Friday, November 26, 2010

Don't Call It a Closet

One thing that happened during the depression of the 1930's was that entertainments (films, plays, etc...) became more and more lavish.  The thinking being that people wanted to visit worlds that lifted them out of their burdensome existence and placed them someplace grand and rarefied--financial security being so very rare.  It was a sound principal, and many of these flicks made a profit because of it.

However, the unrich patrons were not being duped by anyone.  If you read some news-clippings from that period, the ticket-buyers were well aware of the placebo effect of a few hours spent admiring mansions bedecked with women in festive ball-gowns, all wondering how to get Cary Grant to kiss them before the big fade out.

Our own Great Recession has been a whole lot less egalitarian.  There are no cleverly crafted distractions, no attempts to massage the knotted minds of those who are struggling.  Of course, without a prevailing studio system that really can't happen now.  Instead, what has cropped up is a newfound favoring of the Arts & Leisure & Design & High Fashion crowd as entertainment.

There's just one problem: It's disgusting.

Because these endless articles and shows and websites seem to exist solely to delineate the impenetrable line between the having much and the having little.  And those persons connected to the super-wealthy (who may or may not be such themselves) don't want to be thought of as aspirational, merely exclusive.

Take a recent Home and Garden article in the NYTimes.  A woman who is known for her exclusive and expensive home-cleaning service is supposedly having her apartment profiled by the paper of record.  But instead of descriptions of her wainscoting, we get a description of the intensely comprehensive method her cleaners use for her famous clients.  She mentions how her people will actually take apart cabinets and dressers, simply to clean the runners.  This is nuts.  But she defends her insanity, saying some people have specially designed closets by, for example, Linda London, and these can cost as much as $20,000.

So far, so wasteful: but here's where it gets better.  Someone from the Times must have contacted Ms. London about her services being mentioned.  And she insisted on correcting these erroneous statements.  She does not design closets, but "dressing rooms."  Moreover, the cost for these rooms is typically far above $20,000.

Apparently the suggestion that she would create a storage space for only twenty grand would give the impression that she works for paupers.  I think the oxygen must be pretty thin way up on Ms. London's high horse, if she thinks such comments are appropriate in this economic climate.  Or, truly, anytime ever.

But her attitude is indicative of a whole culture gone flooey.  You're either a someone who's worried about the possible posting of an eviction notice, or someone whose fiefdom might as well be littered with signs that read, "No peasants allowed."  Certainly not in the dressing room.