à la mode: In the Swing of Things

Now, I am not usually a person who is easily wooed into spending my money, especially if I am on a budget. I like to think that I am a savvy shopper that is able to look past the glitz and glamour of an object to make a logical decision as to whether or not it would actually be a smart buy for myself, all factors included. Being that I am a connoisseur of the fashion industry, and understand advertisement's attempts to tap into that part of the brain that elicits lust for product, I am usually pretty good at keeping my wallet in my pocket when I need to stretch the contents of my bank account; but, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, got me this past weekend. After looking through their October 6, Fall 2013 issue, and laying eyes on the below spread, "In the Swing of Things", considering my new penchant for handbags, I seen the dark skinned bald African model styled by, Jason Rider, sporting androgynous business casual looks, and toting around the season's most luscious designer bags, I said to myself, "I want to look like that!" My favorite bag was the $11,950 Miu Miu bag in Look 2, and what did I do? I went to Forever 21 about bought me a much more affordable bag in its liking. It amazes me fashion's powers of seduction, but that's the thing I find interesting about advertising  Famed photographer, Richard Avedon said it best, "Advertising is not about the product, but the having of the product." It is about buying the feeling, more than it is about buying the actual product. That is why marketing and advertisement is so important for brands. For me, this weekend was a perfect example of this notion. Looking at this spread, I felt that I wanted to feel like how that model looked in the story. Her looks were so easy, simple, and positively chic, and her choices of bags seemed to have something to with that easiness. With my new bald look the fact that this model was also bald made me envision myself even more in these looks with bags just like hers. So there I was, at Forever 21, spending money I knew I could have saved til next week so that I could have the feeling of toting  an oversize Miu Miu, which I might add served me quite well as I visited a fashion showcase at Stony Point Shopping Center in Richmond, VA (check my Instagram later on #IMFblog to see the fantastic items I found at The ARTisan Café). So maybe it wasn't quite a bad decision after all, because it did everything I needed it to do including make me feel fab!