<p>I am now inwardly laughing when thinking of D’s attire. We cling to middle class status, but 2010 xmas grandma gave D a Northface fleece which she wears everywhere - even to bed because it is so thick and warm which we need in our climate. 2011 xmas grandpa gave same kid UGG boots. She now owns the official snobby kid uniform according to common wisdom. Both items are actually quite practical in our neck of the woods, were gifts and don’t indicate any attitude, social or financial status, etc.
If one kid is seen carrying a bag or wearing jacket etc. it means nothing. I think, though, that one can get a feel for a campus in aggregate based on overall style with large sample size. An acquaintance who is quite well off and has D attending Middlebury was surprised that kids were so well off that they left giant piles of valuable clothes and accessories behind in rummage boxes at the end of terms. The cultural difference was not in possessing the items, but in how casually they were willing to abandon them.</p>
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<p>Wait! NOW this is getting personal! 
(Oh, that’s right, I have the bags, too. My most expensive bag is a Tod’s and it’s lasted many years. I’m a bad, bad person.)</p>
<p>I certainly agree that you can get a feel for a campus “based on overall style with large sample size,” as saintfan points out. People do it all the time. It’s a reasonable heuristic (I am now using this term all the time since my daughter learned it in AP Gov). Even so, I would hesitate to draw conclusions based on a cursory experience of a campus. With my D, I made sure she didn’t cross a place off her list if it were otherwise of interest academically without doing a bit of investigation that involved actually talking to people on a campus, rather than drawing conclusions based on looking at how they dress or accessorize. I’d not have a few of my good friends if I let these superficial factors deter me from actually getting to know someone. I spent a few minutes resenting greenwitch’s suggestion that those of us questioning the significance of status symbols hadn’t been paying attention during sociology class (!). But I got over that. The more salient fact is that everyone wringing their hands over high EFCs (not to mention full-pay families) is privileged in this country. So now we’re arguing over who asserts that privilege in the most palatable way?</p>
<p>absweetmarie–there are plenty of people that are very wealthy that do not portray the attitude that is being debated here. Again, it isn’t that they carry the bag, it is the elitist attitude that comes with the NEED to carry that bag (or drive that car or wear those jeans). In my experience the truly well off people are pretty down to earth and don’t get their self-worth from buying a nice purse. The ones with the attitudes are the “well off want to be’s”. Those are the people we chose not to be around. They were the bullies in elementary school, the mean girls in middle school and high school and their behavior continues through life. If these people are prevalent on a college campus, my kids would not want to go there. You are going to find SOME people like this everywhere however, if it is a handful of students out of 5000, not an issue, if it is the way of life on a campus, no thanks.</p>
<p>I think the problem here is some people can’t separate the two or recognize the difference.</p>
<p>I guess my belief is that I and my family are privileged and we know it. We don’t pretend we are poor. We aren’t the Perots, but we have worked hard and have had good, fairly successful careers. We have been able to provide well for our kids, and, for the most part, our kids appreciate what we have been able to do for them. Being able to have nice things has not deterred either kid from understanding how hard they have to work to make a living and what sort of attitude one needs to have in the workplace. Interestingly, it was the boy rather than the girl who was more into the status-type things in middle and high school. My daughter liked some of the quality/name brands, but wasn’t the same way about it. They grew up in a place, where of all the places I have lived, must set the standard for materialism and lust for luxury items (north Dallas). It was quite a show. However, I don’t think it damaged them or would give others the impression that they were spoiled brats (at least not the one who is about to be ordained as a Priest…). There are things that some people can afford that are just not that big a deal at a certain income level, but it is important to understand that this is a privilege that should not be abused or flaunted.</p>
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<p>You’re kind of making my point for me, mncollegemom, because the way I read this, you are saying that there’s a right way and a wrong way (defined by you!) to assert one’s privilege. So what if some people in BMWs are stuck up? Everyone who drives a BMW isn’t snooty, even some who think a BMW is the sine qua non of automotive excellence. Some people who are more discreet about displaying their wealth come up with other ways to be annoying. Some people in both camps are perfectly nice people. I don’t like to associate with snooty or mean people. I am being completely honest when I say that I have not found that those traits necessarily accompany these superficial trappings. You’re saying that those of us who don’t acknowledge that these things go together like fries and hamburgers are not getting it. What I’m saying is that you’re generalizing, maybe based on your own experience. It hasn’t been mine.</p>
<p>That is not what I am saying at all. They have every right to be snotty if they want just as I have every right not to want to hang around with them. The post that started all of this debate pretty much said the same thing, they don’t want to be around people that act like that and gave the example of the designer bag “attitude”. If that is the kind of person you are or want to be or want to hang around, hey, more power to you. I chose not to.</p>
<p>Again, I don’t know how else to point out the difference. I never said everyone that drives a BMW is snooty, you did. I said just the opposite actually. It isn’t the driving the BMW that makes you snooty, it’s the attitude that some people have that they are better than others because they drive a BMW that I don’t want to be around. We have plenty of friends that drive BMW’s or similar and they are very nice, very genuine people. I also know a lot of Ford drivers that are snots and I am not going to hang around with them.</p>
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<p>Indeed. So, one more time, you’re walking around a campus with your high school student. You see a girl in front of you carrying a designer bag as she hurries to class or the student center. How do you tell whether or not she feels she NEEDS to carry that bag, or whether it’s just simply … the bag she happens to like and that fits her budget? ESP? Osmosis? </p>
<p>In my GWU example – yes, the kids were more expensively dressed than any other campus my family visited. Which meant what, exactly, about them? That they preferred dressing well. It would be unfair and wrong for me to conclude that they “valued” those things above other people, or that they judged other people based on whether or not they had those things, or that they felt they had to have those things to have any self-esteem. That would be erroneous and not based in any fact.</p>
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<p>What makes you think, really, that anyone “gets their self-worth” from buying a nice handbag? How is buying a nice handbag different from any other purchase you may want to make? You like what you like, and you buy whatever is in your particular price range and taste. For some people, that’s $30 at Target; for some people, that’s $250 at Coach, and for a lucky few, it’s $2,000 at Louis Vuitton.
(BTW, I’m in Rome and went to the Via dei Condotti today. The Louis Vuitton bag in patent leather in the window display was so gorgeous, people took pictures of the display. Seriously.)</p>
<p>mncollegeom,</p>
<p>I’m arguing that it’s impossible to tell whether someone has this designer handbag attitude just by LOOKING at her!</p>
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<p>No, they observed that at certain campuses, there were allegedly a lot of designer BAGS. From which people jumped to “and therefore, there was a lot of designer bag attitude.”</p>
<p>Journal of Consumer Behaviour
Volume 3, Issue 3, pages 251262, March 2004</p>
<p>"The results of this study suggest that conspicuous consumption is relevant for young people, and that they are a group which is adept at reading the signals represented in clothing choices. The authors found that the clothes choices made by young people are closely bound to their self-concept, and are used both as a means of self-expression and as a way of judging the people and situations they face. Evidence was also found that clothing has a function in role fulfilment, making the wearer more confident and capable. "</p>
<p>doi: 10.1177/0887302X8800600204
Clothing and Textiles Research Journal January 1988 vol. 6 no. 2 23-29</p>
<p>“Subjects indicated their impressions of the person to whom the clothing belonged by checking a list of traits on 9-point scales. Analysis of variance indicated that inferences about the person varied significantly depending on the type of jeans included in the list. Store brand jeans produced significantly more negative inferences than designer or name brand jeans when compared to the control jeans.”</p>
<p>There is all kinds of fascinating research in this field.</p>
<p>absweetmarie–I disagree, by observing people you can learn a lot about them through their body language…</p>
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<p>Wonder if the “confident and capable” bit applies if a given high school kid/college undergrad wears clothes which look like they were/are actually taken from the nearest garbage dump*? </p>
<p>Just wondering as the above wouldn’t turn any eyebrows…and may actually impress some fellow undergrads…including those who are wealthy trust-fund kids at schools like Oberlin when I was there. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I wouldn’t recommend pulling the same stunt at Columbia or especially around NYU. </p>
<p>The latter came from several incidents of NYU undergrads/Village area when I was actually called a “slob” to my face for wearing business casual clothes which obviously offended their fashionista sensibilities. Was also a shock as NYU’s students weren’t like that in the early-mid '90s when I was a high school kid.</p>
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<li>Am talking actual landfill-like dumps…not rummage boxes where undergrads dump otherwise nice clothes they no longer like.</li>
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<p>Cobrat–that is the exact ATTITUDE I am talking about…does it REALLY matter what you wear to class? If it does to you, you are not the kind of person I want to hang out with.</p>
<p>Getting dressed up in our high school is wearing a button up shirt with your jeans vs a t-shirt :).</p>
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<p>You’ve misunderstood me. I personally could care less about what other people wear to class. </p>
<p>I wrote the above not to illustrate my views, but what I’ve observed about how one’s clothing choices and/or reactions from others is dictated by the prevailing norms of each environment/culture. In short, unless you are willing to make waves and pay a heavy price for doing so…the saying “When in Rome do as the Romans do” applies. </p>
<p>At the very least, that saying has helped prepare me to take any pitfalls which comes from violating the norms of a given environment/culture…whether it’s wearing corporate dress regularly to classes at Oberlin or wearing hippie/Tye-dye clothes to classes at the more stodgy Columbia U or NYU(especially STERN). </p>
<p>However, not everyone is willing to be/pay the price for being a gadfly in a given situational/environmental context…so it’s ok if they choose their colleges/environments accordingly.</p>
<p>Cobrat-I was agreeing with you by saying that the attitude you observed (getting called a slob for your business casual attire) are the kind of people I don’t want to be around. I don’t care what you wear, as long as you aren’t smelly :).</p>
<h1>171 like!</h1>
<p><a href=“http://sociology101.net/readings/Fashion-and-Status.pdf[/url]”>http://sociology101.net/readings/Fashion-and-Status.pdf</a></p>
<p>I love Alison Lurie on this subject :)</p>
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<p>well, you kind of seem to care - 
:)</p>
<p>Alh:</p>
<p>Thanks for the link, a good read. The research in the field all comes to the same conclusions…Everyone, except perhaps Superman,…</p>
<p>Judges people on what they wear.
Buys clothes that fit within their vision of who they think they are and who they think they want to be. It is never as simple as…I buy what I like.</p>
<p>Haystack–I think the real message there is “buys clothes that fit” :).</p>