I don’t even own a single pair of sweatpants to begin with, but don’t wear sweatpants to fancy stores if you want to be treated well.
“Outside, Jeremy informs me that she definitely gave me a look, one that he characterized as, “What is this bitch doing going to Chanel in sweatpants?“
I could have debunked that myth that rich people dress like the Olsen twins even before reading this article and about her experiment!
In my experience, only the people who are regular customers, or celebrities, are able to go into stores looking like they rolled out of bed straight into a pond and picked up some clothes off the floor, and get treated extremely well.
For the rest of us common folk, this is not the case, and we WILL get judged by what we wear!
I know this because I can see the difference based on what I wear (even if I have makeup on or not!), and my mother is a pretty consistent example of this.
She doesn’t dress in the most polished manner to be sure, but she does like to buy nice things once in a while, extremely expensive items that even I would gasp at paying (sometimes!).
Anyway, once my mother went into a store fully intending to buy a couple of expensive pieces and was totally, 100% ignored by two snotty salesgirls.
She was CLEARLY interested in the merchandise, touching the clothing and holding it up to check it, but couldn’t get them to pay attention to her, or even squeak out a “Hello”.
Frustrated, she went next door, was treated very warmly by an associate, got everything she wanted. She even mentioned to the nice associate that she was being rebuffed pretty rudely next door and he laughed telling her that they were all snooty like that at the store because they don’t like their jobs.
On a whim, popped back into the first store to take a look at a top she had touched on her first go round with her new purchases (bags) flashing, and suddenly the two ice queens warmed up immediately to her and started asking if they could do ANYTHING to help.
She gave them an icy stare and walked out, disgusted by their change in behaviour just because she had new shopping bags on her arm.
The best stores and sales associates are the ones who don’t care what you wear and assume your money is as good as anyone else’s, and they NEVER judge the book by its cover.
As another example, a luxury car salesman once told me that he never judged anyone by the way they dressed any longer.
He had been surprised a number of times before with people wearing rather beat up / ordinary togs walking into his dealership and dropping a cheque for a brand new luxury car like it was nothing.
Even if they’re young, he treats them with respect because he doesn’t know if they could be trust fund babies, or just have really rich parents!!
As a result, he’s one of the top selling sales associates at his dealership, whereas the other salesmen tend to judge people based on how they look and what they wear before deciding to approach them and offer to help.
Frankly, people who can’t afford to buy a fancy car or fancy clothes, tend to not even bother going into the stores, ergo, sales associates should be trained to assume that ANYONE who walks into their store has money to burn.
SOMETIMES, IT’S ALL RELATIVE TO WHO YOU ARE WITH
BF tends to wear pretty casual things most days — cargo pants, or sweatpants and a sweatshirt, whereas I am someone who dresses to the nines even to go out for a grocery run (what!? I love clothes!).. anyway, once we were in a car dealership and we got the eye from sales people because they couldn’t reconcile that I was dressed so nicely and he was dressed like a casual jogger, and that we were together.
Then they just assumed that he was rich because I was so kitted out, and he got some seriously nice treatment.
Ironically, when a man dresses badly, but has a nicely-dressed partner, they assume he’s rich, but it doesn’t work the other way around when women dress badly and have a nicely-dressed partners!
I guess they just assumed that he was costly signalling by dressing down deliberately:
… deliberate nonconformity shows that you can handle some ridicule because you’ve got social capital to burn.
[…]
A really wealthy person, on the other hand—a high—can distinguish himself from the mediums by choosing not to send costly signals of wealth.
Yep. BF sends out signals that he’s filthy rich because he wears sweatpants
😛
Verdict?
Your money is (and should be) as good as anyone else’s.
You have vote with your purchases, so you can also decide to vote against buying a brand or buying in a store where they don’t treat you as well as they should.
This is what I do.
If I get some rude, snotty treatment in a store, I don’t go back.
Sometimes, I even make it a point to tell them they lost my business.
(Hat tip to Revanche for the links!)
