So Rich They Can Afford to Look Poor

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed)
Apr 29th 2008 at 3:02PM

There is apparently a point at which some excessively rich individuals decide to do away with decent standards of dress altogether. They are literally so loaded they can afford to look homeless; their rags become a sort of reverse status symbol. In fact, as author Paul Fussell noted in Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, shabby clothes "advertise how much of conventional dignity [the upper classes] can afford to throw away. The wearing of clothes excessively new or excessively neat and clean suggests that your social circumstances are not entirely secure."

We'd like to think that's the reason behind the appearance of the celebs on Nerve's new list of the "Top 10 Rich People Who Look Poor." It would certainly seem to be for notoriously-underdressed billionaire Condé Nast owner Si Newhouse, who clocks in at # 7. But we think it's more than likely that the Olsen Twins (#6), Britney Spears (#3) and Amy Winehouse (#1), who's reportedly worth $20 million, are actually just slobs. Check out the full list here.

Tags: Amy Winehouse, AmyWinehouse, Britney Spears, BritneySpears, Cond Nast, CondNast, expire-images2009-4-28, Nerve, Olsen Twins, OlsenTwins, Paul Fussell, PaulFussell, Si Newhouse, SiNewhouse

Filed under: Apparel

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

rip Apr 29th 2008 4:11PM

Reverse snobbery is a well known phenomenon. Here in L.A., it seems the only people that wear suits are talent agents and salesmen. A lot of wealthy people here seem to dress like the homeless. In fact, I think that some people like to flaunt the fact that they are so wealthy/famous/powerful that they show up somewhere in rags and still get taken care of.

Still, in the case of Amy Winehouse and Britney, you can take the girl out of the trailer park but you can't take the trailer park out of the girl...