The Fashionista Files

by Karen Robinovitz

  There’s a Filipino proverb that says people who spend a lot of money are “angry” at money—“galit sa pera.” They can’t stand to have it around. I know too many people who have declared bankruptcy. It’s they who came to mind when my phone rang at nine in the morning, with a shrill, piercing urgency that signaled the start of another round of a game I liked to call Dodging the Creditors. To combat this constant aggravation, I learned to answer my phone in Spanish. “No entiendo, señor. ¿Habla Español?” If they happened to catch me off guard and answering my phone in English, I developed a sick and perverse delight in telling them my “roommate” Melissa was out of the country, was working late, was never home, was dead. The last one scared me, and I didn’t do that again.

  Like most debtors, my freefall down the rabbit hole started in college. It was probably a trip to Florida that did it. Not the real trip to South Beach I took my senior year—when three girlfriends and I holed up at the Cordozo Hotel, spent nights making eyes at swarthy waiters in Cuban restaurants, and generally had the liquor-soaked time of our lives, our $500 expenses paid for by our generous parents (mine included). No, not that Florida vacation, which ended with me, broke as usual, begging to borrow $25 from my best friend, Jennie, just so I could share a cab ride to our dormitory once we got to New York City.

  “What would you do without me?” Jennie had asked. She was amused and a little annoyed, since we’d been down this road before. I didn’t know how to answer her. She was the one who had bailed me out the year before when the police—the police—called to say they were going to arrest me for a bounced check. Unless I coughed up the $115 I owed Canal Jeans in Soho for a pair of Doc Martens I’d purchased there, it was debtor’s prison for me (actually a desk-appearance ticket and a misdemeanor charge). Of course, I didn’t have the money. I couldn’t return the boots either, since they had been a present to the gay man I loved at the time. So Jennie lent me the money, and I paid her back with the hundred dollars my parents sent me that Thanksgiving so my sister and I could take the train to Washington and spend the holidays with relatives.

  I made my sister take the bus instead. It was horrid—bus stations at Thanksgiving are filled with large caravans of military men, poor college kids like us, and the occasional bag lady with a free ticket home. It’s doubtful my sister will ever forgive me, although she’s had much practice. My sophomore year in college she lent me $900 to pay an overdue American Express bill. My credit history was virgin then: pure, solvent. At the time it seemed important to keep it that way. Aina, who was in high school, and boasted a fat savings account, sent me a MoneyGram plus $50 in cash to help me get through the month. The next month it was my parents who were stuck with the $1,500 AmEx bill. They weren’t as understanding.

  My life is filled with such free associations—from one person who’s bailed me out of a money jam to another and another. I am bound to my friends and family not just by love but by debt. There is no limit to how much I owe them, and I owe some of them quite a lot. Lately I’ve come to realize how much they have learned to tolerate such shameless selfishness on my part. My reputation precedes me. Sometimes when I call, my friends don’t even bother to say “Hello,” only “How much?”

  But back to Florida. The Florida vacation I didn’t take. The Florida vacation that started the cash-flow crisis I’m in now. It was my freshman year at college, the first day back from winter break. My roommate at the time was a girl named Madelyn, a prep-school princess with an enormous wardrobe and a fickle temperament. I liked Madelyn, and more important, I wanted her to like me.

  “Let’s go to Florida,” she said one evening while we smoked cigarettes in the hallway and tried to affect cool.

  “Sure,” I happily agreed. “Spring break?”

  “No . . . tomorrow,” she suggested, flicking ash everywhere. “Classes don’t start for a couple days still. We could jet down, get an awesome tan, and be back for registration. Wouldn’t that be fun?” she asked.

  “Tomorrow?” I repeated. “But what about the plane tickets? We’d have to pay premium for them. And where would we stay?”

  Madelyn shrugged. “I’m sure it wouldn’t cost that much,” she said. “We could stay at a hotel or something. It’ll only be, like, a couple hundred bucks. It’s just a weekend,” she emphasized.

  “Sure, sure.” I nodded, already perturbed. I only had a “couple hundred” bucks in my checking account at that point—money that was supposed to take me well into the semester. I’d spent almost my entire savings already, just to keep up with the Madelyns of my life.

  We didn’t go to Florida. There was no way I’d have enough money or even the nonchalance to pull off that kind of stunt. Madelyn was nice about it: She pretended that it was okay for her to spend the week in a New York blizzard.

  But her offhand suggestion was an eye-opener for me. It was the first time I fully comprehended the difference between Madelyn and me, rich versus poor, spontaneous versus anxious. For Madelyn, the world was an exciting place, full of endless possibilities. She could imagine flying off to Miami on a whim, just to get a good tan. For me, excitement meant a dinner downtown. At Benny’s Burritos.

  I vowed I’d never have to cry poor again, that if I ever found myself in a similar situation, when a friend suggested blowing $200 on a magnum of Korbel, a table at Au Bar, a taxicab uptown, or even to “for God’s sake just buy the damn leather gloves”—I wouldn’t say no. I would be prepared. I intended to cultivate the seductive characteristics of rich, spoiled American girls. Ringing in my mind was a phrase from Tolstoy’s War and Peace: “Natasha, the rich girl with everything, was beloved by all. Self-sacrificing Sonya, who had nothing, was barren and forgotten.” I didn’t want to be Sonya, forever indebted and dependent. All my friends had Natasha’s wicked fire, her free spirit, her confident sense of entitlement—all of which I wanted to emulate. So I did. With a little help from my credit cards.

  The next year I was armed to the teeth in plastic: MBNA Visa, MBNA Visa Gold, Chase Platinum, AmEx, Citibank Preferred. Too late, though—Madelyn never included me in any of her travel plans again.

  Money. At the time I was half afraid and half amazed by the way I earned it—working forty hours a week at a software company, an art history major writing lines of code for customized computer programs. So I got rid of it before it consumed me. Before it defined me. Allowing myself to spend it all carelessly, recklessly, and with a certain wild abandon, leaving me poor and destitute after these manic bouts of spending, afforded me to retain the perverted sense of pride and identity I cultivated by being poor. Once I earned enough to renounce my hero worship of bitchy, thin girls with Daddy’s trust funds, I was actually proud of my erstwhile poverty. I didn’t want to save money or worry about it and lord it over other people. I found it was much easier to live with the anxiety of being broke than the anxiety of being rich.

  It’s a misery, nonetheless, and one no amount of shopping sprees and fancy restaurants can solve. I was terribly unhappy. I didn’t clean my unpaid apartment for months, and grew accustomed to living in filth. My living room was overrun by laundry bags, empty gin bottles, stacks of unopened bills and glossy magazines. I threw large, raucous parties in my backyard garden, spending several hundred dollars on booze and food to entertain large groups of people who didn’t give a shit about me.

  Luckily I did find a solution to my problems—both psychological and financial. I fell in love with my now husband. And my father helped me find a credit counselor. I came home one evening and found that Mike had cleaned the bedroom. There had been dust bunnies growing out of the wall like fungi. I realized how unhealthy my life had become. The nine A.M. phone calls, the angry missives from landlords and utility companies, the neurotic additions and subtractions, the bags of laundry in the living room, the dust collecting everywhere. A fog had lifted. I didn’t want to be this kind of person. I didn’t want to live as if every day were my last. With Mike I saw a future—and a life I wanted to be able to afford and
enjoy.

  My father helped me get myself back in financial shape. For years he had urged me to do something about my bills—to pay them on time, mostly, and get rid of my credit cards. Finally I took his advice and made an appointment with Consumer Credit Counseling Services. My credit counselor cut up my credit cards, put me on a budget, and reduced my monthly payments to a manageable rate. He even let me keep my $100-a-month dry-cleaning expenses. I also moved from my overpriced West Village alcove studio into a more spacious rent-stabilized one-bedroom on the Upper West Side that I shared with my boyfriend (now my husband).

  I was on the program for about five years, and except for several slipups, I managed to pay my bills on time. Although I am still partial to the siren call of fashionable clothes, I pay for my half-price Gucci with cash. I’ve also reconciled myself to the fact that I am unfashionably bourgeoisie and staunchly middle-class. I am not a socialite.

  There are no more credit cards in my wallet. I’ve even passed on the notion of applying for an account-based credit card (a credit card whose limit is attached to the funds stored in a savings account) that’s been offered to me in the mail. The journey has begun.

  2003—there is life after fashionista! Don’t despair. It took me five years and lots of struggling to get out of crushing consumer debt. But I did it. My husband and I paid for our share of our wedding costs in cash—and that included a two-week vacation at the Princeville Resort in Hawaii. While buying those clothes now might make you feel better, think about what you really want down the line—a great midcentury bungalow in the Hollywood Hills, a vintage BMW, financial independence—and weigh it against the price tag of whatever you’re holding in your hand. You might find you don’t really want it after all.

  Ascertain Your Level of

  Fashionista Financial Hell!

  LEVEL ONE

  You’re a little bit behind, but you have money coming (of course, when it does arrive, you know exactly where it’s going: to the cash register of your favorite store). Your cell phone was shut off only once. You have to charge tomatoes and Diet Coke at the gourmet grocery store, but when you’re out with friends you have just enough cash to catch a cab, buy a beverage, and tip the coat check.

  Tips:

  Pay double the minimum on the due amount of your credit card when the bill comes.

  Try to arrange professional meetings over lunch or dinner so someone else can expense it and pick up the tab.

  Start to keep a log of all of your expenditures in order to figure out where you can cut back, and create a budget that will allow you to still enjoy fashion to some extent.

  Return clothes if tags remain intact (or if you wore it once, didn’t love it, and still have the receipt).

  LEVEL TWO

  You start to get phone calls from strangers who call themselves “Miss Jones,” “Mr. Brown,” or some other innocuous name, and leave a 1-800 number. You’re eating Special K for dinner (but you’ve lost two pounds!). You date men you’re not interested in because they’ll take you to nice restaurants.

  Tips:

  Don’t call that 800 number back until you have the money, an organized plan you can stick to for paying it back, or a really good excuse (we recommend telling them you’ve been in Europe for an emergency situation that is too difficult to discuss).

  Give a friend your credit card to hold. You are clearly not to be trusted with it for a while.

  Self-imposed probation: Tell the stores where you do the most damage that you’re not allowed to shop for a certain amount of time. Beg them to not take your money. (This doesn’t always work.)

  At a drinks date, dramatically dig through your bag and start freaking out about “lost wallet” phobia. Your cocktail partner will pay. Thank him or her profusely and send a sweet note with an IOU card or flowers when you get a shot of cash flow (ultimately, flowering someone will be costlier than a $7 cocktail, but it’s all about image).

  LEVEL THREE

  Matters have become dire. Eviction notices are piling up. Your phone is . . . well, let’s just say temporarily out of service. The IRS has put a lien on your paycheck. And even worse, your skin is breaking out from all the stress.

  Tips:

  Filing Chapter 11 may be your best option. If you declare bankruptcy, you can’t have credit for ten years. But all your debts are forgiven. Seek advice (get on an allowance plan) from a good accountant, preferably one who’s friends with the family, so you can get away with free advice.

  Cut up your credit cards, or, at the very least, make your limit far less than whatever it currently is.

  Change many things about your life. Forbid yourself to even step into stores, and if you take walks, make sure you travel a path that will enable you to avoid any kind of temptation.

  Get thee to rehab, or at the very least, Debtor’s Anonymous meetings.

  If you don’t have a boyfriend, find one (fast!) and move in with him (nothing like a little impulsive behavior to make life more exciting).

  Change your name and move to Nebraska (no one would ever think of looking for you there!).

  INSUFFICIENT FUNDS!?

  Oops, I Did It Again! KAREN

  Tax season, 2003. No different from tax seasons 2002, 2001, 2000, and 1999 . . . I have to pay an undisclosed amount to the government, and for the seventh year in a row I am in dire straits. Not only can I not pay my taxes right now, but I can’t even take out $40 from the bank because my account is depleted, kaput, empty. I have no money, even if I’m wearing a fortune.

  I have this little problem called “living off the gross.” As a free-lancer, taxes are not taken out of my paychecks, and as a fashionista I am prone to impulsive behavior, living in the moment, and shopping rather than saving for: a.) a rainy day, and b.) to pay the IRS (those wretched people!). Full disclosure: One-third of my income is spent on fashion.

  I struggle with my fashion desires on many emotional levels. While I love, love, love it as an art, I feel pressure in my industry to look a certain way, wear certain things, and also a deeper sense of insecurity, not feeling good enough as I am, a result of far too many childhood wounds and psychological meshugahs. Buying fills a void, albeit temporarily. Dressing well has been a way for me to overcompensate in some ways. Not that it makes it okay. But it is an issue that has caused me much angst.

  I am aware when I’m shopping as a means to treat myself to something nice and when I am doing it to escape, deny, or cope with one of life’s hurdles. Like a bad drunk, sometimes the more I shop, the more I feel like I need to shop. Afterward I’m left with a nasty hangover—a sense of emptiness and guilt—not to mention things that I wear a few times and get sick of.

  The truth about my net worth: I have no liquid assets, other than Nicolas Ghesquière’s greatest hits from the previous fall and a feathered Gucci dress so precious, I’m afraid to even wear it. Full of shame, I feel like I have nowhere to turn. I am in a dark hole. And I need to pull myself up by my (very expensive) bootstraps and emerge.

  The process feels so overwhelming. Frightening, even. That is probably why, in the past, it has been easier for me to remain in denial and continue on my unhealthy path instead of dealing. My whole life I have been relying on old behaviors that may not work, but feed some part of my soul—even if for only a moment. Although such cycles actually make things worse, they’re easy to nourish.

  This year, however, I decide it needs to be different. This year, I have to make a change. My actions are no longer making me happy. In fact, they’re making me miserable. I spent nearly half of my life battling an eating disorder, which I conquered in 1999. But the shopping, in so many ways, is the exact same problem as what was behind the body image and control issues that led me to bulimia. I basically took one addiction and replaced it with another. It’s time to grab the Mombasa YSL bag by the horn handle.

  I call in my accountant, Michael, for backup. Together we carefully go over every one of my necessary expenses (i.e., cable, phone, electric, etc.), extras (
manicure, pedicure, hair, entertainment, etc.), and luxuries (shopping, massages, cab fare, etc.) in order to deduce where I need to cut back (duh!). It is the kind of tear-filled meeting that forces me to take a good, hard look at my flaws and mistakes—never an easy thing to do.

  I am still working on it. And I continue to every day. Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus, pushing a giant rock uphill. Once I reach the top, it falls to the bottom again. And I keep pushing it up, chasing it down, pushing it up and chasing it down. Every time I have the urge to shop, I take a step back in order to do something that feels more soothing—a bath, a manicure, yoga, a movie on Lifetime. I leave the house without my wallet when I frequent Soho or an area near a store I can’t resist, as a means of prevention. This hasn’t always worked . . . some stores have my credit card number on file. (The bastards!)

  Mel, the good friend she is, introduced me to Century 21. We both thought, if I had to shop, I’d better at least do it in an affordable place that won’t leave me high and dry. In the overcrowded department store, I spent hours marveling at the Lagerfeld, Balenciaga, and Gaultier pieces I had once paid full price for (they were so cheap at Century 21 that it was sickening, even if the stuff was a season old). Although I must admit I missed the personal, intimate environment of a small boutique and the thrill of seeing clothes that weren’t aging and picked over.

  I went to the cash register with white moleskin Balenciaga pants, an Ungaro ruffled silk blouse, and white four-inch D & G heels, an ensemble that cost a total of $400, $100 less than what the pants would cost retail. As the woman rang me up, I started panicking, thinking of the remorse I’d walk away with, the fact that I still have taxes to pay, bills to deal with, and a savings account to finally start.