Let me tell you the story of my debut into the world of fashion. When Jennifer Wideman Green (a friend of mine from graduate school) ended up living in New York City, she met a number of people in the fashion industry. Through her I met Freeda Fawal-Farah, who worked for
Before I started my talk, Freeda treated me to a quick fashion tutorial as we sipped our lattes in a balcony cafe overlooking the escalator in the big downtown Manhattan building. Freeda gave me a rundown of the outfits worn by every woman who passed us, including the brands they were wearing and what her clothes and shoes said about her lifestyle. I found her attention to every detail—indeed, the whole fashion analysis—fascinating, the way I imagine expert bird watchers are able to discern minute differences between species.
About thirty minutes later, I found myself on a stage before an auditorium full of fashion mavens. It was a tremendous pleasure to be surrounded by so many attractive and well-dressed women. Each woman was like an exhibit in a museum: her jewelry, her makeup, and, of course, her stunning shoes. Thanks to Freeda’s tutorial, I was able to recognize a few of the brands when I looked out into the rows. I could even discern the sense of fashion that inspired each ensemble.
I wasn’t sure why those fashionistas wanted me there or what they expected to hear from me. Still, we seemed to have good chemistry. I talked about how people make decisions, how we compare prices when we are trying to figure out how much something is worth, how we compare ourselves to others, and so on. They laughed when I hoped they would, asked thoughtful questions, and offered plenty of their own interesting ideas. When I finished the talk, Valerie Salembier, the publisher of
AFTER SAYING OUR good-byes, I left the building with my new Prada bag and headed downtown to my next meeting. I had some time to kill, so I decided to take a walk. As I wandered, I couldn’t help thinking about my big black leather bag with its large Prada logo displayed. I debated with myself: should I carry my new bag with the logo facing outward? That way, other people could see and admire it (or maybe just wonder how someone wearing jeans and red sneakers could possibly have procured it). Or should I carry it with the logo facing toward me, so that no one could recognize that it was a Prada? I decided on the latter and turned the bag around.
Even though I was pretty sure that with the logo hidden no one realized it was a Prada bag, and despite the fact that I don’t think of myself as someone who cares about fashion, something felt different to me. I was continuously aware of the brand on the bag. I was wearing Prada! And it made me feel different; I stood a little straighter and walked with a bit more swagger. I wondered what would happen if I wore Ferrari underwear. Would I feel more invigorated? More confident? More agile? Faster?
I continued walking and passed through Chinatown, which was bustling with activity, food, smells, and street vendors selling their wares along Canal Street. Not far away, I spotted an attractive young couple in their twenties taking in the scene. A Chinese man approached them. “Handbags, handbags!” he called, tilting his head to indicate the direction of his small shop. At first they didn’t react. Then, after a moment or two, the woman asked the Chinese man, “You have Prada?”
The vendor nodded. I watched as she conferred with her partner. He smiled at her, and they followed the man to his stand.
The Prada they were referring to, of course, was not actually Prada. Nor were the $5 “designer” sunglasses on display in his stand really Dolce&Gabbana. And the Armani perfumes displayed over by the street food stands? Fakes too.*
From Ermine to Armani
Let’s pause for a moment and consider the history of wardrobes, thinking specifically about something social scientists call external signaling, which is simply the way we broadcast to others who we are by what we wear. Going back a way, ancient Roman law included a set of regulations called sumptuary laws, which filtered down through the centuries into the laws of nearly all European nations. Among other things, the laws dictated who could wear what, according to their station and class. The laws went into an extraordinary level of detail. For example, in Renaissance England, only the nobility could wear certain kinds of fur, fabrics, laces, decorative beading per square foot, and so on, while those in the gentry could wear decisively less appealing clothing. (The poorest were generally excluded from the law, as there was little point in regulating musty burlap, wool, and hair shirts.)
Some groups were further differentiated so as not to be confused with “respectable” people. For instance, prostitutes had to wear striped hoods to signal their “impurity,” and heretics were sometimes forced to don patches decorated with wood bundles to indicate that they could or should be burned at the stake. In a sense, a prostitute going out without her mandatory striped hood was in disguise, like someone wearing a pair of fake Gucci sunglasses. A solid, nonstriped hood sent a false signal of the woman’s livelihood and economic status. People who “dressed above their station” were silently, but directly, lying to those around them. Although dressing above one’s station was not a capital offense, those who broke the law were often hit with fines and other punishments.
What may seem to be an absurd degree of obsessive compulsion on the part of the upper crust was in reality an effort to ensure that people were what they signaled themselves to be; the system was designed to eliminate disorder and confusion. (It clearly had some signaling advantages, though I am not suggesting that we revert back to it.) Although our current sartorial class system is not as rigid as it was in the past, the desire to signal success and individuality is as strong today as ever. The fashionably privileged now wear Armani instead of ermine. And just as Freeda knew that Via Spiga platform heels weren’t for everyone, the signals we send are undeniably informative to those around us.
NOW, YOU MIGHT think that the people who buy knockoffs don’t actually hurt the fashion manufacturer because many of them would never buy the real thing to start with. But that is where the effect of external signaling comes in. After all, if a bunch of people buy knockoff Burberry scarves for $10, others—the few who can afford the real thing and want to buy it—might not be willing to pay twenty times more for the authentic scarves. If it is the case that when we see a person wearing a signature Burberry plaid or carrying a Louis Vuitton LV-patterned bag, we immediately suspect that it is a fake, then what is the signaling value in buying the authentic version? This perspective means that the people who purchase knockoffs dilute the potency of external signaling and undermine the authenticity of the real product (and its wearer). And that is one reason why fashion retailers and fashionistas care so much about counterfeits.
WHEN THINKING ABOUT my experience with the Prada bag, I wondered whether there were other psychological forces related to fakes that go beyond external signaling. There I was in Chinatown holding my real Prada bag, watching the woman emerge from the shop holding her fake one. Despite the fact that I had neither picked out nor paid for mine, it felt to me that there was a substantial difference between the way I related to my bag and the way she related to hers.
More generally, I started wondering about the relationship between what we wear and how we behave, and it made me think about a concept that social scientists call self-signaling. The basic idea behind self-signaling is that despite what we tend to think, we don’t have a very clear notion of who we are. We generally believe that we have a privileged view of our own preferences and character, but in reality we don’t know ourselves that well (and definitely not as well as we think we do). Instead, we observe ourselves in the same way we observe and judge the actions of other people—inferring who we are and what we like from our actions.
