Are luxury brands made to make us poor?
BY: IAN SCHRAUTH
Staff Writer
We have all heard of luxury brands, such as Coach, Versace, and Louis Vuitton. You may also own a product from one of the brands I listed. It may be because it’s a status symbol in your friend group to have one of these products, or it may be because you simply like the Tabby Shoulder Bag that Coach sells.
As an individual who has purchased a couple of Coach products in the past, I agree that they are high quality and look good. However, what if I told you that luxury brands such as Coach and Versace are meant not only to prey on our psychology but also to keep you poor?
First, these brands are not targeting the millionaires of America. No, they are targeting the people who want to look rich, such as middle- or lower-class people who do not have much in their savings accounts. They’re selling you a costume so you can pretend to look rich, even though that’s not what rich people typically look like.
A good example I like to use in this case is the design choices of people like Steve Jobs. Jobs was famous for his black turtleneck and jeans and kept that look when he presented himself until his passing in 2012. If you look up a photo of Jobs, do you see him with Gucci flip-flops or his wife with a Versace handbag? No.
This is the same case for all of the other ultra-rich people in the United States, like Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg, and Bill Gates. None of them flaunt these designer brands; they instead keep it casual. I believe these people don’t buy luxury brands because they don’t need to prove they’re rich. We already know Bill Gates is a millionaire.
This leads me back to the point that luxury brands are made to sell us the idea that we can look rich by selling us overpriced wallets and expensive handbags.
Designer brands also have successfully hijacked our need to fit in and display a token of status in our society with overpriced goods.
We want to be seen as the richest person around us, but the only problem is that there is always going to be someone who will one-up us in status, title, or anything else.
And that’s just life. There’s always going to be someone who has something you don’t have.
I can give a good testimonial to this: when I self-published my first book in High School, there was another author who was in a grade below me who would always get media attention, interviews with the High School newspaper, TV interviews, and Radio show appearances, while I was left trying to promote my book while making $7.25 an hour at Taco Bell.
It’s really easy to get caught in the cycle of chasing something that someone else has.
And this cycle of chasing something will keep a lot of people poor.
