Throughout my teenage years, I found myself wearing more and more branded clothes whilst out with my friends, and I began to foster some distaste from them. They would call me a brand whore, telling me that their basic Kmart bitch clothes were the same,  just without the $70 sticker on the front that let everyone know which brand it was. Looking back as an over-entitled, poor, studying millennial, I can say that I have not changed in the slightest: I am still a brand whore and love every bit of it.

I will have you know that we millennials don’t only spend our money on brunch and avocados, we have more sense in us than that. I for one spend all my hard-earned savings on clothing brands that I really don’t need. Hey, at least I’m not in denial. The thing is, I don’t really know why I’m attracted to branded clothing, but I just seem to buy it a lot more than my basic Target brand bitch friends do (love u all tho x). I am literally that girl from Confessions of a Shopaholic who needs to freeze her credit card to stop herself from spending her non-existent food money on a new pair of shorts in the same colour as 20 others in my closet.

My mates and family call me a brand whore because I spend money on these clothes. They tell me that I look like a hipster, or ‘try-hard boujee’, but I will have you know that I slay the boujee aesthetic no matter what I’m wearing – especially when I take pictures of myself in the change-room at a Tommy Hilfiger store, wearing a really nice jumper that I can’t afford and post it on my Instagram story because that’s normal in our society now. As for the hipster accusers, I don’t get pumpkin spiced lattes from Starbucks, I don’t even drink coffee. Take that stereotypes!  I’ll just be sitting over there with my stainless steel water bottle and new 15” MacBook Pro editing a new film that I entitled ‘entity’ which is about the inner struggles of my soul yearning for new clothes. This is real life.

The idea of ‘needing’ these clothes stems from image being extremely important as a kid. I always liked wearing clothes that looked nice and that had brands on them, but I have no clue where this influence and emphasis of image came from. It could have been the media feeding these images into my easily manipulatable brain; or my family, as presentation has always been important to them. It’s not like I’m wearing Balenciaga or Gucci, just surf brands like Stussy, and semi-boujiee brands like Tommy Hilfiger. I may spend a bit of money on these brands and convince myself I can afford it, but I’m still a uni student drowning my sorrows in HECS debt and packet ramen noodles like I have been for the past four years, a cycle that will most likely never end for the rest of my young adulthood.

I’m always asked condescendingly why I spend so much money on a jumper or a shirt. It starts with my friends asking me how much it was, why I bought it, and a swift jab of a reply, stating “I wouldn’t buy that” in a tone that not only devalues the clothes that I wear, but me as a person; and it sucks because I like what I’m wearing. Just because it has a brand name on it, does it really change anything? Okay, that makes me sound hypocritical because I’m sure there are very similar clothes in k-mart and in surf brand shops, but just hear me out.

The thing is, in the age of Instagram models and celebrities grooming their teenage audience to fall in line like dominoes to the age of consumerism, my habits cannot be judged that harshly. Being a brand whore can’t be seen as that bad if I’m being influenced by those I look up to and want to be like. Instagram culture is breeding a social norm of needing to look put-together and appear as your ideal self as represented through your online persona; but if we feel good about our perceived selves, is this really a bad thing? As people are inherently far from their perfect selves but appearing to be ‘perfect’ by wearing clothes, makeup or travelling, it fills the gap between a culture of fabrication and reality making us feel more confident and happier that we spent our food savings on those vans that we really don’t need but oh so desperately had to have. Whenever I’m talking about influencing people to buy things, I always think about the movie We’re the Joneses which is an awesome example of how consumerism and materialism foster brands to become manipulative in communicating their products to consumers. I like to think that I’m not brainwashed, but that may just be the juice talking that was advertised to me five minutes ago. 

Being a brand whore is both a rewarding and expensive lifestyle whereby I’m heavily focused on my appearance due to my lack of self-esteem and anxiety which plagues me, so what’s wrong with spending a little extra to feel a little extra?