This is a fairly thoughtful piece of writing, I thought — 'Luxury Mooncakes and the Battle of the Alpha Consumers' published online on CNA on 1 September, 2024.
It's written by Terrence Heng, a senior lecturer in Sociology. Ahhh... no wonder the article coherently held some substantial proposed thoughts with backing social trends.
Ahhh, riiight. It's Mid-Autumn Festival coming up on 17 September. The mooncakes were out and about even before the start of the lunar Hungry Ghost Month (4 Aug to 2 September 2024). It's the trend to have the boxes look fanciful and even prettier than the actual mooncakes. The focus is all about packaging and presentation.
People who are entrepreneurs or in any people-facing businesses or a list of 'valued customers' will be 'forced' to get some sort of mooncakes to go with the trends. It might not be a 'luxury' mooncake per se, but it has to be hip. LOL It's for show, and a 'Hi, I remember you and let's stay in touch'. And many welcome a freebie/gift in this manner. Nowadays, it's also fodder for social media, bit of a boast and a flex.
If anything, the “mooncake race” seems to be emblematic of society’s capacity and demand for relentless one-upmanship through material and symbolic actions. Material in the sense of objects, symbolic in the sense of owning, gifting and receiving such objects.
One only needs to watch the roads in Singapore to see this. Where once the most expensive car was a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW, the game of one-upmanship shows itself through a proliferation of Maseratis, Ferraris and Range Rovers.
Whatever. I'm not interested in mooncakes, and I don't want to eat them. I'm not in the business of needing to send out any. Neither does the husband. Or rather he simply eschews all of these polite practices, and makes it known that he has no interest in mooncakes. People do get the message. We don't receive many mooncakes now. If we have to get anyone a box or two because they really like mooncakes, it's literally just for a few people. We'd rather get two mooncakes in a set over the standard four pieces.
Mooncakes for dogs and cats are on a different category. LOL I’m biased! BUT, I’m not bothered to feed Choya mooncakes because they don’t fit my nutritional quota for her, not even as a treat. Not the ‘freshly made frozen’ ones and not the dehydrated versions. This dog doesn’t need grains or starch. So no point. Raw quail with bones is her idea of treatos.
If you like mooncakes, good for you. You won't be wasting them. There're so many choices and flavors to choose from. It's quite mind-boggling. This is the season to eat all that you want, and may you receive lovely boxes, and in turn, bless others who like them with equally yummy pieces.
Did a whole television series simply coined 'quiet luxury'? ('Succession', four seasons on HBO from 2018-2023.) Or 'stealth wealth', 'old money aesthetic', etc. That's just the opposite of owning, wearing and being seen with brands whose products have logos printed loudly all over screaming its name. Think Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga and whatever else.
Singapore fashion can be ostentatious. Or be boiled down to Uniqlo and Muji. Now we have a few talented Singapore labels that do clean lines well, with no weird patterns and prints. Sorry, cheongsam prints, lace, tulle, frills and batik, I'm not a fan.
I like plain and boring things. Even as a kid. If I don't even like flowers, then I'm not into colors. I can deal with some graphic prints, but it's not much. I like my things minimalist with clean lines, the same way I like my home. No knick knacks, not paintings and nothing of those sort. I highly doubt it's called 'quiet luxury'. At least it's unintentional. I’m not a collector of anything, beyond memories and experiences. I just like a pleasing aesthetic in neutrals and monotones. Also, I do not want to pay S$500 for a baseball cap or S$300 for a tee. I don’t care about designer furniture either because I’d have to cover them in the home insurance plan. How could they be valued more than my dog in those plans? Tsk. To me, it's a matter of common sense. I'm financially comfortable, not ultra rich. What I take out of my bags and clothes budget, will fund the old folks on my charity roster.
Quiet luxury eschews the showiness of brands with an apparent focus on simple designs and understated colours. One might think that embracing a trend like quiet luxury suggests that we have matured as a society and are striving towards “stealth-wealth”.
I do not think this is the case, because while the showiness becomes more muted, the hierarchies of visibility I mentioned previously simply become hierarchies of invisibility - that is, hierarchies still exist and one-upmanship continues unabated, albeit in the shadows. The desire to acquire new things for the sake of newness persists.
Instead, perhaps what we need is to question the desire to make everything newer and whether we are seeking luxury for the sake of luxury. Are we, as the saying goes, spending money that we don’t have to buy things we don’t want to impress the people we don’t like?
No comments:
Post a Comment