“I don’t want a flash car. I want to be anti-flash. He’s that guy reduced to its quintessence … unapologetically troll-like ostentatious displays of wealth and arrogance right. So I’m the anti-Tate.” (Louis Theroux, quoted by someone just now in the Socially Conscious FIRE group on Facebook.)
<Pictured pointing to his Casio F9W1 watch costing £10-£15.>
Casio watch >Flashy private jet and Bugatti. May these frugal displays of wealth be admired in 2023. I have been steadily doing frugal exterior since as long as I can remember.
In the past, a lot of people who had huge piles of money were not at all flashy. It was a whole aesthetic in old-money WASP culture, the low-key guy in well-worn Topsiders, driving the old beat-up Volvo and living in a rustic shack etc. Privileged people could afford to dress down because there was no one they needed to prove anything to. (And also I suspect many did it deliberately to deflect unwanted attention from their wealth).
I like the idea of popularizing the low-key, dressed-down, inexpensive aesthetic.
One of my favorite quotes, from Henry David Thoreaux, is “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” It’s one of my guiding principles to a life of creative and occupational freedom.
Next time someone comments on my beat-up shoes (or my lack of shoes altogether), maybe I’ll just wink, laugh, and say “Old money dresses down.”