A hat/tip to my husband, who spotted this article and realized it matched my blogging here…
(excerpt from the blog) Forest Street Kitchen
Hard Times? The New “Poverty Chic”
…In this issue [of Town and Country magazine], the Editor’s Letter focuses on the effect the recent economic downturn has had on the halcyon days of the, well, the right-up-until-a-year-ago era. She calls 2009 “the year of ‘no mores’- no more lavish spending, no more whimsical investments, no more doing things just for the hell of it.” On the following page, she comes to her senses and recommends that we consider purchasing as a Christmas gift a $325.00 chinoiserie enamel ring box. This would, I imagine, be a stocking stuffer along with a 2 carat diamond ring from Cartier (to put in the box) , a perfect black truffle, a cashmere dog sweater, and a pair of airline tickets to Anguilla.
During my recent magazine addiction (from which I recovered completely in the Conde Nast wing of the Betty Ford Clinic), I saw this “Poverty Chic” idea again and again…
I am genuinely not happy that the mighty have fallen; I am not happy when anyone falls. I might wish, though, that there was less media focus on the getting and spending aspects of hard times, and more on the silver linings. This focus on what can be “bought” skews incorrectly the image of what it means to focus less on the material world, whether by choice or necessity. My books come from the library, my toilet paper is generic, and my cashmere used to be my mother’s, but despite my inability (and unwillingness) to spend $325.00 on a ring box, I have a sound marriage, a circle of friends and family who could only possibly love me for who I am (since I have nothing else to give them), and a great kid who is already learning how to work and plan to get what we can’t easily afford. Our family, and not what we buy, or where we go, is the center of our lives…
A related article here at Georgiana’s Circle mentions: Shabby Chic, Recession Chic, Voluntary Simplicity, and Kimberly’s idea for a “Curtain Club” in the spirit of Scarlett O’Hara: here.
