First of all, that Hermes lady is fucking nuts about her photos. She doesn’t want her photos used to mock her. They are there for praise only! They are there for gloating, not for you internet people to copy and ridicule. I found this picture on flickr, Hermes Lady, so relax.
I wasn’t able to force myself to go through 30something pages of her boasting about her Hermes purchases and the attendant ass-kissing. But I think I got the gist of it.
Here is the situation. Hermes is a symbol of wealth and success. Nothing more or less. A woman who spends a fortune at Hermes and then documents it online is a person desperately in need of love and self-esteem. There isn’t enough Hermes in the whole world to assure her of her intrinsic worth. It’s a mug’s game.
Consumption at this level is very sad. All shopping is a defense against the knowledge of our mortality. It’s a stupid distraction that exists to enrich corporations and to numb the appetites of the soul.
Look in your closet and think about which outfits would make you happy if a family member died in a car crash. Look at your shoes and then look at this picture.
The Hermes Lady is a picture of insecurity, distorted by money and self-delusion. She is a waste of our time. Turn your eyes away from that lady and her ridiculous merchandise.
You already have everything you need to be happy.
Don’t worry about shoes or handbags. Listen to music, look at some art or have sex instead. You’ll thank me later.
i’m not usually sappy but i found this post very touching. somehow you have a way of getting to me. thank god for people like you that bring truth to the world instead of more vapid consumerism and blatant lemming mentality.
“you already have everything you need to be happy”: that line almost made me cry a little bit. it’s so true. thank you, again, sister wolf. you are a light in my life.
Great post! A bit of a reality check though, I’m going to stop shopping.
Conspicuous consumption is a really sticky wicket for me, Sister – I live in a country where starvation deaths and “luxury” stores coexist, and I work in an art gallery where we occasionally have rich people trot in and pick off high-priced paintings like they’re choosing groceries (mind you, art buyers can be every bit as status-obsessed as fashion people).
And yet, it’s those people that, via the spending, help us stay open and I’m grateful for that. It’s her money to spend, and my thinking that showing off is gauche will make no difference.
PS: Do we really need to comment on the lady’s personal appearance if we’re critiquing her shopping habits?
Chuck n – Nope, I don’t want a sing;e orange box.
Suspended – You make an excellent point. The groupies cheering her on are pretty reprehensible. Is there any chance that they’re taking the piss?
Dru – I agree, there is no need to comment on her looks. The issue is the spending and hoarding. Her appearance had no bearing on this.
Kirsten – Your comment is so nice. It’s hard to think of myself as a light in anyone’s life but it is a beautiful compliment. xoxo
Somehow the boot keyring depressed me, and from thereon in it was like looking in on an illness. I had a book as a child, about a humble girl living with her grandfather who was gifted boxes and boxes of necklaces by some fairy or other. In the end the volume of necklaces diminished the loveliness of each one, and she ended up giving all but her favourite away. Pious – yes – but also something that’s stuck with me. A beautiful thing doesn’t get nicer because you buy the whole shop’s stock.*
*Although I do bulk buy plain jumpers, jeans and sneakers I like, and appear to the outside world as though I only have one set of clothes.
x
I don’t want to look as ready what you’ve written is enough. Good grief this showing off consumption madness is beyond. I think roof over head, food on table, music, art, books and sex is enough. Am I allowed films too!
I meant REALLY, typos errors are annoying
Brilliant post SW.
I’d rather have my broken, worn down, hot pink flip flops, (god, are they comfortable or what) than one orange box.
And, I’m thanking you now!
She might as well be wearing money. She should save herself some time and cover herself with glue and roll around in money. Would probably be more stylish as well.
I love shopping. I know I’m addicted and I know I should be doing something else with my time and money. I don’t need another body cream or a pair of shoes, but I’ll still find a reason to purchase. I often defend my profligate spending, but holy hell, when I clicked through to this I just felt sick. Those orange boxes represent probably hundreds of thousands of pounds, and most of them are duplicate purchases that will never EVER get worn. It’s just sick, and so extreme I don’t feel one pang of jealous, rather pity and a nauseous feeling that the world is well and truly fucked.
Holy fuck, what a douchenozzle. I like how other forum members are saying ‘congratulations’, as if shes achieved something worthy of admiration, as opposed to the derision she clearly deserves.
This is better (or worse?) than the girl on the Aus Vogue Forums who responded to a discussion regarding what salary you would need to live comfortably with $500,000 AUD. Not a ‘dream salary’ just what she felt she needed to give her a comfortable existance.
“Don’t worry about shoes or handbags. Listen to music, look at some art or have sex instead.”–EXCELLENT advice! I plan on doing all 3 of your suggestions today!
I found the congratulatory comments, “you’ve outdone yourself!!” particularly confusing
“Don’t worry about shoes or handbags. Listen to music, look at some art or have sex instead.” — I agree with Liz, excellent advice. But while at the art museum I will want to make sure that people know I am a quirky individualist with a macabre sense of style. And to listen to music, I will want to go to a club, and that will require some more edgy clothing. Not to mention, I want to get laid. So we are talking makeup and fun shoes. I guess this means I have to go shopping.
But in all seriousness, I think I get your point about this person’s photos. It is like looking at the blog of a hoarder, or an over-eater. I don’t envy her at all. Though, I have to admit that I might buy this much stuff if Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter ever have a yard sale.
Jesus christ. That post made me absolutely SICK … who the fuck has that much Hermes? I mean, it doesn’t even look good. Does she wipe her ass with those scarves that could probably feed an entire nation at their retail prices? I bet this woman has never had an orgasm.
Have you seen her actual blog? That business on the handbag forum is just the tip of the iceburg…
http://miacillan.blogspot.com/
Your all just jellis.
I respect that it has been noted above that her ‘appearance’ is not relevant.
But it did jolt my memory of a trip to Macau my husband and I took last year, where Mr M attended a Casino and played Baccarat. He met a gentleman from China at the table on 2 or 3 occasions, they chatted……
Turned out guy from China and family members had a manufacturing business…….travelled to Paris a couple of times a year…. “Wife and daughters very happy ladies, we buy designer goods, take home, make good quality copies, big business, sell all over world”.
Mr. M introduced me to the China guy at a restaurant within the Casino, he was accompanied by wife and 2 younger girls, I noticed all had Chanel handbags, but it did strike me as odd their clothing just didn’t seem to match the bags 🙂
Maddison – Wow you went to Macau. Who cares if it’s real or fake?
After randomly clicking through pages of that thread, I spotted the most disgusting picture of all. She posted her son sitting in a sea of the orange boxes. Why put the two together. For some reason that was the end for me.
Like others, I’m more confused/disgusted by the people who congratulate this vile woman on her ‘hauls.’
It’s like we’re looking into SoS’s future…
God, that lady must be such an asshole.
Maddison’s comment makes a lot of sense. Maybe it’s one of those situations.
i dont understand it and i am not going to try to understand it because it isnt worth my time trying to figure it out!! but i did get a good laugh out of it!
🙂
Rose – copyright violation is theft, that’s one reason a person might care.
I’m thinking “buy and copy” might be the reason here….why else buy so freaking much?
@Artful Lawyer: Because she’s a “collector”! She has more in common with the people who collect Hummel figurines, ponytail Barbies, rare orchids, expensive ugly art etc than with your average fashionista who shops sales and thrift stores and maybe makes one big splurge every year upon careful thought and deliberation.
I don’t think she buys to copy (I’ve seen so many Hong Kong tai-tais buy luxury goods in eye-popping amounts and they can’t just ALL have repro factories in Shenzhen), I think she buys because she’s New Lucre. I mean, all that emphasis on high-end accessories (can we say LOGORAMA?) while wearing Zara or H&M or whatever? (Because of course clothes don’t immediately scream “status”, so why waste time on them right?) Yeah.
Well said, Sis. This looks like hoarding. =\
tartandtreacly- you’re right about the fact that this particular lady seems like a hoarder, but it’s not just the HK tai-tais who do it, collecting logo crap is common all across the BRIC (or the RIC part of that anyway, I can’t speak for Brazil).
It’s as you say- it’s become a new way for the very rich to spend their money so they can telegraph their status (in India, it used to be- and to a large extent still is- gold jewellery). Personally, I think it’s disgusting and gauche, but showing off is such a huge part of the culture that there’s nothing anyone can really do about it.
That’s a good point! Although there can definitely be, shall we say, “aesthetic differences” even among the BRICs. Russian women are more into certain brands (say, Versace) than Chinese women (be they HK ladies-who-lunch or the molls of coal mine bosses). And plain is not an descriptor that can ever be applied to our rich Slavic sisters, no matter what they look like. Usually they’re just below “Paris is Burning” on the Work-It!-meter. ;-D
I kid. That’s probably an outdated observation, but it’s still mostly true I think.
Money can’t buy taste.
What I noticed, and forgive me she is truely “homely” in appearance, she isn’t even attractive in the least. She wants to promote an unhealthy lifestyle while looking like the janitor of Hermes? It really just shows her ignorance as to how to be shallow.
Above statement’s are nothing more then sarcastic 😉
I’m with you Evanelle, plus I find her choice and the quality of her bedlinen rather ordinary too!!! http://www.godammit.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif
There really is something not quite adding up with his lady.
Someone over on the Vogue forum posted –
“On her blog she speaks about claiming back tax at the airport for her purchases.
Saying—– “for me I prefer cash refund because I don’t like to wait that long and I can take the cash to my local bank and exchange it to any currency anytime I want”——”
That comment is a valid observation, I would be surprised if any Airport Customs Office would reimburse such a substantial sum in CASH as would be due.
OMG so funny, I started scrolling and after two pages I gave up! Seen enough bracelets. You have defined Hermès perfectly, there is no better way! I agree with you on many points: fashion is not everything, but sometimes the magpie in me wins! So I must admit, LVMH knows how marketing works and it works on me! I love designer pieces, but to me they are like art! I treasure them and I love them. I know it is superficial, but it makes me happy. I wrote a piece about an hermès bag too, a neon bag!
Sisty – maybe “we just jellis”, but who the fuck you?!
Look, I think she actually genuinely loves her Hermes and at the end of the day I’m to the point where I really don’t care what people spend their money on because most people have to work hard for it…even if they don’t have a job 😉
But I do find that level of consumption over-the-top because it reaches a point where it’s just meaningless. How can you really appreciate that many scarves, key chains etc? They just don’t seem so beautiful in such excess.
Where as one beautiful designer bag with amazing craftmanship and design. Or a couple of special scarves…it’s a different story then.
Anne – We don’t use like “at the end of the day” here. Unless it’s bedtime.
So well said. Nothing more to add.
I got sucked into looking at her website…it’s a bizarrely fascinating portrait of a bored housewife. I left my job after having a breakdown, and am in semi-poverty, shopping the wardrobe, looking at but not really lusting after beautiful fashion. Even when things change for the better for me, I would never contemplate purchasing a designer object purely for its label rather than its form and function: everything this chick has appears to loudly proclaim its origins – each piece always has a visual reference to the maker.
I seriously can’t understand this woman, endlessly trying to fill the greedy, little or enormous gaps in her life with status infused objects. I agree with what some other posters have noted, she is not very fashionable, and should perhaps invest some of her, or her wealthy husband’s cash, in a stylist. Apart from appearing like a vacuous, moronic shopaholic, she’s dowdy, droopy and depressingly pedestrian.
I don’t really have an issue with people spending money if it’s theirs to spend. As a girl who would willingly fork over $1500 for a replica model of a fighter plane from my favourite TV show (the only thing stopping me is the fact that I don’t actually have that money) I have no room to judge people for buying expensive shit, and a handbag is probably a lot more useful than a model Viper mk. II.
What really gets to me, though, is the showing off. Maybe this lady really loves her Hermès products and I’m not going to quibble about matters of taste, but the displaying of all the stuff is what makes me sad.
Sisty, not jealous at all. I’m the type where I feel physically repulsed if I have too much. I find it vulgar.
I was more offended by her hideous mismatched bargain basement bed linens. If you can drop $200,000++ on Hermes, surely you can afford a MATCHING bed in a bag set from Walmart.
I never heard about her before, but I took a look and it made me cringe. it’s fucking perverse … and sad.
She seems obsessive and not very fashionable.
The reveals on TPF usually just make me think ‘ooohh thats nice, lucky person’ but this one is ridiculous. Tacky OTT nouveau riche.
I like how protective she is of her own “copyright” while posting pictures she’s taken of store windows. What about their copyrights?
And her “reveal”? What the fuck is a “reveal”? If you use a self-conscious, precious name for it, does it change it from “showing off my blatant consumerism and the pathological insecurity with which it is driven”? Sheesh.
I am a live-in nanny in the Hamptons and I swear I saw her the other day. I almost stopped and said “are you that Hermes nutball??” but I figured if it wasn’t her, that would be terribly embarrassing…
Miacillan really has one of the worst sense of fashion in the world. I honestly think the pretty items she got need to go to some more tasteful owners. She isn’t a bad person and in fact, a nice lady but she’s just way to crazy to just got all those pieces of items in bulk, and match them altogether in a mess just for the sake of wearing them. She has been a shopaholic prior to her marriage. So this shopaholic maniac does not develop simply because she married a rich husband…. I am just speechless looking at how she’s wasting her life away on luxury items in the least tasteful manner..
I am mostly offended by her tacky style. What a waste of luxury products..