from Vinted.

Yes, I was commenting on the huge gulf between prostitutes on "dirty money" and people working hard for theirs. There is a gulf, but it's nothing to do with hard/easy work.

Or, you could save your money instead?

Because they think it makes them look rich when in actual fact it has the opposite effect effect in my eyes

Well not really because the OP explicitly stated that they can't financially manage to buy expensive items. The other alternative is that the people they're benchmarking themselves against actually have a lot more money than the OP thinks - that's probably the most likely option.

You sound like Scrooge McDuck.

Probably fake goods.

I think some of it is trying to compensate for low financial status and “pretend” that things are better than they actually are. My friend is a single mum on benefits and her 17 yo son recently got his first job to save for his driving lessons, university and so on. They are classed as poverty-line poor using the official classification. He recently purchased a £124 T-shirt and proudly showed it to me and told me how much it cost. She was very happy with it, not at all concerned.

All fake. Embarrassing. That’s how the lower class live. They try to evidence they have more money than they do. Classless.

I’ve argued about this on MN before. It’s not a popular perspective with the “all posh people roll around in dog haired cashmere” but here it is:

I’m a bit posh and have money. Same with my friends. Outside of work (which frankly is also full of mostly rich posh people) I spend time at fairly exclusive clubs/events, charity lunches and the usual season activities. Again full of the same sort of people. I appreciate this will raise eyebrows but I’m being honest.

if you think we can’t spot this seasons Dior or a VB dress at 100 paces you’re mistaken. Everyone knows the difference between a D&G or an Erdem print. Even the Row or Loro Piana are instantly recognisable and certainly not the quiet people pretend they are.

pretending otherwise is absurd.

Same for houses. People know the difference between a Sanderson or Mulberry fabric. They can tell which interior designer you’ve worked with or where your kitchen is from.

same signals just to a different audience

You do protest too much

and most of the general public dont have a clue

😉

I dont care for brands. Personally never understood the concept of wearing a brand when we all know how the workers who make these clothes are t treated in poverty ridden countries earning like a pound. Whether it's a fake a brand or even normal essentials majority is all made by workers and materials from foreign countries that earn less then we ever will. I'm living on the poverty line and as long as my kids and me present ourselves as clean and in clean clothes I don't really care. It's more about how you dress rather than what you dress up in brand wise. But I guess going back to OP when you have very little people use the money for their own vice. Like my vice is food. Others is nails. Others it's clothes. And for others it's alcohol etc when you have nothing you want happiness from something.

This!!

Why don’t you ask your colleagues?

I think wealthy people prioritise things like education and travel, ski holidays etc and experiences.
Less well off prioritise 'stuff' and think that wearing brands is a status symbol. You often find they value stuff like huge TV's too, game consoles etc
Also as others have said a lot are fakes.... or in some cases stolen goods 😱

A few possibilities:

(1) You are in the top % of earners, but a lot of money goes into your mortgage and/or pension, which greatly decreases your disposable income. People from low income backgrounds may be spending money on luxuries, but they won't have house equity like yours and they won't have a pension like yours.

(2) You are wasting your money on silly things, like those weird "PCP" things that people use to buy cars. This is a massive wealth killer.

(3) People on low incomes are being foolish with money and using credit cards to buy luxury tracksuits. On a TV show once I saw a lower income household buying loads of luxury items, and using monthly payments to pay it off... not a good way to use money if you're struggling.

I was going to say the same thing, anyone who thinks the wealthy don’t buy expensive clothes etc is delusional. It’s just that it is different brands that they use to signal to their own class that they belong, 1k Row jumpers, Khaite jeans, a Celine blazer. Maybe it is a bit less showy but just as easily identifiable to those that know. It’s just human nature

You’re saying that through middle-class eyes. Most people within the demographic that OP is talking about don’t aspire to making money through investments, because it’s not even on their radar. It’s for “others” - rich people.

People generally aspire to what they see around them - “Keeping up with the Jones’s”. They aren’t living amongst bankers or crypto investors so there’s no pressure to emulate them. Nobody down their local pub is discussing the FTSE. They aspire to having a new item of clothing or pair of trainers which will make them feel a part of their tribe, be accepted, or appear attractive to a potential mate. It’s something small that’s within their reach.

We bring in £10k after tax, pensions, employee share schemes etc. We save 1/3rd, spend 1/3rd on bills and the other 1/3rd goes on holidays / eating out / one off bills / kids things etc.

We could save less and buy handbags, designer hoodies and other such shite etc but I’d rather retire at 55. I don’t think this is ‘Scrooge McDuck’ living as in no way would having a Gucci bag or Prada trainers add to my life.

It’s not embarrassing. It’s a reflection of feeling ostracised from the middle classes and is quite sad. We shouldn’t be proud of snobbishness.

Those items are aspirational for that sub-group. And impotantly it's an outward signal. It's a way of showing off success, and on a personal level a kind of indulgence which people enjoy. If you are at a certain income level, the next level up may look like a very expensive track suit. New money aesthetics.

Once you get to higher income levels, it begins to make more sense to put what extra money you have towards more long term goals, which will have their own visible outcomes. But there are aspirational signals at that level too. But they have to be different than the status items for the less well off. Those people don't want to look like they are aspiring to be new money, they want to dress in a low-key way with clothes from "classy" designers who don't need visible labels, and use Farrow & Ball, like someone up-thread suggested.

Then I suppose once you get to the tippy top of the pile - I don't know anyone like this - you don't need to do anything in particular to show you are there, everyone who needs to knows, and maybe the lack of signalling is the signal? You don't need designers then, you can just have what you need made or get it at the high street, who cares?

So the important thing is differentiating yourself from the people below. Though I don't think that's necessarily how people think of it, they just all enjoy having what they consider nice things.

It's not like the middle classes aren't deep in debt trying to keep up with a home in the right area, bedroom for all the kids, two holidays a year including one overseas, two nice cars, ballet classes and football...