My theory is that REALLY rich people don’t know what store their clothes came from. They have people to deal with that kind of detail.
Oh, didn’t see Oldfort’s post before I posted. That’s a really nice dress, Oldfort, that doesn’t scream Lilly Pulitzer and is much more sophisticated than many of the dresses in the line now. That particular dress does not read junior at all!
I second what nottelling said. 
I disagree with you, Hunt. Who is really rich? Prince Charles? I can assure you that he knows exactly what Savile Row tailor is making his suits. Getting measured for a suit is a pretty intimate undertaking.
Warren Buffett is extraordinarily brand conscious and brand loyal (to non-fancy brands).
I have 2 LP dresses. One is a dark navy nautical lace (if you look closer at the lace, you will see little sailboats), and the other is a seersucker a-line my hubby begged me to buy after he saw it in the window if the Newberry St LP store. None had any signature detailing or logos, so I really had to look up what “LP logo” everyone was talking about.
My one Lp dress was black; for several years it was my LBD that went everywhere.
I’m far too short to wear bright prints, but many LP clothes are tone on tone or two-colors, like Oldfort’s dress. I had a g/f whose signature style was calm LP dresses. She always looked good.
Maybe they just read junior on me since most of the styles would hit 14" or so above my knee caps.
LOVE the “rich people” threads and all the theory and conjecture. Wouldn’t it just be easier to find a designated “rich person” and get it from the horse’s mouth?
Don’t be so sure the horses aren’t here, @justOneDad. I suspect this web site attracts plenty of “rich people.”
What’s your definition of rich (for this purpose)? Would you consider a 1%-er rich? A 0.5%-er? I’m sure there are quite a few 1%-ers on CC.
The only designer I have ever cared about is Pucci. I can still remember the first Pucci-designed clothing I ever saw. It was a halter-top bathing suit and it was being worn by a friend of my mother’s. 1967.
Despite that, I have never particularly wanted to wear Pucci clothing–but last week I bought a Pucci scarf (on sale). I may throw it over a chair, where I can admire it every day.
@toledo I’m sure they are, too. The problem is that people may not be able to accurately identify them.
@Pizzagirl I believe the issue of definition has come up before without definite resolution.
VaBluebird, I think your original post sounds like you think rich people are like Thurston Howell from Gilligan’s Island – “oh, how smashing”!>>>>>>>>>>>
LOL! Perhaps, since I don’t run in the upper crust cirlces.
Rich is subjective, right? People with a net worth of $2M might not see themselves as rich…but that would be ultra rich for some.
Wealthy people from my home town in California wore sweatpants and jackets purchased at Kmart, and drove around in 10 year old Subarus… Of course they parked their old Subarus at their 5-20 million dollar homes along the lakeshore.
I’ve noticed that people with old money tend to be modest on the outside, but live in ultra high-end homes, whereas new money people need to prove to everyone that they are wealthy and therefore show it every way that they can.
There’s an old story from a previous era about the British family that owns a vast amount of Hepplewhite furniture. The son had a guest for dinner and the father threw him out because the guy had the cheek to compliment the furniture.
Having gone through expensive schools and knowing a number of people who could buy lots of things without noticing it, I can say that women talk more about what they have on and that men tend not to say anything. But men notice. The weird American Psycho picks up on this: the careful examination of business cards to feel if they’re engraved or printed and the quality of the stock and the color. This is why the old “dress for success” column talked about things like replacing heels because men notice if another guy’s heels are rounded from wear. They notice how closely you shave - or been shaved. They notice if your haircut is barber quality or better. Those are non-verbalized social rankings. I’ve seen some blunt showing off but only among people who are of similar moneyed status and then it’s partly status, partly sharing the latest cool, expensive thing - the new car (or girl), the new limited edition with multiple moon phases Patek Philippe. You can go to meetings and then hear afterwards discussion like “did you see that guy’s watch?” and that shared as information so you can learn whether it’s inherited money or how well are they really doing, etc.
And of course people find ways to let you know what they have when they’re negotiating. It can be blunt, like “Is it okay to leave my Bentley there?” or strategic, like laughing at a request for a net worth letter.
Not being a woman, I don’t pretend to understand the motivations, but I’ve seen many more conversations about clothes and jewelry. Sometimes it’s a shared fandom, especially for shoes - which as a guy I really, really don’t get but accept. I’ve seen what are sometimes putdowns: I love x too but his blank don’t fit me fill in the blank. But women are much more open to talking about what they have on. The only time I see men do this is when you see a guy who has your physical issues wearing something that fits and you ask about it. That’s allowable guy talk.
To run on, there were a series of books in the 70’s about the evolution of dress as a signifier and the rise of the “x class”, meaning people who dressed down but had the money and/or power. This became cartoons, etc., with the CEO dressed in a sweater while the underlings wore suits. There was also discussion about how the lack of signifiers changed service in stores: you couldn’t know if this person was a customer or not so the default mode switched from being very helpful to the clientele to not being helpful to anyone to shift the burden of assistance to customers to ask rather than have staff approach the “wrong” people. This has been lamented as the cause of the general loss of civility, though to me it highlights how civility depends on people being stuck in social, gender, racial and socio-economic roles.
One interesting thing in fashion has been the rise of expensive casual. I remember when you could only buy expensive casual stuff in places like Palm Beach - where a polo style shirt was hundreds of dollars - because the truth was the average person couldn’t tell the difference between those shirts and cheaper ones so they were more a badge of belonging in that limited social world. And rich kids wore cheap stuff like Izod and Topsiders and LLBean pants with frayed woven leather belts. Now you buy $400 shirts that are meant to look like you’re going for a walk on the beach because they’re symbols to wider world, not the limited social world of a specific place, that you can afford to walk on the beach even if that’s too expensive a shirt to wear while actually doing that. It’s “moneyed casual”. Or, I’m at the club and I’m dressing like I don’t really care that I’m at the club because that says this isn’t a special experience for me, that I can afford more than this. I think much of this look has been influenced by foreigners.
To finish, I was talking to my kid in LA about a relative whose photos are full of the luxury sports cars in her new neighborhood and my kid said a neighbor where she used to live kept a Lamborghini in the driveway. I expressed surprise that would happen in that area but, apparently, the general belief was the owner, a woman, was in a drug family and that touching her car would be potentially fatal. That is also a signifier: I can keep an ultra luxury sports car in my driveway because …
What’s the definition of “rich”?
It’s just above “middle class.”
I just realized that I am not qualified to post here because I am not rich. 
No, it’s just above “upper middle class” lol. I always think “pretentious” if I hear someone commenting about brands.