I didn’t know that once you’ve been denied a credit card, the company that denied you has to tell you exactly why you were denied.
“You have unsatisfactory payment history on your personal credit report.”
“Your credit report indicates too few accounts currently paid as agreed.”
“You have a lack of established revolving credit references on your personal credit file.”
And so after reading my fifth credit card denial in the span of one hour, it’s “fuck this, I’m gonna eat ice cream and watch the White Lotus from the comfort of my King Size bed in my four bedroom apartment in Bedstuy that I was approved for five years ago with the combined credit of a formerly married couple.” But now, it’s just me. Like it was before we met. Except it’s me and the added responsibility of raising a human child.
Since he moved out, I wake up everyday in this apartment and admire what I’ve done to the place. It is aesthetically pleasing, and comforting, colorful and chic. And every night I go to sleep in this apartment I am afraid I might’ve peaked in a place that is not the duplex in Bali buttressed by a jungle and ocean, or the mid century five bedroom ranch in Nevada, the Bedstuy brownstone, the upstate New York farmhouse, or the loft in Accra that I am always dreaming about. And I claw at the forest green linen sheets beneath the mustard linen duvet cover as I ache for that which I seem to have lost: a marriage, dreams unfulfilled -- including a sibling for my child -- a happy home that I create all my own. Lately, in the moments between awake and asleep I am interrogating my aspirations. Because I am on a quest to limit pain, especially the kind that is self-induced.
Some say Tauruses are never meant to be broke. The sign that is ruled by Venus and all things beautiful, comforting, feminine is, according to my observations of us, very good at curating luxury appearances and experiences. We know how to live well. I’ve spent a significant amount of my life praying -- or chanting -- for the life I used to see so clearly for myself. And most of those prayers were intricately woven into a luxurious aesthetic. And I am still praying.
What do I mean by luxury? Well, in the context of credit, it means being able to be approved for unsecured, unlimited credit cards to, I dunno, purchase beautiful furniture for the home(s) I own and to decorate them with a keen eye for detail, ease, aesthetic uniqueness, and to not bat an eye at certain price points for longstanding items like marble countertops, reclaimed hardwood flooring, a Thermador range. And to have the ability to stay up to date on all payments and to maintain a healthy financial lifestyle. Luxury also means high quality materials that last. And in the era of fast furniture, which I’ve definitely taken advantage of for a hack or for affordable convenience, I question why access to luxury is so difficult to achieve when the world is burning from fast everything? Yes, exclusivity is a hallmark of luxury, but I question whether it has to be, especially given the current discourse about the urgency of sustainability.
A large part of my sustainability practice and education work requires an understanding that aspiration culture and its predecessor, luxury, have provided the perfect conditions for a culture of waste. In other words, luxury fashion birthed fast fashion -- a fact that I write and teach about extensively. By building brand recognition and reputation around exclusivity and privilege, luxury goods are just another hare in the greyhound race to “success,” except we all know this race is a continuous loop with no end. The same can be said about luxury decor and its relation to fast furniture (think: Wayfair, Urban Outfitters, Houzz, Rugs USA, Target, Raymore Flanigan, etc.). This understanding of luxury and its obvious anti-Black, anti-indigenous origins informs my decisions to not aspire to acquire luxury fashion goods. But my aspiration to acquire luxury furnishings remains.
And maybe it’s because to me, luxury is synonymous with comfort. When I think about luxury service, I think about the fact that at their most fundamental level, these services are expressions of care, albeit a very expensive and transactional form of care dependent upon (the exploitation of) laborers. When I think about luxury services, I think about the village or pre colonial, pre-capitalist care practices that were not predicated on maximizing profits and founded upon femininity and matriarchy. I think about the privilege to rest and to be nurtured by healers, swimming holes, great food, and steam rooms. And how that privilege was not exclusive, but an expectation. Because the village could not function if the inhabitants were not taken care of.
According to a 2020 study in the Journal of Business Research, “In liquid modernity, the idea of luxury has become multi-faceted and fluid and encompasses multiple meanings.” For instance, “traditional forms of high luxury—a yacht in the harbor of the Côte d’Azur, a stay at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai, or a private jet—will always remain high luxuries.” Yet these luxuries remain available and affordable only to the super-rich.” According to this study, this traditional type of luxury covers “just a small portion of what luxuriousness means to consumers [today].”
My prayers and aspirations do not include yachts or the Burj Al Arab, or private jets (often), though experiencing these things would be nice, I aspire to a type of luxury that is indicative of ease, accessibility, longevity, and beauty.
The first time I spent the night at a classmate's house during my freshman year at a new england boarding school to which I had recently received a full tuition scholarship, her bathroom floor was hot. I quickly interrupted her solo Dave Mathews viewing party to alert her to the temperature: “I think your house is on fire. The floors are hot.” And she laughed in that rich person pitying a non-rich person kinda way, “no silly, the floors are heated.” There was an inflection in her voice when she said “heated.” LIke, of course they are heated, silly. We are in the middle of Connecticut in February. And I went back into the bathroom and sat down and thought to myself, “I want heated floors.” I still do. I still have them on my future home(s) list.
I have lists of amenities for my future home(s) the way some people have lists for future partners. And the list changes. Often. For instance, I no longer want carrera marble countertops because I like to eat things with red sauces and I like red wine and I know that marble, especially carrera marble, stains easily. I no longer want Noguchi lamps now that I started following more contemporary lighting artists and designers like Eny Lee Parker. Recently, I found a vintage lime green Togo sofa on Etsy for a very affordable price when I was having a pretty good year, financially. It’s just the corner piece of a sectional. So it actually functions as a chair. It’s too low and impractical, and I’ve decided I won’t look for the connecting pieces for my future home. It’s a great chair for my kid’s room now.
I have a separate Instagram account that is solely dedicated to my passion for interior design and its relationship to fashion, art, and culture. My page is a mixture of photography of my home, previous apartments, and other people’s homes. And it functions as an homage to great design, a reminder that I have a talent for curating aesthetically pleasing spaces, and a vision board for what I hope to attain in the comfort of my future home(s). While scrolling for “inspiration,” I field rejections from credit card companies. I click the side button on my phone to silence bill collectors while reading Architectural Digest. I watch DIY videos to round out my scrolling sessions, but they exhaust me more than they inspire me. “Who has the energy for that?”
My background in interior design is absent of formal training, yet unconventional knowledge sources abound: Moms homes, grandma’s homes, aunties’ homes. My own apartments were obtained despite low credit and high student loan interest payments. They housed furniture from every corner of my resourcefulness and somehow they told stories whenever visitors entered these spaces. And it was the visitors who fed my confidence that I may actually be good at something. But now, I wonder what decorating can be like without the cloud of financial insecurity descending upon me like a thick fog after rain. And I wonder why it rains so often where I am. And whether aspiring to obtain the furniture I see on Architectural Digest to fit aesthetics that I have not yet had the freedom to explore contradicts my work in sustainability, which often requires the critique of classism and luxury.
Apparently, when we experience something luxurious, our brain responds by releasing ‘feel-good’ neurotransmitters, such as endorphins and dopamine, which give us a strong buzz of enjoyment. According to Paul Russell, a behavioral psychologist and managing director of luxury training company, Luxury Academy:
Depending upon your attachment to the brand or product, you’ll get a feeling of extreme pleasure and a natural high. Different experiences can trigger different chemicals: for example, eating chocolate triggers dopamine and endorphins, while experiencing a luxurious car releases both adrenaline and dopamine.
Dopamine is the reward centre of the brain, improving mood, motivation and pleasure. It is known as a ‘happy chemical’, released during activities that we find enjoyable, which encourages us to repeat these behaviors.
Furniture is very important to me. I’ve moved almost every year since I was fourteen. And before that, I moved every two to five years, so keeping furniture was not really a luxury I could afford. I still grieve the Victorian chair I bought for $25 from the O Mansion in DC, a landmark and museum of gaudy, yet beautiful items, where I produced my first fashion show. I had to leave the chair on a Brooklyn curb because it wouldn’t fit in the next room I rented. Financial instability was usually the reason for my moves, or it was at least a shadow that accompanied every move. Despite or due to frequent moves, my muscle for curating comfortable spaces is quite strong. Making an apartment, a dorm room or a room in someone else’s house a home, no matter how temporary, is one of my greatest skills. Because, if I’m going to live with chronic depression and other ailments informed by capitalism, I at least want to enjoy my surroundings.
Alongside the sensory aspects of the luxury experience, the wider context is also powerful:
As well as the increase in self-esteem that luxury can offer, we can benefit from the neurotransmitters associated with belonging to an exclusive group,” says Lee Chambers, an environmental psychologist and wellbeing consultant. “Also, when we are surrounded by opulence, there may be a heightened sense of enjoyment, and this can make us happier and raise our serotonin levels.” Serotonin is another mood-booster, which aids the function of the brain and nervous system, improving everything from sleep to digestion.
Those feel-good neurotransmitters have a profound influence on your body, affecting your posture, breathing and more. “When experiencing luxury, we are initially likely to have physiological reactions associated with excitement: our heart rate will increase and we may experience dilated pupils,” explains Dr Charlotte Russell, clinical psychologist and founder of The Travel Psychologist. Your eyes may also widen and your eyebrows raise, while your body posture may be stronger and more assured, indicating increased confidence and positivity.
With your senses heightened, you may also become more aware of your surroundings, noticing small details such as the smoothness of a steering wheel, or the perfume of a designer shop.
This physiological reaction can be intense, but as the experience continues, our strong initial reaction evolves into something more soothing. “Once we are settled into enjoying the experience, we will have physiological changes associated with relaxation and contentment,” says Charlotte. “Our breathing and heart rate will slow, and tension in our body will reduce.”
I began designing other people’s spaces in law school. And after graduating with no job, a mountain of debt and less than $100 in my bank account, I hopped on a Bolt bus to move to New York City. I lived with my sorority sister and took a job at a furniture store. And I ached for sofas that I could not afford, but swatched and sold to people my age. And sometimes people I went to high school and college with would enter the store. And although I was excited to see them, I was also embarrassed that I had a whole law degree while scanning bar codes on candelabras. I loved working there though. I loved my co-workers deeply and I loved that we actually designed floor plans for clueless homeowners, even if that labor did not transpire into a sale. I loved that once a year, we would have a sample sale and stay late to pack up everything in the store in preparation for these items’ next destination: our new jersey warehouse, while blasting music and dancing and laughing. And I loved that a few of us were chosen each year to redecorate the store based on the next season’s hottest items. My final year was the year I was chosen and I designed an entire lighting installation that the corporate headquarters loved so much, they asked other stores to recreate it. And I loved that I got an education in color theory by actual artists and broadened my knowledge of mid-century designers. And I loved that in two years, I felt like I’d graduated from one of the best design experiences of my life. It wasn’t just the furniture. I learned how to read people based on their design choices. There are pragmatic people who choose bulky sofas with piping and skirts, impatient people who purchase everything in a display vignette, insecure people who ask whether we like their furniture choices before they buy. And at the end of days, after the last customers left the store, the furniture was there to represent a soft place to rest after being too long on my feet, but not for too long.
At various points in the last ten or so years, I’ve applied for design jobs to no avail. I looked up the prerequisites for design schools and realized I may be too far into a separate and rocky path to receive this type of formal education. Despite my lack of formal credentials, I wonder when I will be able to play again, the way I want to, and create spaces from scratch beyond the walls I pay way too much to live between.
Maybe my aesthetics are not born from an aspiration for luxury living. Maybe my aesthetics are born from everything I’ve lived through and the ways I’ve designed beautiful solutions for places to rest my head.
Loved this read and so relatable. I'm here for the conversation of luxury and its relation to the sustainability/eco-lux conversation.
I really enjoyed this. Thank you.