What it costs to be fashionable

Where did all my money go? Isn’t that a question we all ask ourselves from time to time?

Well, here’s a common answer: look in your closet.

Are you looking? Seven pairs of shoes all with straps and high heels but in different colors, matching handbags, shirts, blouses, designer jeans, and signature dresses. Then you see all those baubles peeking out from the jewelry box – trinkets for the ears, neck and wrists.

Women are not the only ones guilty, too. Male fashionistas can spend more – what with expensive watches, shirts and designer clothes.

Rex Mendoza, a financial planner whose day job is the chief marketer of Ayala Land, once told me in an interview about a young lady executive who was consulting him for financial advice.

“Do you have any savings or investments?” Rex asks.

The lady opens a big walk-in closet containing tens of thousands worth of clothes, shoes and accessories. “Here they are!” lady asks.

“Investing” in clothes and jewelry is sort of an oxymoron – unless you’re a movie star. (Yet even some movie stars I know don’t think anything of wearing something from an ukay-ukay store!) The price tag can be as hefty as P25,000 to P50,000 for a good suit these days, or a simple black evening gown. A set of cuff links and buttons alone at Bergamo costs P5,000 and this is not the most expensive brand in Rustans. For those whose tastes are for runway-worthy dresses, I remember seeing a dress at a televised New York fashion show last year that cost more than a spiffy Honda.

We all don’t go consciously looking for a dress or a suit that will blow away all our earnings for a year, but we do shop for clothes and to a certain extent accept fashion’s follies. The persistent question is: do we control these follies or do we let it control us?

Money experts have different approaches. Pascual M. Garcia III, president of Philippine Savings Bank, said you could splurge on anything you want (including invitation-only haute couture, I suppose) as long you have skimmed over the top of your earnings already and set aside your savings for the month.

“That’s my approach. I will tell you to do whatever you want with your money – buy your latte, jewelry or whatever – as long as your savings are safe. Just take it off the top, or else it will be painful and you won’t save as diligently as you should,” he told MoneySmarts in an interview.

Filipino author, entrepreneur and public speaker Francis Kong does not believe in buying cheap and poor quality clothes that will do more to ruin self-confidence than increase savings. But he doesn’t espouse dipping into the college fund, either, to run after a hard-to-find and limited edition handbag that can set you back five years in your savings plan.

Shopping smartly and earning from your fashionista urges can also be options. GMA7’s Chynna Ortaleza shows in this article how to be a tightwad fashionista and a businesswoman as well, by designing your own trinkets and accessories.

Fashionistas on a budget can also benefit from this latest shopping tip. Find items from Mango, Terranova, Calliope, Gas, Benetton, Nike, Florsheim, Naturalizer and Bossini, among others at discounts of 50-75 percent all year round at Starmills outlet store in San Fernando, Pampanga. But as I said in a previous post, “cheap” doesn’t necessarily equate to “good buy.” They create artificial needs. So be careful when shopping in an outlet store. Those huge discounts can ferret away your self control .

The peso’s appreciation may have something to do with these lower prices. Quality imported items are cheaper and fashion fanatics will be able to get their fix at a lesser cost. Hopefully, soon, the cost-value ratio of being fashionable will look less unreasonable, given that threads, buttons, zippers and fabric can be had for only a trifling. Happy shopping.

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