[Confession of a shopaholic]

Raining evenings in a tropical country is not an unusual thing, and people going out on a raining Friday is not an unusual thing either. People have surprisingly adaptable perspectives on weather on a Friday night when there are concerts to go to, an opening of a club to attend or even just a handful of friends waiting at the coffee shop for them. Or in my case, a pair of “mystic violet” colored contact lenses was enough to drag me out of the house, away from my comfortable a/c room, into the crowded, chaotic and dusty streets of Saigon. In the midst of pouring rain and intense wind, in the midst of trying to figure out which way is the right way to get home without getting stuck in a traffic jam at a flooded corner of the city, it came to my mind that, if I was to die right at this moment, my last thought would be how the hell I was going to get my … Fendi bag home without a drop of water touching it.

After all, I didn’t die and had successfully protected my bag away from the storm. But again, if was to die the next morning, say by a heart attack or something right in my room, on my bed, my last thought would be how much I want that Christian Dior bag that Carrie Bradshaw carried in that 8th episode of the 4th season of Sex and the City.

Later on that night I got to think about materialism and individualism. Just how materialistic I have become and just how far I could go into that materialism, telling myself that I was just another girl looking for individualism?

For a girl whose wall covered with handbags, closet piled with shoes, tables buried under make-up and accessories that shine the names of Chanel, Dior, Gucci, Fendi, Coach, Givenchy, Michael Kors, Marc Jacobs, MiuMiu, Roberto Cavalli, Jimmy Choo, Manolo Blahnik, a girl who loved to watch Project Runway and read Vogue magazines, people would wonder how the hell would she even dare NOT to consider herself as materialistic. They got their point. I have abolutely no excuse to defense myself. But how on earth did I even get to that point? Was that the way how I was raised? Certainly not, because that wouldn’t be able to explain why neither of my sisters cares a thing for all these designer goodies and why my parents constantly remind me that I am crazy. Surely, I call myself “just a little bit obsessed”. I love my bags, my shoes, my sunglasses, my earrings, my blackberry … I love every single piece of them equally. I love to imagine myself living in New York so I can walk out of my apartment, all dressed up and look like every other day. I love to get all freaked out before going out with friends, going through the entire closet to pick out the perfect outfit and, of course, the accessories to go with it.

So that settles the matter of materialism, but how does that make me fall in the pool of those “individualistic” people? I am the girl who would go home and change my clothes if I by accident see another girl wear something similar to me. I am the girl who, if have a choice to pick something no one has yet and something I really really like, I would go with the rare one. “I hate when people having the same stuff as I do” is what I always say. However, shouldn’t that be the other way around, that I am the one who is using the same “stuff” as others. I do not make the kind of money, or inherit anything, to allow me to have my own designer to make clothes for me only. And even if I do have a designer, how unique are my things going to be. Indeed, somewhere on this whole big world, there will be one person, or more than one, who would be walking down the street, wearing the exact same thing as I do thinking that their stuff is “unique”. Sometimes I wonder just how far I would go for this kind of “individualism” because after all, I am just a copy of someone in the world. Moreover, I am almost certain that my idea of “individualism” is created by no one else but the world itself. I am aware of how the world looks at me and I am affected by it, by its materialism and by its appearance.

Often, I would spend time with my girlfriends, look at magazines or watch fashion show and comment on people. But honestly, who am I to judge all these good-looking people when I am no more than just an ordinary person? I may be one of the few who drive out in the rain to get a pair of violet contact lenses, drive half an hour to get my eyebrow plucked for $5 each, or spent two days trying to get my hair to curl the way I want. I am the girl who replace her traditional black hair with red highlights, cover her brown eyes with violet contact, spending enough time to turn her perfectly straight hair into curly hair. Despite all that efforts, anyday, anywhere, I would be able to spot out millions of people who bear the most beautiful blue eyes, the perfect natural shape eyebrow and the breathtaking wavy hair right on the corner of the street. Every day I go out, dressed in True Religion jeans, DKNY halter top, Chanel bag and Guess shoes, just to realize that I am just another “one of those girls” and realize that I would laugh and snicker if I see myself walking down the street. Who am I fooling? Myself, for my own sake? Or the world, whose opinions I deny depending on? Am I the one who goes against my human nature just to be different?

This really gets me thinking. Really, how am I different than others when I’m just as materialistic and individualistic as any other human being on earth? I wonder if there really is a way for a person to be different, so different that everyone on the street has to turn their heads her direction. More importantly, where does this materialism portrait me in the eyes of others? Am I a new generation girl who is “just a little bit obsessed” with fashion or am I one of those absurd wannabes who is crazy about labels and brand names? And really, does this obsession, as I will call it for now, do me any good in life? Would I grow out of it as I go along the path of life? Or it will just be there as a trait of my personality that I can never get rid of? Would people hate me because of it? Or would they just laugh at my foolishness? Whatever it is, it’s one hell scary thought.

[az]