softgrey
flaunt the imperfection
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A new handbag for £20,000 is just the latest example of must-have madness. And it's not just footballers' wives and girlfriends who are in its grip - middle-class women are following suit. They should stop right now, says Lesley Thomas
I found myself staring at a picture of a handbag in a magazine the other day. The contours, the detailing, the thickness of the leather (or how I imagined it) proved such a powerful magnet that, in the end, I propped the picture beside my keyboard so that I could look at it during screen breaks.
More shocking, however, than the cost of a Mercedes-priced handbag is that, according to Selfridges, the average price of the designer bags on sale in its accessories department has risen 55 per cent in the past year, to a staggering £850. Meanwhile, at Net-a-porter, the best-known designer fashion website, bag sales have gone up 400 per cent.
What on earth has happened to us? When did it become acceptable even to consider spending the best part of £1,000 on a bag? Even Topshop is selling bags for almost £100. Let's not pretend either - as we often do when we spend vast amounts on fashion - that these are one-off purchases or bags for life. For most women who take the first step down the fancy bag route, the purchase becomes merely the foundation of an entire collection.
Yet, only a decade ago, a bag was merely a necessary evil. Remember when we laughed at women who danced around their handbags because cool girls didn't carry them at all? That was before we carried iPods, Blackberries, phones and a spare pair of flat shoes, I suppose. But now look at us! Middle-class women, many of an age who should know better, who used to be above this sort of thing, seem no better than footballers' wives. You're just as likely to find Chloé Paddingtons being paraded around the Square Mile as you are at wine bars in Alderley Edge.
We may think we are cool enough not to flash diamonds, and down to earth enough to shop in Primark, but our insecurities are revealed by the kind of bag we carry. These are Brag Bags, no mistake.
Yet there is a price to pay - other than that on the label - for our sartorial one-upmanship. Around 18 per cent of women in Britain have debts of more than £20,000 and, according to a recent study, one in five of us is considering insolvency. Are you really worth it?
This new kind of avarice doesn't stop at bags. You have only to pick up a copy of Grazia magazine - the respectable face of gossip glossies read unashamedly by lawyers and dental nurses alike - to see that a sense of breathless urgency is attached to purchases of every variety - from must-have make-up to must-own Manolos.
The driving force of today's fashion covetousness is not just that you should buy this shoe/bag/fake tan because it's nice, it's that you should get to the shops right now because Elle/Posh/Angelina/Kate/Queen Rania of Jordan has one and you are a nobody if you don't purchase one, too. I'm sure style used to be about being different - now it seems to be about looking the same as everyone else.
ASOS, an online fashion store, is one of the fastest-growing and most successful clothing websites. ASOS stands for As Seen On Screen. This shopping experience is less about finding something that suits you, and more about finding something that makes you look a little bit more like Mischa or Lindsay or Jen or J-Lo or someone else who appears on television or the big screen.
We may laugh at the cloned footballers' wives and girlfriends with their stripy highlights, hair extensions, orange tans, whitened teeth, gallons of lip gloss and fancy bag collections, but you don't have to be a soccer spouse to exhibit WAG style these days. Upper-class girls (or would-be upper class) can be WAGS, too.
With their equally brash dress codes, expensive blow dries and exposed cleavages, Jemima Khan and Liz Hurley have more than an ex-boyfriend in common. Actresses can be WAGs: Sienna Miller and Keira Knightley are the reigning queens of the Brag Bag trend. Even Gwyneth Paltrow, until now regarded as the ultimate WASP, is suspected of sporting hair extensions at the Oscars. Pop stars can be WAGS: just think of Gwen Stefani (the high speed post-baby weight loss was a telltale sign) or Mariah Carey (the hair, the tan, the heels... Really - need you ask?)
Indeed, consider any red-carpet event of recent weeks, from the Baftas to the Brits to the Oscars, WAG style and sensibility is everywhere: identikit honed arms that speak of daily Pilates sessions with personal trainers; just-so highlights and a dress that is more of a career move than a fashion moment.
However, at the Elle Style Awards in London a few weeks ago, in a sea of Louboutins and lipstick, it wasn't the done-up women who stood out but the slightly undone ones.
It was a thrill to see Stella McCartney (far, far prettier in the flesh than in photos), and the wonderfully messy Amy Winehouse in clothes and make-up that they'd chosen themselves.
They looked stylish, intelligent and individual. Everyone else looked more or less the same as the woman sitting next to them.
Surely, ladies, we'd all be better off, mentally and financially, if we killed off our inner WAG once and for all?
Have you been wagged?
Yes - if you can answer in affirmative to three or more of the following:
• Do you own a set of hair straighteners?
• Is there anything in your wardrobe from Dolce & Gabbana/Karen Millen?
• Do you own a velour tracksuit?
• Have you ever had a French manicure?
• Do you own any jewelled shoes?
• Have you ever owned, or wanted to own, a vanity case?
• Do you own sheepskin boots - even fake Uggs?
• Do you wear a baseball cap?
• Do you regularly use fake tan?
• Have you ever had a personal trainer?
• Have you spent more than £300 on a bag?
• Have you ever copied a celebrity's outfit (be honest now)?
• Do you read Heat/Ok!/Hello!/Grazia magazine?
• Have you ever had Botox?
• Have you had your teeth whitened?
from telegraph.co.uk
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This is the first test that I have failed completely. I scored a big, fat zero on the WAG test which doesn't surprise me in the least. I failed even more, because I'm not a "wife" or "girlfriend".
But those things are within everyone's reach price-wise. We just choose not to participate.
