GTWJ ESSAY • AUGUST 27, 2026

When Did “Materialistic”
Become a Way to Shame Taste?

Why does loving beautiful things so easily become a character judgment?

Owning material things is not the same thing as being ruled by material things.

There is a word that gets used so casually around people who enjoy fashion, luxury and beautiful objects that I think we have almost stopped asking what it actually means: materialistic. Someone likes handbags? Materialistic. Someone owns several pairs of shoes? Materialistic. Someone enjoys buying beautiful clothes? Materialistic. And especially when the person being described is a woman, the word often seems to arrive with something else attached to it: a suggestion that she is shallow, vain, unserious, selfish, out of touch or somehow less aware of the world around her because she happens to enjoy things. I keep wondering why that assumption feels so easy. Why does liking a beautiful bag tell us anything about how much someone cares about their family, their work, their friends, the world around them or anything else at all? Why do we so quickly turn taste into character evidence?

Owning material things
is not the same thing
as being ruled by material things.

Materialism, of course, is a real concept. In its more negative sense, it can describe placing excessive importance on possessions, status, wealth or acquisition to the point that they begin to define self-worth or become more important than relationships, values, responsibilities or other parts of life. That can absolutely exist. Someone can become obsessed with appearing wealthier than they are. Someone can damage their finances to maintain an image. Someone can measure themselves entirely through what they own or believe they are more valuable than somebody else because of a logo, a car, a house or a bag. None of that is particularly difficult to recognize. But there is an enormous distance between that and simply saying, “She likes Chanel.” The category of object does not tell us the relationship the person has with it.

The Collector Double Standard

When one collection becomes expertise — and another becomes vanity.

A watch collector can talk for an hour about movements, references, production years, dials, provenance and design history, and people tend to understand that there is knowledge behind the collection. Someone who collects cars may be described as passionate about engineering. A wine collector can become knowledgeable about regions, vintages, producers and storage. Someone who collects art is cultured. Someone who collects books is intellectual. But when someone collects handbags, shoes or clothes, the same instinct is often flattened into shopping. The collection becomes evidence of materialism rather than evidence of interest, knowledge, design appreciation, historical awareness or simply the joy of collecting.

Watches become horology.
Cars become engineering.
Wine becomes expertise.
Art becomes culture.

Fashion becomes “shopping.”

I do not think that difference is accidental. Fashion and accessories have historically been associated very strongly with women, and interests culturally coded as feminine are often treated as less serious than interests coded as masculine. We do not need to turn every handbag conversation into a gender studies lecture to notice the pattern. A man can spend extraordinary amounts of money assembling a watch collection and be admired for discernment. A woman can spend the same amount developing a handbag collection and be described as obsessed with material things. Of course there are exceptions in every direction, but the language reveals something interesting: we tend to intellectualize some kinds of collecting and trivialize others.

The Assumption Beneath the Word

Does loving things mean you care less about people?

One of the strangest implications behind calling someone materialistic is the idea that interest in objects somehow reduces their capacity to care about anything else. As though human beings have a fixed amount of attention, empathy and seriousness, and every ounce of excitement about fashion removes an ounce from somewhere more meaningful. But people are not built that way. Someone can care deeply about family and fashion. Someone can be informed about world events and still be excited about a new pair of shoes. Someone can be generous, thoughtful, hardworking, politically aware, supportive of the people around them and still have a closet full of expensive things. Enjoying beauty does not automatically create moral indifference.

Enjoying beauty does not automatically
create moral indifference.

I think this is where the word often stops describing behavior and begins policing pleasure. Someone is visibly excited about a bag, a coat, jewelry or a pair of shoes, and suddenly there is an urge to remind them that there are more important things in life. Of course there are more important things in life. There are more important things than football too. There are more important things than wine, travel, restaurants, cars, watches, movies, interior design and almost every hobby we make room for. Human life would be unbearable if every pleasurable interest had to prove itself more important than the most serious thing happening in the world before we were permitted to enjoy it.

Not everything we enjoy has to prove
that it is more important than suffering
in order to be allowed to exist.

At the same time, I do not think the answer is to pretend materialism cannot exist simply because we enjoy fashion. There is a meaningful difference between loving objects and using objects as the primary measure of identity. If someone believes they are better than other people because they own a certain bag, that says something. If someone believes they are worthless because they cannot afford a certain bag, that says something too. If the desire to acquire things repeatedly damages finances, relationships, responsibilities or self-respect, then the relationship with possessions may deserve examination. But none of those things can be diagnosed from seeing a handbag collection in someone's closet.

Possessions can be part of your identity
without becoming the entirety of your identity.

Collecting itself can come from dozens of different places. Some people collect because they love design evolution. Some enjoy completeness. Some are fascinated by specific production periods. Some care about craftsmanship. Some like rare colors or unusual materials. Some associate certain pieces with moments in their lives. Some simply enjoy looking at beautiful objects arranged together. A handbag collection can be aesthetic, technical, historical, emotional or deeply personal in exactly the same way another kind of collection can be. We do not need to invent an academic defense for every object in order to make collecting respectable. Sometimes a person simply loves bags. That can be the entire explanation.

Sometimes the Word Says More About the Speaker

“I would never spend that” is not the same thing as “you should not.”

Sometimes calling someone materialistic is less about their relationship with objects and more about our own relationship with what they value. Someone who would never spend five thousand euros on a handbag may genuinely struggle to understand why anyone else would. Someone else would never spend that amount on a watch. Another person would rather spend it on travel. Another on furniture. Another on restaurants, wine, art or a car. People allocate discretionary money according to different priorities. Disagreement about what something is worth is not proof of a moral difference.

Disagreement about what something is worth
is not proof of a moral difference.

I also think women in particular are often expected to perform a strange form of modesty around enjoying expensive or beautiful things. You can own them, perhaps, but you should not appear too excited about them. You should not care too much. You should not know too much. You should not collect too many. The enjoyment has to remain casual enough that nobody can accuse you of being shallow. But why? If someone genuinely loves fashion, why should enthusiasm itself be embarrassing? Knowing the difference between leathers, designers, proportions, archives, production eras, construction details and collections is no less a form of knowledge because the object happens to be worn on an arm rather than wound around a wrist.

The category of object cannot tell you
the size of someone's heart.

A Better Test

Look at the relationship — not the object.

If we genuinely want to know whether someone's relationship with material things is unhealthy, there are better questions than counting bags. How do they treat people? How do they treat money? How much of their self-worth depends on possessions? Are they constantly buying in order to prove something? Are they compromising their own wellbeing to maintain an image? Can they appreciate someone who owns less without seeing them as lesser? Can they lose, sell or stop owning an object without feeling as though part of their human value disappeared with it? Are the things serving their life, or has their life begun serving the things? Those questions tell us much more than the number of shelves inside a closet.

The Real Materialism Test

Maybe someone owns twenty handbags. Maybe someone owns twenty watches. Maybe someone owns shelves of books, a cellar of wine, a garage of cars or walls of art. The number alone does not tell us who they are. It tells us what they collected. Materialism is not simply having material things. It is the relationship we build around them. If the object becomes the measure of your worth, perhaps there is a problem. If it becomes more important than the people around you, perhaps there is a problem. If acquiring it requires you to damage your own life, perhaps there is a problem. But if you simply love beautiful things, enjoy fashion, collect bags, care about design and happen to feel joy when you open your closet, that is not enough information to tell me anything about your values, your generosity or your capacity to care about the world around you.

Final Thought

A collection tells me what you collected.
It does not tell me who you are.

A watch collector can be a collector.
A handbag collector can be one too.

GTWJ • FASHION, IDENTITY & CULTURE