‘No!’ my rather fashion-conscious friend cried, in purchase-induced astonishment.

‘Oh yes!’ I repeated, very proud of my cheap yet cheerful purchase. ‘Well,’ he reasoned. ‘You have always been thrifty.”

I looked at him slightly confused. I’m sorry? Was that supposed to be a compliment? Out of all the adjectives I would use to describe myself, ‘thrifty’ most definitely does not make my top ten. As the conversation moved on effortlessly without me, my mind got stuck in this new adjective neverland which got me to thinking, is cheap really cheerful or is bargain shopping the new deadly sin of fashion?

Now let me take a moment, to make a very important distinction: ‘cheap’ and ‘nasty’ are two completely different things. Ill-fitting, badly cut clothes for bargain prices aren’t ‘cheap and cheerful’; they’re ‘cheap and nasty’. Bad quality fabrics disguised as high-class wares are, quite simply put, ‘cheap for a reason’. What I am referring to here is a bargain find; an item you have worked hard to uncover from the depths of retail oblivion that can hold its own next to its higher-class friends. A piece, that although you love it at the time, won’t cause you major anguish if it’s gone in three months. Surely such a purchase can’t be wrong, right?   

Later that week, I attended a prestigious charity auction in downtown New York. The champagne was flowing, donations were being made and the couture-clad were doing what they could for those less fortunate. I perused the donated merchandise slowly, (clearly everything but the place cards were out of my price range), yet as made my way around the room I discovered a rather unsavoury development. My diamond ring, the only jewellery I own of any real value, had slipped off my finger. Horrified, I looked down to find my highly sought-after, fake diamond ring still firmly fastened to my finger, smiling cheekily into my tear-stained eyes (diamonds are ridiculously hard to replace as a single gal).

As I seriously mourned the loss of my posse of best friends I began to conclude that perhaps cheap is cheerful. Losing something of real value, something that you have scrimped and saved for is heartbreaking. If I lost my $14 bag, I would live; if I were to misplace my fake diamond, I’d be sad but I’d get over it. Losing something of sentimental and monetary value quite simply sucks, no matter how Zen you try to be about it. 

Perhaps this is why the many religions of the world promote the whole ‘anti-material-possessions’ doctrine. If you have nothing to loose you’re less likely to mourn your loss whether it be the untimely departure of your new iphone; the upsetting crush of your recently purchased Gucci sunglasses or, in my case, the disappearance of a slippery diamond ring. However you choose to purchase your material possessions I guess the lesson is we can live without them, however unwillingly. Too many people spend their lives never wearing their ‘best’ outfit for fear of it getting ruined; or their most precious jewels, afraid to have them stolen. The fact is, things are simply things and we will live another day with or without them.

The last say: buying cheap can be cheerful, but buying nasty is still a sin.
 

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About Angela

Angela Gilltrap is a proud resident of the People’s Republic of Harlem where she still finds the occasional drive-by amusing. A published author, writer, television presenter and radio personality, her latest book Sunshine on Sugar Hill, a comedic tale of life in the hood, is set to be released through ABC Books late 2008. Her life aims include being an extra on The Love Boat – The Next Wave, performing the role of a fork in Beauty and the Beast The Musical and being rich enough to always afford good champagne and a driver – “It’s hard to look glamorous on the subway.”