Conspicuous not-quite-consumption

I am not a shopper.

When I think of a fun way to spend an afternoon, I do not think, "Oooh!  Let's go buy something!"  When I am in the midst of a massive mall, I feel less exhilarated and more overwhelmed.  Rather than jumping at the chance to go browsing, I agonize over whether I really need a new rain jacket/a hard drive/sneakers without holes in them anyway.  Spending money makes me queasy, and wandering around stores full of things I can't buy anyway usually fills me with furious jealousy or, occasionally, vague disgust.  With the exception of food products and two-dollar thrift shop shoes, I simply do not enjoy shopping, even of the window variety.

And yet, I present to you three scenes, united by excess:

1.  Camden Market on a Saturday morning - thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people.  Tiny alleyways and corridors, a hand on my purse as I push through crowds to find fresh air and a new block of shops and market stalls.  I lost William along the way somewhere, and stupidly left my phone, so with a shrug turn more or less randomly down another aisle, slipping from a food court (four pounds for indian, five pounds for thai, two pounds for a bag of donuts, fresh orange juice for three, free samples of chinese chicken, a man dressed up like a seventeenth-century soldier ringing a bell and advertising, bizarrely, the japanese place) through a door and past a "GOTHIC/PUNK/LOLITA" shop and another leather workshop and an all-things-pot store to yet another vintage district.  I stick my head in the "Dandies" shop to see if William is trying on suit jackets, but nothing, so I shrug and head next door, find a sleek red-and-black dress that would surely fit me - which is a great reason not to try it on, because I'm still not sure how much money we have and I can't go building up a dress collection just yet - and quickly move on.

There's too much - much too much.  Too many shoppers, salespeople, stalls, t-shirts, belt buckles, incense, food, leather jackets, statues of horses, too much of everything.  William tried on a hundred hats before we lost each other, and he's probably found a hundred more.  I am not panicking, but I step outside.  Fresh air, and a t-shirt stall with beautiful printed tee shirts, hand-drawn surreal scenes on the front and I'm keeping note in my head of all the things to come back for once I know how much to spend, and this is soothing - but I'm sure William is back in the warren of stalls, so I throw myself back into the fray and head towards the signs declaring "ANTIQUES," admire the old leather suitcases, and stop in awe at a stall full of elaborate hats and headwear.  They are jumbled in pile like nothing special, but each is different, vibrant, faux-retro and fund.  And I fall wholly and irreversibly in love with an explosion of black feathers and lace that perches delicately on the side of my head.  I put it on and stare at myself in the mirror, remember that I would never have a reasonable excuse to wear it, immediately pu that aside.  Forty pounds.  That's  over sixty dollars.  And I think I... no, no, I can't.  And yet...

But how would I get it home?

But how can I leave it behind?

I turn around to see William at last, across the hall and behind a few horse statues, trying fruitlessly to call me, and I shout - "William!  William!  Don't I need this in my life?"

(The answer, friends, is a definite yes... and it's a wonder that I didn't buy a thing)

2.  Harrods on a weekday afternoon - I drag William around, up the Egyptian-themed escalator, through the scented halls, under carved ceilings and over marble floors, down to the bustling food halls of caviar and lobster and ludicrously expensive cheese, twenty-dollar chocolates and a thousand neatly dressed and ever-smiling salespeople.  He protests that it all seems excessive, and I pout, but, well... there's really not much you can say to that, is there?

What is Harrods?  Well, it's a luxury department store... an exercise in human folly... an enormous waste of resources and energy... a masterpiece.  It started as a small grocery, and is now housed in a truly enormous and extraordinarily intimidating building.  How enormous, you ask?  Try five acres.

The motto: Omnia Omnibus Ubique—All Things for All People, Everywhere.  And they sure do try.

The owners: currently, the country of Qatar.  Price paid: $1.5 billion.  If you ever find yourself staring, bewildered, at Harrods, and wondering how it makes any money at all when 90% of its visitors appear to be tourists, picture a sea of Arab oil wealth, and perhaps it will make more sense.  Also, remember: you say you won't buy something, but step into that food hall and...

Harrods has sold live lions (including Christian, the lion of tear-inducing Youtube fame) and used live cobras to guard shoes.  The story of Harrods is intimately entwined with Princess Diana's death - the owners son was her lover, who died with her - and in the store is a memorial to them both, featuring a lipstick-smeared wine glass.  Harrods does nothing in moderation.

Quote from the former owner:  "This is not Marks and Spencer or Sainsbury's. It is a special place that gives people pleasure. There is only one Mecca."  Yes: an Egyptian businessman just compared a store to MECCA.

And we pass through every level, sink into $12,000 sofas, resist the temptation to touch cut-crystal vases I'd have to mortgage my life to pay for, stand outside the cafes and champagne bars and gape at the prices and savor the smells.  I linger in the jewelry section, gaping like a proletariat at a jewel-incrusted tiger the size of my head, when a salesman - playing at the ludicrous charade that I would be capable of purchasing such a object - kindly explains that it is both a necklace AND a detachable brooch, and what do I think?  I laugh, and tell the truth - it is stunning.

Hours later, starving, we flee - and yes, you must flee Harrods, at some point, for that much concentrated wealth and pretension and sheer ridiculousness starts as overwhelming but ends as oppressive.  But I tell you: if you are here in this city, ride down to Knightsbridge and take a look.  Give yourself time to be shocked into silence by the scale of it.  And think all you like about wealth and inequity and the vestigial benefits of empire-building and the strange allure of expensive names, but also confess: the Egyptian escalator is fantastic, and the fine-crafted jewelry is beautiful, and the food hall must surely smell like Heaven.

(And while it's no marvel that I didn't buy a ludicrously expensive suitcase, shirt or scent, I think we must all admire my self-restraint in purchasing no cheese)

3.  Selfridge's, late at night, after getting lost on Oxford St and tumbling in to the nearest tourist destination.  Selfridge's is  London's second-biggest shopping destination, and one which mostly pales to relative sanity beside Harrods, but for one exception: the Shoe Galleries.  Where I found myself with astonishing rapidity, and from which William vanished even faster, and where I happily wandered

35,000 square feet.  55,000 shoes in stock. 4,000 on display.  Prices from a mere $40 for flipflops up to thousands that I didn't even bother to convert.  A dozen rooms - each with entirely unique architecture and interior design- and the requisite army of salespeople (here, beautiful and beautifully shod).  

I have one piece of advice:  Milk that word "galleries" for all that it is worth.  Do not, by any stretch of the imagination, think of how those seven-inch stilettos would feel beneath your body weight.  Don't wonder what the slouchy-boot silhouette would do to the line of your legs.  Don't think of the relationship between your bank account and the price tag.  And don't - unless, of course, you are supremely wealthy - even start to entertain the idea of buying those stunning silver-and-black heels because "compared to the Burberry boots, they're a bargain"and "I don't REALLY need a computer" - no, no, stop right there.

Galleries of ART.  Pieces of art cleverly designed around the theme of things that could conceivably fit on a human foot.  Pieces of art couched in elegant rooms, bathed soft lighting, surrounded by bright-colored sofas and resting on clever, subtle shelves, clean design at every turn and each gallery carved out into its own little world - a version of reality where everyone is beautiful, tall, impossibly wealthy, and never has to walk anywhere.  Worlds of camel and cashmere, or hot pink with silver studs, or black silk and endless pearls, or leather and steel and a blunt, urban aesthetic, but whatever the scene, pure fantasy.  Ridiculous fantasy.  Absurd and ludicrous and unnecessary - but stunningly creative, and astonishing, and beautiful, as art - often absurd, occasionally ludicrous, surely as unnecessary as any other form of beauty - can  often be.

It's an art gallery where you can touch the pieces, and even - if you have more guts than I do - walk around in them.  How wonderful!  How magical!  How strange!  How... how fun!

(Yes - wandering around a store I could never afford to shop at, just for fun!  Does... does this make me a shopper?)