Materialistic Anthropologist

Photograph by Hannah Schultz

In reference to the title of this post, I am not an Anthropologist, and this post will unfortunately not discuss the academic field. Now that we have cleared that up, it is time to travel back about 10 years:

When I was 11, my mom told me I could decorate my room for the first time. However, as a part-time interior designer, it was and is nearly impossible for my mother to give up total artistic control. At 11, I would have have preferred to draw monkeys all over the walls with a sharpie, so her hesitance and guidance was necessary. However, this was when I realized that as long as I lived with my parents, I could never truly decorate my own room. Even in college, sharing a dorm room only allows you to control half of where you live.

Photograph by Ari Weiner

This last year, I moved into a house with two of my friends, and for the first time, I experienced what it was like to have complete design control. As a somewhat (I think) artistic person, I was overwhelmed with the possibilities. I was especially overwhelmed with the different home decor stores. At first, they all felt so old. Picking out furniture was something my mom did, not me. As I'd browse online for hours, I'd become discouraged. Nothing fit who I was: a 20-year-old college student who hadn't established a specific design taste yet!
Stores like Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel felt too mature, whereas Urban Outfitters felt too immature. I had horrible luck at thrift stores, and no success on Craigslist. I was near the point of giving up.
My mom had been buying her clothes from Anthropologie for a long time, but until this last year, I wasn't even aware they sold home decor. When I walked into their decoration department, I felt inspired for the first time. Their items were all so quirky and pretty and unique. I was in decoration heaven. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming, yadda yadda yadda.
But then I looked at the price tags.
Thoughts ran through my mind like, "!@#%@!" and "WHY IS EVERYTHING SO EXPENSIVE?" Thousands of dollars for rugs and hundreds of dollars for bedding, really? Who knew that a girl who had never decorated anything before would have such expensive taste. I started to hate how much I loved Anthropologie. It felt like a curse.

Photograph by Hannah Schultz

And as disappointing as my initial experience was, I managed to save up enough money over the next few months for a few special items. My rug was marked down from $400 to $100, and my bedding was 15% off. I scoured the Internet for deals and patience payed off. Furthermore, I completely cherish and adore the few things from Anthropologie I have been able to afford.

As I get older and my independence grows, money becomes more and more important. Like many before me, I never realized how expensive life is. As I thought about this, I started to wonder why specifically Anthropologie is so expensive. A simple Google search revealed that they are owned by none other than Urban Outfitters, the very store I was trying to avoid. A blog by SoloLisa.com explained how the CEO apparently wanted to create a more grown-up sister brand to the already hugely successful Urban Outfitters. Their ideal demographic was an affluent, settled-down career women in her 30s or 40s, with an average income of $200,000 a year.

Um, I personally fit into none of those categories, besides being somewhat affluent and a female.

Photograph by Hannah Schultz

SoloLisa.com continued to explain this predicament perfectly, "The feel of the website and the merchandise suggest that you're browsing through the wardrobe of some hip, twenty-something girl with a job in a creative industry like fashion design or graphic arts, someone who shops in small boutiques and supports local designers and wears all the right clothes all the time. In short, they're selling the lifestyle of the demographic they're shunning." This made me feel like it's all some sort of game! Their prices fit one demographic, and their style appeals to another. What's the deal?

I soon realized that peeling back the layers of a company can be ugly. You may not like what you find. You may discover that the working conditions are atrocious and the actual item quality is sub-par. Anthropologie items are made by the same creators of Urban Outfitters, yet they cost significantly more. It seems that sometimes, things are expensive simply so that they can look and feel expensive.

I guess the point of this post is that I somewhat opened a "Pandora's box" with my design adventures. As I become more conscious and careful with my purchases, I start to question why things are the way they are. I am no longer a silent consumer, because I think it's important to know where your things come from and how they are made. But in a society that is undeniably materialistic, exploitation seems to be everywhere. Life is expensive, and it is only recently that I truly realized it.

While I still love my Anthropologie items, sometimes I wonder if I should just stick to my home-made sharpie-wall-monkey art.

Explanation of existence

However bizarre it may be, I feel an obligation to explain my real inspiration for this blog. I saw this clip on 'Funny or Die' a few weeks ago, and apart from my confused laughter, I started to wonder about all of the things that currently inhabit my room. There are candles, vases, photographs, gifts, books, and so on and so on. I started to think about the stories behind my things; who gave them to me or how I found them. And then, I slowly realized that each item means something more than what it means to me. My decorations from Anthropologie don't just represent my design taste, they say something about materialism in America. My room would be incomplete without my proudly displayed Harry Potter books, which truly represent an important part of my childhood. But in 2011, paper books are disappearing and "eBooks" are taking over. Are these books I display going to have the same appeal as cassette players in ten years? Outdated and unnecessary? I wonder.
So really, if I think about it enough, all of these items say something about my life, and the world I live in. And besides being a reflective process for me, that's the point of this blog. We are all enmeshed with our culture and our things. It is all connected. Things in my Room will be the guinea pig for exploring this hypothesis.