The Russian
Both were good choices and I would fully support you getting both. The Valenkis Rus has that rustic-throwback-turned-celeb-sported cache and the Lobben has a bit of romance to it. I could definitely imagine 'Anch' occasions for both.
I think now is a good time to introduce a concept that is extremely important to my consumption world-view:
Cost of Wearing
Mathematically, it looks like this:
Purchase Price/Number of Times Worn
The higher the denominator, the more justification you have for a higher numerator. Outerwear, handbags, and jeans tend to have an extremely high '# of times worn' and can therefore support pricetags that look appallingly high to the untrained eye. Formal dresses, swimwear, and fads (if you buy 3-ply cashmere legwarmers, you deserve to be parted from your money) have low '# of times worn' and must be purchased with caution. Shoes are a toss up. They could be these which I wear constantly:
Or they could be the Anna Sui platforms I bought this spring, which I've worn once with such disasterous, blistering, pedicure-ruining results that I'm not sure they'll ever be worn again. Of course they're still in the closet because, well, you never know, do you?
Cost of Wearing is a good basic analytical tool, but it requires some refinements when dealing with more complicated purchase decisions. Formal wear is a good example of a category that needs more advanced computation:
Purchase Price/(Number of Times Worn*(1+% of people attending the event you feel you need to impress or outdo)
In simple terms: the more important the event to your social well-being, the higher the denominator, the more you can spend on the dress.
And then there's 'heirloom' pieces. These are the handbags, shoes, jewelry, furs that you will pass down to future generations and their math is of too high an order to go into here. There's a Time Value of money part to it, brand longevity and rarity must be taken into account through a Schrodinger's Cat kind of thing, finally you have to solve for i in 12 dimensions and ask some pretty searching questions about your very existence. But buying those tends to always be a good idea and if you need someone to help you justify it, just call me.
I think now is a good time to introduce a concept that is extremely important to my consumption world-view:
Cost of Wearing
Mathematically, it looks like this:
Purchase Price/Number of Times Worn
The higher the denominator, the more justification you have for a higher numerator. Outerwear, handbags, and jeans tend to have an extremely high '# of times worn' and can therefore support pricetags that look appallingly high to the untrained eye. Formal dresses, swimwear, and fads (if you buy 3-ply cashmere legwarmers, you deserve to be parted from your money) have low '# of times worn' and must be purchased with caution. Shoes are a toss up. They could be these which I wear constantly:
Or they could be the Anna Sui platforms I bought this spring, which I've worn once with such disasterous, blistering, pedicure-ruining results that I'm not sure they'll ever be worn again. Of course they're still in the closet because, well, you never know, do you?
Cost of Wearing is a good basic analytical tool, but it requires some refinements when dealing with more complicated purchase decisions. Formal wear is a good example of a category that needs more advanced computation:
Purchase Price/(Number of Times Worn*(1+% of people attending the event you feel you need to impress or outdo)
In simple terms: the more important the event to your social well-being, the higher the denominator, the more you can spend on the dress.
And then there's 'heirloom' pieces. These are the handbags, shoes, jewelry, furs that you will pass down to future generations and their math is of too high an order to go into here. There's a Time Value of money part to it, brand longevity and rarity must be taken into account through a Schrodinger's Cat kind of thing, finally you have to solve for i in 12 dimensions and ask some pretty searching questions about your very existence. But buying those tends to always be a good idea and if you need someone to help you justify it, just call me.
posted by Madge at 9:21 PM
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