Welcome to Show Us the Receipts, our recurring column on what fashion people really buy and spend.
Money remains taboo in almost every corner of life, but in fashion, dollars and cents can take on an especially complex dimension—from both inside and out. With a high buy-in to the luxury market and wages that don’t often allow professionals access to the goods offered by their own industry, we often find ourselves wondering how, exactly, our contemporaries afford their wardrobes. Do they come from generational wealth? Are they on every PR gifting list known to man? Are they savvy sale shoppers and bargain hunters? Or are they just really shrewd budgeters?
Here, we asked three stylish people in or adjacent to the fashion industry to chronicle one month of their fashion consumption—and to note what was purchased at full price, discounted, and gifted.
This month, a corporate employee at a luxury house, a stylist, and a content creator all offered Vogue a peek at their receipts.
Read the first edition of Show Us the Receipts here.
The Corporate Employee
- Zara jacket: $129
- Zara jeans: $49.90
- Zara trousers: $79.90
- Zara sweater: $59.90
- Zara jacket: $169
- Chanel earrings: $520 (discounted)
TOTAL: $1,007.70
While this corporate employee prefers her discretionary funds to go toward experiences like concerts or dining out, she found herself buying more clothing than usual this month. “I try to only shop when I truly need something, partially to save money but also to reduce the number of items in my closet,” she says. She chalks her purchases up—mostly cold weather pieces from Zara—to the changing season. Her one big purchase—a pair of Chanel earrings—was an anomaly. “I also don’t normally buy expensive jewelry or designer items, but when the opportunity presents itself, it’s hard to say no,” she says.
Though salary and closet space are her main limitations, the corporate employee hopes that she’ll be able to allocate more of her salary toward clothing (right now she estimates she spends 2-10% of her monthly income on clothes). “By the time I pay rent and daily expenses, I have little budget left for clothes,” she says. “As I continue to grow in my career and earn more money, I plan to make clothes a bigger part of my budget, because my style has always been important to me and I always feel more confident when I’m wearing an outfit that I love.”
