Mar 25 2009
If you had all the money in the world, would you do this?
So as I occasionally do during some downtime from my oh so glamorous life, I was watching one of those VH1 shows, The Fabulous Life presents Hott Heiresses. And yes, I am a grown 20-something, and yes, I still find myself daydreaming about what it would be like if I was somehow magically a princess.
I’m one of those girls who never quite understood Princess Mia’s original plight in The Princess Diaries; I mean, what is it that was so unbearable about discovering you were a princess? I rather enjoyed etiquette class, and never pass up an opportunity to wear a dress.
So anyways, now that you know I’m still actually really just a five year-old girl with her tutu on, I’ll get to the point. This was an hour-long show, where they talked about such heiresses as Dylan Lauren (Ralph’s daughter), and Princess Grace’s granddaughter, but they finished with the big guns.
Anna Anisimova - her dad is some kind of Russian oil and real-estate magnate. She lives in New York in her own multi-million dollar penthouse apartment, which she also made over for a cool five mill., and (here’s the kicker) she never wears a single article of clothing twice.
She never wears anything twice. Never more than once.
This little piece of information comes direct from her personal shopper at Intermix in New York, Elizabeth Kirtin, who also divulges that Anisimova spends about $1 mill. a year on clothing.
Which means she is wearing some beautiful, beautiful, hand-wrought, pain-stakingly designed clothes.
Now if I can love a dress from J.Crew so much that I wear it month after month, can you imagine never wearing a one of a kind Philip Lim after the first time? I simply cannot imagine not ever wanting to wear my clothes more than once! I fall in love with them because they’re beautiful, or because they make me look or feel beautiful, and though I try not to wear them too often in a row, I actually want to wear my clothes several times (especially if I’m not photographed in them too often!). Especially if my clothing budget allows the kind of pretty things Anisimova’s does.
So? If you had so much money that you didn’t need to ever wear anything more than once, would you?
Ummm, hell naw. I love my clothes. That’s why I buy them. And no, I don’t have gabajillions (can you tell I didn’t excel at math?) of dollars, but no matter how much money I had, I would still love certain pieces of clothes too much to only wear them once. I can say that is a fact.
Question the first: does she ever wear the same pair of shoes more than once? If not, she is hardcore and clearly insane.
Question the second: what does she do with all of these once-worn clothes? I fear the answer is keeps them in a closet larger than my childhood home, but I hope the answer is something warm and fuzzy like donates them or auctions them and donates the proceeds or at least sells them to thrift stores so people like you and me can have awesome “greatest days ever” finds.
Question the third: She’s spending a million a year on clothes alone. I ask you, how can our economy be in such a crisis when there are people like this out there?
I’d have a room full of clothing and wear my pretty things all the time. If you never wore anything more than once, imagine the shopping you’d have to do. That could get boring. I also wouldn’t like having someone else to choose for me.
So, I guess I’ll just have to keep being me. I wouldn’t fit in with the uber wealthy life.
Robert, I also know that I could easily spend $1 mill. a year on clothes (and accessories!). Aside from a mutual funds, pretty much all the investing I’ve done to this point, is in my closet (which happens to be taking over my entire room right now).
But this girl doesn’t even do her own shopping - which solves your dilemna, maxiegirl - she has someone send the clothes to her from her favorite stores. And while I certainly wouldn’t mind never having to worry about money, there is a point of excess, when your spending becomes way more flash than necessary.
I know many people would say that Anisimova’s clothing budget pushes way beyond necessity, and I get that, but unfortunately, fashion is my one weakness. I think if you were to balance your spending, by spending less on some other aspects of your life, than surely it all works out. Hopefully.
And Gwen, I’m with you; I sincerely hope the girl is doing something worthwhile with her clothes. That would certainly make all the spending worthwhile - she has the potential to be a one-woman non-profit, and clothe many of the homeless in New York (the women, anyways).
But given the initial cost of the clothes, I suspect they are instead either sitting around in some giant, unused room somewhere, in storage, or being taken to a high-end re-sale shop (which would indeed give us the opportunity to have some of the those “greatest-day ever finds”).
At the end of the day, no matter how much money I end up making, I don’t think I would ever be able to wear something only once before tossing it (no matter the disposal method). Because that makes fashion disposable, which is something I simply don’t believe in. Many of those clothes she is wearing are works of art. Art is often beautiful, and monetary wise, it is an investment. Hence my investing philosophy.