I can't think of a title for this, but read it anyway...

Last weekend my sister got confirmed into our church. It was a happy event and the whole family was there, but the one thing I really remember from the weekend is that I took way too long getting ready!

Not only am I not a morning person, but I, in a classic girl move, couldn’t for the life of me figure out what to wear! I had a dress and a sweater but it was missing something. As I rummaged through my mom’s draws of her vintage clothing I found it. A beautiful Chanel floral silk scarf, a perfect accessory to the simple white dress I was wearing.

Now that’s all nice and interesting but that’s not what I’m writing this blog post to talk about. I want to talk about fashion and clothing as a symbol for social class.

This scarf had a pretty and simply floral pattern, but in the center was a huge Chanel symbol. It is by far the biggest image on the scarf and draws a lot of attention. I soon realized that this is one of the reasons the scarf is so pretty, and why I was so drawn to it. Yes, it’s shallow and materialistic of me, but I love the fact that I was wearing a vintage Chanel silk scarf. Of course, this symbol represents something to most people, at least to most girls. It’s a great symbol for wealth, sophistication, and social standing, whatever all three of those terms actually mean.

So I thought of all the people that spend thousands of dollars on clothing and accessories. But why? Is it because of the quality of the merchandise? I don’t think so. We pay for labels. It’s a simple as that. We like Chanel and Coach and Louis Vutton because we have this idea in our head that they’re high-class.

I think this something important that needs to be taken into account when looking at American’s views of social class. It is possible to find people, who live on the verge of poverty, but are still going to pay to have the nice clothing, because at least it gives off the idea that they care about their image, and they can afford to keep it up. It’s an interesting glimpse into American society and how much we obsess over our public image. We want to look wealthy and respectable, so we pay for those random labels that to a lot of people don’t actually mean anything at all. And I think it’s a simple as that.