Is the Recession Making Us Shopaholics?
It's no fun being a fashion reporter right now. Glossy mag circulations are dwindling, advertisers are jumping ship in droves, and you're likely to be humiliated in front of a TV camera at a moment's notice. But most challenging of all? You still have to somehow write about buying pretty things, despite the fact that no one is shopping anymore. So kudos to former Journal reporter Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, who has gone beyond the played-out cheap chic and recessionista articles to identify a new species of shopper: women whose compulsive need to shop is actually exacerbated by the current economic climate.
Well, when we say species, we mean that Tan has found exactly one person who fits the theory: New Yorker Jenny, a 29-year-old marketing manager, would spend around $600 a month on clothes and accessories last summer, but currently she's spending $1,000, because there are so many sales she can't resist. "When I see something I really like," she explains, "I start stressing out that I want it so much, and if I don't buy it then, then I can't have it." Wow, if she could bottle that irrationality for her clients she'd be the best marketing manager in the world.
Meanwhile Khajak Keledjian, the chief exec of Intermix, confirms that while his customers are spending less overall, they are coming in more often, presumably because pretty clothes seem like an antidote to our doom and gloom.
Indeed, as Stanford psychiatrist Lorrin Koran describes shopaholic's pathology: "By going out and shopping, it's usually rewarding in that moment, but it wears off very rapidly, sometimes within minutes or an hour. And after they've done it and they're back in their home, that's when they regret it, they feel sad, and they want to do it again." In other words, slapping down your credit card in a boutique is exactly like smoking crack. Or seeing a Kate Hudson movie.
