Lipstick and boxers
The other day when in Valletta I noticed that just one shop was really buzzing. There were so many people in there I thought they had a big sale on – something like 90 per cent discount – but they hadn’t. I went inside. It’s a shop that sells cheap and cheerful fashion jewellery.
This shop, on the main street, has been there for a couple of years, but I have never seen it so full. I had to fight my way inside. When I turned round, some woman got an eyeful of my shoulder-bag and let rip.
People were riffling through the racks with that recognisable determination that says “I’m going to buy something if it kills me.” The body language is very different to that of people who are ‘just looking’ or browsing out of boredom or curiosity.
All the other shops were empty, or entertaining a couple of people who were ‘just looking’. I walked further down the main street, and found another shop that was packed with frenzied women, all jostling each other and rifling through the stands. And what do you know? It sold really hip fashion jewellery, too.
This made me think. When women are under pressure, they go shopping to cheer themselves up. When we are under great financial pressure, we still want to buy something to lift our spirits, but our budget has shrunk to a fraction of what it was – or we feel guilty about splashing out, even if we can still afford to do so.
So what we do is this: we buy inexpensive treats. To be defined as a treat, the thing must be entirely frivolous and unnecessary. It must speak of fun, dressing up, or luxury. So we buy ourselves cheap but gorgeous earrings, or a bit of make-up.
Then I remembered the term ‘lipstick effect’. Leonard Lauder, son of Estee Lauder, she of the eponymous cosmetics giant, had coined it to describe the effect that bad times have on lipstick sales. When the going gets rough, lipstick sales soar. “When lipstick sales go up, people don’t want to buy dresses,” he said in 2001. “When things get tough, women buy lipstick.”
The more expensive the lipstick, the higher the sales increase. The psychology behind it is this. A woman wants to treat herself to something special, to shift a bit of the gloom. What’s the most luxurious thing she can get for €20? It’s a lipstick from Chanel or Yves Saint Laurent. A lipstick from one of the low-end brands isn’t a treat.
It’s a necessity, and if you buy it when you’re feeling low, that €5 lipstick can shove you even further down.
The phenomenon noted by Leonard Lauder isn’t new. In the Second World War, women famously cheered themselves up with lipstick and nylons – when they could get hold of them. The cosmetics company Tangee promoted lipstick as a product which would help women ‘put on a brave face’, or so the advertisements said.
In times of deprivation, whether real or self-imposed, the little treats become the big ones. And they are invariably linked with femininity. Scent is a treat. A coffee-grinder is not, even if we love coffee and need a new one. Most men do not understand this, but every woman will know exactly what I mean.
Now I read in The Financial Times that Leonard Lauder has revised his lipstick effect theory. Now it’s the foundation effect. Foundation, for the men who are reading this, is that skin-coloured cream that women rub into their faces to achieve an even complexion.
In Malta, it’s often called make-up – but make-up means all the magic tricks we use on our face: mascara, powder, blusher, the lot, and not just foundation. For some reason that I might understand one day, even peachy-skinned teenagers are using foundation. This seems to me extraordinary, for I have always had a deep horror of the stuff and have used it only once, on my wedding day. I had to fight down the urge to rush to the nearest tap and scrub it off.
But I am unusual in this. Apparently, foundation is now the top-ranking make-up product of all time, pipping even lipstick to the post. In Britain, where women really love their foundation, sales of the product rose by 15 per cent last year, against 2.5 per cent for lipstick.
Sales figures from the United States indicate a similar trend. Lipstick remains the most popular item of make-up only among the over-60s.
Well, that explains the strange look of a lot of women I see: the combination of foundation and natural lips is a weird one. The minute you slather your face with foundation, achieving that perfect look that does not exist in nature except in the blessed few, your lips scream out for colour.
But I suppose it’s a matter of taste. And I find it really odd that the most popular make-up item in Britain, where the indigenous population does not have dark lashes, is not mascara. I hate to think what a woman looks like who wears foundation but not mascara or lipstick, but then maybe I’ve seen some already.
So now let’s consider men in recession. Apparently, while women are busy looking for little treats, men are amusing themselves by playing the martyr. Sales of men’s underpants have plunged.
Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, uses the men’s underpants metric to gauge the way things are going in the economy. A dip in sales of men’s pants, he said back in January last year, is a sure sign that things are about to take a turn for the worse.
Men’s underpants are economic flat-liners. In a stable economy, sales neither rise nor fall. To men, underwear is a serviceable item. Men do not buy pants to seduce, to feel sexy or because they are feeling frivolous.
They buy them to keep their bits in place and to keep their trousers clean. If they do not find clean underpants in their drawers, they will pick a used pair up off the floor and make do with that. To men, pants are practical, and that is why there is no equivalent of Agent Provocateur, for men.
Greenspan says that it is precisely because of this that, when sales of men’s pants dip, you can see the bad times ahead. It means, he says, that men are so pinched that they are deciding not to replace their worn-out boxers and Y-fronts. “That is almost always a prescient, forward impression that here comes trouble,” he said.
Mintel, the global research company, has put out figures that shows a relatively large drop in the sales of men’s underpants in the United States. Matt Hall, a spokesman for US underwear manufacturer Hanes thinks that there is nothing special about the drop in underwear sales.
He said: “Men’s basic apparel products probably have the least fluctuating sales of all apparel. But recessions impact all categories and men’s underwear sales are no different. Men’s underwear is a replenishment item. If you see a dip in the market it is because of the economy….Men certainly aren’t wearing underwear less frequently than before.”
One hopes not. But we women know the truth – that men have found the perfect excuse to extend the serviceable life of their tattered, yellowed undergarments long past the day – make that year – when their wives and girlfriends would have binned them with a cheer. The thing that a lot of women don’t understand about a lot of men is their fond attachment to items of ancient clothing, particularly pants.
I can hear the chorus go up right across recession-fraught North America and Europe, as men everywhere fish pants out of bins: “Why did you throw these away? They’re perfectly good. Don’t you know there’s a recession on?”
I have a theory of my own. It’s an open secret that, because men are so reluctant to buy new pants, it is usually the women in their lives who buy the pants for them – first their mothers, then their girlfriends, then their wives, and later on, when things go belly-up, more girlfriends.
Left to his devices, the average man will own four pairs of pants and will wear them until they fall apart and spring holes (and leaks). So the people who are now not spending money on men’s pants are not men but women. Faced with restrictions on their spending, they’re thinking “Bother his underpants, I’ll buy myself some lipstick instead.”
Or foundation.
This article is published in The Malta Independent on Sunday today.
27 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
You might want to read this:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1168504/Is-April-Fools-day-Underwear-brand-claim-men-turning-pink-pants-perk-credit-crunch.html?ITO=1490
What a specimen of a man. simply great
By the size of IT the blue and the red pants did not cheer the man up!
Ustja Daphne,
Because of you I had to interrupt the AGM of my “Foundation for Ornate Undercarriage Lift-gear”.
Without prejudice
I think your comments are biased and might have potentially precluded my members from participating in the “Mr Golden Globes” contest.
…Our merchandising department has ensured this does not happen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W7IZnTHA6U
…biex taghraf timxi…minghajr ma tirfes il-kallijiet sofor ta’ hadd.
Hell hath no fury like a woman robbed of a bargain.
The mens’ underwear part is embarrassingly correct, which is why a bachelor will always have worse underwear than a married man. To spare myself the embarrassment I will not admit who bought my last pairs of underwear (I’ll be honest enough to say it wasn’t me).
Hi Daphne,
I wasn’t expecting today’s article to be on lipstick and boxers. Honestly I was looking forward to seeing your opinion about the Turkish tanker saga. Maybe my expectations will be fulfilled in the coming days.
[Daphne – I have written about the subject to the point of exhaustion.]
Berlusconi has more serious issues to contend with…
http://www.corriere.it/cultura/09_aprile_19/opere_panseca_polemiche_savona_64103f9c-2cfd-11de-bc78-00144f02aabc.shtml
… Equal opportunities Ministra and all
http://images.google.com.mt/images?hl=mt&q=%22Mara+Carfagna%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=81nrSf3IHomI_Qa-j43jAw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
Daphne.
Not fair! I regularly change my underpants, with my brother. Sometimes he even throws in some lipstick.
So, when the going gets tough, women give themselves a lift through shopping therapy whilst men make the sacrifices necessary….
Actually, I think that you’re only partly right about the underwear. This current trend of modern male youth to display the top portion of their underwear by wearing their trouser tops just above penis level and underwear just below the navel is demonstrative of a trend for modern males to purchase their own undergarments, I feel. You may be right in the case of middle age men (you’re only about 10% right in my case, I’m afraid) but in any case, doesn’t this show the selfish side of the ‘fairer’ sex?
I had read somewhere that a study in the US had shown that when the stock market index rose, so did skirts. When the Dow-Jones average rose in 1993, skirts became shorter.
Why not put your lipstick in these?
http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/pants-purses/index.html
More lipstick less boxers. Could Maltese men be turning into Transylvanians?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYv4EUV_dD0
Brilliant! Tim Curry was the Andy Serkis of the 80’s and 90’s. Pennywise the clown still haunts me to this very day.
Re: discussion on whether buying prestigious cars from second hand uk dealers defies its purpose
[Daphne – Because I know the Maltese mind.]
I think that you may know the Maltese mind but sadly in my opinion you are one of the worse examples.
Unfortunately in this country the Maltese mind is synonymous with unclassy, tacky, ignorant, close-minded etc.. and this has always been the subtext in your writings on the subject.
This idea that the Maltese are ignorant was surely reinforced by the fact that the colonisers had every interest in delegitimising local knowledge and promote theirs as superior and one to aspire to.
[Daphne – NO. NO. Wherever you go in Europe, you will find social strata that are virtually identical to those of your own country, with the same norms, mores, values, manners and attitudes. That is why you can read the clues – well, I certainly can – as to what kind of background a person comes from even if he is Hungarian or Swedish or Polish or Italian. This is also why two people from the same social stratum but different countries have enough in common to make for a lifelong marriage, but two people from different social strata in the same country have no common ground and will rarely sustain a relationship beyond a few months. And this is why Americans find European society so mystifying (and vice versa).
Unfortunately, Maltese people from working-class backgrounds were taught that any values or manners other than their own are British imports or ‘sinifiteti’. British people are not all smart; Britain’s dominant culture is working-class culture. The social stratum most influenced by British culture in Malta was the working-class, whose values, behaviour and even mode of dressing and personal grooming is virtually identical to that of the British working-class. This isn’t surprising, given that the Maltese working-class did not grow out of mills and factories and an industrial revolution, but from the docks and harbour – hence the striking similarity of the people of Isla to the people portrayed in Eastenders, with whom they have much more in common, culturally, than they do with the people of, say, Naples.]
As part of this process they created a new class of Maltese that were English-speaking, wealthy and with easy access to the colonial power but which remained mostly unenlightened.
This elitist class served as a loyal Maltese group to which the rest of the population had to look up to and aspire to but which remained relatively inaccessible. Obviously mocking the rest of the population was part and parcel of the way the rest of the local population had to be treated to be kept in check and to make it believe that in order to be successful you had to conform and let yourself be mocked by the classy Anglophone Maltese. This group aspired mostly to their material gains without success given the economy of the time. Mind you, not all Maltese were involved in this ‘laq tas srum’…
[Daphne – Yours is a very simplistic view of the situation in the 19th and early 20th century. Those Maltese who thought themselves classiest were actually anti-British, not pro. Hence their support for the emergent Nationalist Party. They believed British culture to be inferior to Italian culture – which it was in food, dress-sense and the arts, but in nothing else.]
Fastforward 2009: the Maltese, never to miss an occasion to be more ‘European’ in the materialistic sense but not in the enlightened sense (see kuntrattur Malti), and having access to money to which their parents only dreamed of, continue the colonial legacy in that they want to buy the BMW etc to escape from the Gahanism.
[Daphne – Every single kuntrattur in Malta grew out of the working class if not in the last generation then certainly in the last two or three, so I don’t know what your point is, exactly. Also, I am interested in knowing what your definition of enlightenment is. I suspect we have common ground here, but unlike you, I don’t couch my views in terms of suspicion of people with money or those who speak English rather than working-class Maltese. You would be surprised to find that those who speak perfect English very often speak perfect Maltese as well.]
Point aside, this is a clear example of how successful the British were in creating a market for their cars out of a colony (which I don’t find particularly harmful).
[Daphne – The British came here to create a market for their cars? I don’t think so.]
Meanwhile Daphne, coming from a family of laqin tar regina is still finding a way of mocking the rest of the population, but not for lack of materialistic commodities, this time for the way they are acquiring them.
[Daphne – Sigh.]
To me Gahan and the Daphnies of Malta are two sides of the same coin; they cannot exist without each other, and are both culturally void and superficial.
[Daphne – Yes, of course. Let me guess: you’re one of those people who believe that they form part of some kind of unofficial Maltese intelligentsia, because they sit around discussing the sort of things most of us got through in our late teens. Il-kultura ta’ Gahan: isn’t that the term coined by one of our emerging novelists? I read an interview with him recently and the first thing that struck me is that before he writes about life he needs to get one. People like you make the mistake of assuming that others are ‘uneducated’ or ‘unenlightened’ (?) because they don’t sit around spouting bullshit all day or masquerading as ‘intellectuals’, a word synonymous in many circles with another one beginning with w and ending with r.]
The phrase “kultura ta’ Ġaħan” is also used by ANR and Lowell.
B, I’m sure you know that BMW is a German company so how do you say that the British used their influence to make us buy their cars (“BMW, etc.”)?
What utter bullshit………from both of you I’m afraid.The only thing you people are right in is the statement that the so called kuntrattur ……..or buider in Maltese, came out of the working class. Most of them made Malta what it is today, and if they fail, the whole island goes with them. How’s that for an enlightended class?
I really believe that the best example of unity of purpose that cuts across these so called class divides is the Nationalist Party. You find everyone in it, from every one of Daphne’s social strata. The only problem is that more and more, its elite is eating the cream, whilst the rest suffer in silence, and still support the party, i believe, because they still have some residue of idealism or principle that motivated us in the ’80’s.
The MLP does not have such a wide cross class appeal, because most who gravitate to it have chips on their shoulder and believe in things like.. “il Barrani Hadli Hobzi” u “Mitna ghal Barrani” or such misguided ideas. They are usually more gullible as well. But wait. It does seem that many middle of the road people are developing aforesaid chips, and they are supporting dear Joseph.
[Daphne – Mario, the only thing you can be certain of with Maltese politics is that people with chips and grudges vote Labour and AD while those who have none, or who can rise above them and see the bigger picture, vote PN. It really has nothing to do with social background or education, not even happiness with one’s life or whatever. Nothing. I know at least one television presenter – very attractive, bubbly, popular, features in shows and print advertisements, who presents and comperes at events, who is the most absolute, unbelievable and utter hadra when it comes to politics. This was an aspect of her that came as a complete shock to me because I knew only her public persona and had only spoken to her socially at parties and things. And then I got an email from her out of the blue in the last week of the election campaign last year, when she thought her party was about to win. I was completely taken aback. The chips and hdura were incredible. Her name, in case you’re wondering, is Moira Delia. Would you believe that somebody like that has the spirit of a hadra? Why would she have chips?]
I really wish that we in Malta should stop looking down our noses or up our brows at people we perceive to be in different classes. This is a bane in our society that seems to permeate the upper echelons of government. We need to move on from such neo-colonialist ideas.
[Daphne – Actually, Mario, the complaints are the other way round: from people who feel a sense of entitlement and who think they are being ‘locked out’.]
Alas, our society is what it is. Let’s not help the status quo get more elitist and “intellectual” and promote class divisions, shall we? With the current economic climate, it’s the last thing we need.
” the kuntrattur….. made Malta what it is today.”
Yeah.. and a right fucking mess they’ve made of it. If Herbert Ganado’s book were to be updated (1960’s onwards) the new volume could be aptly entitled “Rajt Malta Tinhexa”.
Unrelated but as anyone seen this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8008926.stm
No need to read the article just scroll all the way to the bottom.
[Daphne – Thank you for this. I’m going to give it more attention.]
Vincenti is feeling the pinch too. Fancy getting a Ganni Pace for under 100 euros?
“Limited edition miniature pro-life statues for sale. Price now reduced to Lm30.
Based on the original pro-life monunment in Mosta, unveiled by His Excellency, Dr Edward Fenech Adami , the President of Malta in March 2006. Only sixty made. All pieces are 58 cm in height in a terracotta finish, numbered and signed by the renowned Maltese sculptor, Ganni Pace.
All proceeds will go to the pro-life cause. For orders or enquiries, please send an e-mail to [email protected] email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it . Alternatively, you may send a cheque for the said amount to GIFT OF LIFE to postal address Gift of Life, 20, Trejqa il-Barrieri Mosta. MST 3263″
http://www.l-orizzont.com/news.asp?newsitemid=52795
Sorry for hijacking the thread, but I think it was my national pride being a bit distorted due to a comment on the Times:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090421/local/malta-worst-country-for-children-to-grow-up-in-study
Simon James Schembri:
“…The social fabric in Malta was not yet been eroded to the extent of other European countries. In Sweden little boys, once a week, have to go to school wearing girls dresses, and teachers use female names to call them. A little research will confirm this.”
I say Malta is top 5 to grow up in…”
I think someone got his facts from Ripleys believe it or not.
Just a small observation.. Whenever there is a report like this, the outrage is always predictable. People get so worked up about it. In any other country they would look at this report and wonder what they could do to step up to the next level, here people gets outraged and claim the report must be wrong.
Personally I do find the report dubious in many areas, especially in regards to safety for children as I feel children here in general are very safe (please don’t prove me wrong on this as I have a 5 month older daughter to raise here lol). But the concerns raised in regards to education should be taken extremely seriously.
@ Mario Debono: I feel I have to set the record straight here. In my comment I never mentioned political parties. The difference between me and Daphne is mostly of values rather than of political affiliation. I’ve always voted Nationalist; I will do so in the next EP election and probably even in the general election. I vote Nationalist because I am pragmatic and think that holding certain principles is not enough because you have to have the know-how… and anyway the welfare state under the Nationalists didn’t wane but grew further so the Nationalist/Labour divide is not clear-cut left/right.
I understand that in Malta when you are perceived to be pro-working class/anti-business you are labelled as Mintoffian, but believe me I am not. In fact I think that Mintoff antoganised classes, and fomented tribalistic politics while giving few options for the working class to ‘grow up’, while destroying enterprise.
My kuntrattur bit was not about businessmen in general. It was about a certain kind type who hopefully are the minority. It is my impression that in Malta (like for instance in Italy), businessmen who are unethical are tolerated (by everyone). I am referring here mostly to building contractors; most of them cannot care less about building regulations, aesthetics and the surrounding environment.
This is so because we Maltese assume that businessmen have to put profit above everything, even above legality and ethics, in order to survive..and this could be a Mintoffian hang-up. We assume that laws are intrinsically anti-business thus businessmen can be excused when they break them. Anyway my point is that I am not anti-business but long for ethical business. In the long run, savage capitalism will have the same effect on businessmen in general as Mintoff’s legacy had on the Maltese working class..
And finally, Mario do not make Daphne’s mistake of assuming that ‘intellectual’ is elitist, anti-business and bullshit. Some of the best countries to live in have a very strong social-democratic and intellectual tradition (Scandinavian countries). It might not be as easy to start a business there as in the US and the economy is not as market-driven as it is in the US, but their quality of life is much higher …. I am mentioning this because one of the Mintoff hang-ups is that we now believe religiously in the market-driven economy, when the world is becoming more cautious about it (see US and Obama).
[Daphne – In the Scandinavian countries you mention, taxation is the highest in the world. Lots of people who cite the welfare state/standard of living in those countries forget to mention this. Many Maltese are reluctant to pay even for what they consume. I can’t see them happily taking home only half of what they earn on paper, however much they might get in return by way of social services. They’ll reason that they already get free health care and free education.]
Let’s not continue to be slaves of the Mintoffian legacy and instead start thinking rationally. What bothers me about Daphne is that her thinking is very much clouded by what Mintoff did to her (indirectly as far as I know), and this is understandable though I wasn’t yet born.
[Daphne – What Mintoff did to me is irrelevant. My story is pretty much the same as that of many other people of my generation. It’s what he did to the country that counts. He all but destroyed it. And that’s why I couldn’t stomach that sham biography on television last night. There was no indication of this, and I doubt that there will be in part two.]
‘I can’t see them happily taking home only half of what they earn on paper’
I am not saying the Maltese would be happy with a Scandinavian model, far from it. What I’m saying is that in my opinion that system is the most respectful towards human beings, as opposed to other systems where economic capital is put on top. Mintoff’s negative legacy of nationalisation and closed market make the market-driven economy all the more appealing (opposite effect) since we’re yet to experience it.. other countries have already gone through this (Reaganism, Thatcherism) but they’ve discovered that it has dire social consequences.
‘He all but destroyed it’
Yes, Daphne, agreed, but I would expect that you, being a very intelligent person, would distinguish between social democracy and Mintoffianism and between ‘intellectuals’ and the ’emerging writer’ you mentioned in one of the comments above
And in any case, why would somebody like you, who believes that there is so much lack of logic and rational thinking in Malta, disdain the existence of ‘intellectuals’ … yes, they sit around but I think they provide useful disinterested (usually) insights and question what other people take for granted.
Finally, am I allowed to put forward an intellectual insight, please? Here it goes: the Mintoff biography programme provides an insight into why a market-driven economy can subvert values. The question to ask is: why would a company headed by Bondi and Peppi promote such a version of history? They weren’t exactly Mintoff’s friends. My take is that in market-driven economies everything becomes a commodity, even history. Thus when a producer produces a history programme, his primary concern is quantity (audience and profit) rather than quality (historical truths). This is so because programmes on TVM are not subsidised, therefore they have to pass the quantity test. Therefore everything is sweetened to accommodate the audience’s tastes as much as possible.
[Daphne – There you have an argument against the current perversion of the norms of public broadcasting. Public broadcasting shouldn’t be market-driven. But TVM is competing with the commercial television stations, and so it is no longer public broadcasting.]
Now you might think that the opposite is just as bad, that it’s just a tv programme, that mediocrity was always the order of the day on TVM, that quality depends on individuals etc. – granted. But aren’t intellectuals useful to point these things out once in a while..?
‘There you have an argument against the current perversion of the norms of public broadcasting.’
Yes, but why was this perversion accepted by everyone as if it was the norm? Isn’t it because in general we’re going the opposite direction of the Mintoff years: market is ok, public is not; the assumption being that the market will correct everything.
Anyway this was the last comment on this argument. I don’t want to come across as heavy.
[Daphne – The current abominable situation in public broadcasting exists because there is no understanding of what public broadcasting is for, or what it should be. The result is that our public broadcaster is right in there competing with private and political stations, and providing the same sort of rubbish service, with the exception of one or two good shows.]
Dear Ms Caruana Galizia,
I am an Indian citizen living in the US. I lived in Malta between 1994 and 2004.
A few years back when your house was vandalized by extremists, I wanted to email you to send you my message of support. But I was unable to send you any message as your email was not freely available.
I want you to know that I really, really, really appreciate your incredibly courageous and conscientious opposition to racism and intolerance. I admire the way you ridicule racists and expose the falsehood of their ideology. I think Malta needs you and people of your ilk very very much. You are a beacon of good faith, hope and compassion. I have been going through your blog and I am very much impressed with the way you counter the prejudices of some of the less enlightened posts on your site with truth, facts and realities. I was in particular delighted with the way you countered the nonsense of a certain Emanuel Muscat ( remember the post about an Arab man and his wife in the vegetable market ) with appropriate ridicule.
Please remember that you are a liberal, and liberals are the conscience of every society. Malta needs you for the way you challenge intolerance, and I hope in the future you will write many, many more of your witty articles.
I am an English follower of your excellent Commentary but I find the comment by the Indian citizen verging on fulsome.
Is it his Indian nature or my English background that causes my response?
Maybe both….