Vogue is wrong, and most blogs are wrong.

Yesterday I read this post on Slate about the "denim bubble":

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/01/10/vogue_s_steal_of_the_month_500_jeans_.html

I agree wholeheartedly.  The very IDEA that anyone, even a magazine which trades in class and sophistication, could think that jeans are somehow a "steal" at $500 is not only unbelievable but very nearly sickening.

Vogue is not the only one getting it wrong, though.  I follow a fair amount of blogs, and while I won't name names because some of them are run by peripheral friends, most of them helmed by women have an occasional section entitled "blah blah blah under fifty dollars" or whatever.  OR, the trendy thing to also do now is be "ironic" and have a section entitled "things you could never afford."

It's all wrong.  This economy is no place to be ironic about purchases.  I recently found myself in a debate with one friend about another friend's spending habits.  Again, no names, and it doesn't matter because I'm not insulting anyone anyway.  But the crux of that conversation was this: in truly hard times, clothes are a non-necessity.  If someone is still spending a good deal of money every month buying clothes, then they haven't hit the poverty line.  Here's the thing.  I'm totally at the poverty line, but I hide it well.  I'm a career grad student who, hopefully, will start my ACTUAL career very shortly.  What I've learned from making very little money is that our gages for what is considered a "splurge" tend to ebb and flow in concurrence with actual income.  Duh, right?  So I find that there are a lot of people I just can't relate to.  A splurge for me is buying a pair of jeans for thirty dollars, because they've been marked way down in a clearance situation.  A splurge for me is eating a nice dinner out with friends without having to worry about what the bill will look like.  The awesome thing about this time in my life is that I will carry parts of this frugality with me everywhere I go.