Allison Horner
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A new style has emerged and redefined the status symbol of poor. Called, not simply, the Poorgeoisie, this group of wealthy hipsters spends luxurious amounts to look like hobos. Despite the recession, luxury is in while gaudy is out. Now, top designers and retailers are tailoring their products and campaigns to this shift in taste of “virtuous consumption”, as Thomas Frank calls it in the July 2009 issue of Details. For this group, products need to have a story, a meaning and a purpose to be bought for justification. A great article in Details talks about the Poorgeoisie in depth with some interviews and examples of companies who cater to this shift in lifestyle.  Despite the downturn, a moneyed class of people are still buying luxury goods—and they're doing it by the mini Cooper–load. While Wall Street's hedge-funders have become whipping boys, those who have mastered the art of inconspicuous consumption are living as large as ever. But they're not easy to spot, resembling, as they do, Trotskyite grad students—a look that doesn't come cheap: $300 Acne jeans, $175 hand-stitched guayabera shirt, $150 mussed haircut with beard trim (not too short, please). This brand of consumerism escapes condemnation—it's okay to be a capitalist pig as long as you're the sort who roots around in your organic garden for truffles.
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