Snobbery and Fashion

With the Internet, you can’t show how long your pointy shoes are, so you show your political opinions instead.

I am more snobbish than all of you. Well, most of you. I am saved from this vanity by not having the class I want to impress nearby. I think I could be tempted by jet setters and British aristocrats and European aristocrats and the “real” Oxbridge set. I can’t be by the “real” Ivy Leaguers, who are in their dotage.

Most people, though, want to look just like the professor of sociology or the real estate developer next door, someone who went to Big State U. and either earns $300,000/year or has a PhD from somewhere or other.

The World of Being and the World of Seeming, and Beauty, which links the two.

Good designers of women’s clothes use better cloth and connectors. They also have better design. Why? Because they can recognize it, and so can their customers. Ordinary designers can’t tell what’s good even if you stick it right in front of their nose and say, “It’s free to copy.”

Probably most of the jet setters can’t tell beauty either, but they’re well bred, so they are modest enough to take advice, or they are taught to be snobbish and only buy from Tiffany’s even though they’d prefer something cheap and gaudy. The Canadian Rex Mottram in Brideshead Revisited. He cared too much about money, but it’s not as if Julia could tell the difference between a good diamond and a bad one, except by the price tag OR the brand name, which would, however, be extremely important to her.

‘Hamilton’ Loses Its Snob Appeal
Political correctness is a barrier to keep the working class from becoming upwardly mobile.
Rob Henderson, July 14, 2020, Wall Street Journal.