If You Dont Know Now You Know Clothing
Why We Buy Things We Don't Need
Y'all know that feeling of continuing in your cupboard filled with wearing apparel, simply you have aught to wear?
About people believe that feeling is the brainchild of evil of branding and marketing experts conspiring to make you fond to wanting more than stuff.
Trust me, marketers wish they could dupe you into ownership things you don't want. Heck, I'd be a billionaire past now if nosotros'd cracked that.
The simple truth is you tin can't make people purchase something they don't desire.
You tin can, still, make people purchase things they don't need.
I arguably don't need more than one shirt. Functionally, it covers me and protects me from nature.
But I Demand 12 shirts because if I prove up to client meetings in the same outfit over and over once again, there are tangible consequences to my career.
In the best-example scenario it becomes a "matter" and I get to make a social statement near it (ergo, The Jobs Turtleneck). In the worst-case scenario, it becomes a point of mockery that comes with not-and so-nice implications nearly my character (Showroom A).
Given the track record of my life, it's gonna exist the latter.
Which means, I'k not being materialistic when I go on a shopping frenzy for shirts. I'one thousand being practical.
Odds are, so are you. Because the existent reason we buy things we don't need is not equally uncomplicated as "we're vain materialistic capitalists!" The real reason has to exercise with how shopping came to exist in the first identify.
Shopping was invented
Yes, invented.
Dorsum in the 24-hour interval, the ultra wealthy were the only ones who had lots of things. And they certainly did not "shop" for them.
Clothing was fabricated past a custom tailor, fine art was commissioned or inherited, and dinnerware was a family unit heirloom. You got bragging rights for quality, durability, and longevity.
If you weren't wealthy, then you were SOL.
Normal people had fewer things considering they were difficult to manufacture and produce (and therefore, expensive).
The thought of something beingness disposable or portable or cheap didn't exist. Plastic wasn't mainstream yet, aluminum was just being invented, and only 1 company had an assembly line.
In that location wasn't much to shop for because you couldn't produce anything at scale (even so).
You had ane coat. 1 pair of gloves. One pair of shoes. One pair of pants. And you took care of your stuff because you didn't take much of it.
Plus, you didn't need more things considering up mobility wasn't a reality for most people.
If you were a servant, for example, you didn't need nice dancing shoes or a necktie bar. Where would y'all use them? Yous had your servant outfit and your coincidental outfit and that was it. Yous weren't doing anything besides working and sleeping.
The notion of "options" for ordinary people was revolutionary.
In that location's a great scene in the PBS serial Mr. Selfridge (about the mogul who brought the department shop to London) where Mr. Selfridge walks into a glove store and asks to meet more than options.
The lady who helps him is promptly fired every bit a issue of her beliefs. To be clear, her "behavior" was helping a customer scan options.
The scene is fictional, simply the betoken still stands: You went into a store to purchase something or y'all didn't go in at all.
It was all very practical and very formal. "You need something to cover your easily considering it'southward common cold? Here is something to cover your hands. Proficient-adieu."
You chose from what they gave yous. There was no "shopping around" because at that place were no other places to get.
Shopping, in its inception, introduced the freedom of expression and freedom of choice into the mainstream.
It was the offset fourth dimension in history where things that were bars to the upper grade were suddenly attainable to anyone.
Consider the first soap bar you didn't have to make yourself. Or the start pair of gloves yous didn't have to sew yourself. Or the offset pair of shoes y'all didn't accept to habiliment daily. Or the first pencils you could get in en masse.
(Side note: in getting distracted while writing this commodity, stumbled upon this awesome history of tape, another matter nosotros didn't take.)
All of these things are staples in our lives today, but they weren't for most of human history.
Technically, nosotros didn't demand whatever of them for survival, but they fabricated life easier and more efficient.
These things fabricated it so you weren't concerned 24/7 with the business of survival. You could business concern yourself with thriving.
That was emancipation my friends, not materialism.
Increased admission to "things we don't demand" (or, more accurately, "things we lived without for centuries, but now have") had massive cultural consequences.
Consider this: Yous're a woman who'south worked equally a ladies' maid for 25 years.
You watched your masters alive in luxury for 25 years. They go to exclusive parties and events decked out in fancy clothes, dainty fabrics, and all the latest styles. You dreamed of donning those outfits, but it's always been merely that — a dream.
So the department store comes along.
That nice dress you've been dreaming about for 25 years is suddenly attainable to yous.
Do yous want it?
Yes.
Practice you demand it?
No. Where are you going to get in that kind of dress?
Except in your mind, you're non thinking about the use of the dress. Because you were never buying "a dress."
You were ownership your permission slip into a life y'all never dreamed possible for you.
Nosotros never buy what we call back we're ownership.
We don't buy things.
Nosotros buy how things make united states feel.
Take Uggs.
No one has a want to own Uggs.
You accept a desire to be comfortable and a desire to fit in. That's why you purchase Uggs.
And when y'all habiliment your Uggs, you get the feelings that you lot purchased. Yous feel comfy and y'all feel similar you fit in with your group of friends.
This is further evidenced by the reasons people cite for not ownership Uggs: They do not desire to experience similar they fit in with the kinds of people who would buy Uggs.
Considering purchases are emotional.
No matter how inconsequential of a purchase conclusion y'all deem it — you're all the same choosing it based on emotion. Even commodities.
"But I only pick the cheapest and motility on with my life. How is that emotional?"
It's emotional because at that place are implications almost you built into the purchase.
If you view yourself equally a salt-of-the-earth cocky-made homo immune to the effects of advertising, well, buying cheap is very emotional because it affirms your self-concept.
Self concept: "I'm smarter than every other shopper, they're fallin' for this brand bull$%^&. Mmm mm not me."
Try getting someone like that to buy the expensive bolt at the hardware shop.
If they do, they'll be pissed about it ALL mean solar day. Yous don't become pissed virtually things you don't feel something about. Pissed is an emotion.
More affirming your self-concept, you're also not buying what y'all think you're buying.
You retrieve you're buying a commodities, but you lot're actually buying that teaching moment you're about to take in the backyard with your son.
Aforementioned thing with a gym membership. You're non buying a gym membership. You're buying your dream body.
Same thing with greenish juice. You're non buying dark-green juice. Y'all're ownership permission to be naughty later without feeling guilty.
Aforementioned thing with a table. You're non ownership a table. You lot're buying your fantasy social life where you lot host parties with wealthy friends who fix their drinks on your expensive tabular array.
You're never buying what y'all think yous're buying.
Cheers to shopping-equally-emancipation from restrictive social, economical, and gender norms, we started this whole "materialism" thing on a really positive note.
Which is why it's actually tough to disengage it all now that we take plenty of stuff.
"Stuff" equaled up mobility, convenience, and portability. Stuff made life easier. Stuff made life ameliorate.
We've set up a system where "stuff" is a prerequisite for success.
(You lot try getting a job without a smart telephone and only 1 pair of pants. Practiced luck to you.)
Stuff wasn't ever about stuff.
It was and all the same is near success. About moving up in the world. About a life bigger and better than the 1 you accept.
That's why we purchase things we don't need.
Because nosotros call back we need them.
Margo Aaron is a recovering bookish, accidental marketer, and full-fourth dimension writer of the most popular newsletter you've never heard of @ That Seems Important .
norriswearprapart.blogspot.com
Source: https://medium.com/behavior-design/why-we-buy-things-we-dont-need-7d062fba98ab
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