Quality has a luxury all its own

[jemhouston]

https://knightonexperiment.substack.com ... ll-its-own

Quality has a luxury all its own
Tom Knighton
19 hr ago

inside building
Photo by Zane Lee on Unsplash

Recently, I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube.

Yes, I know, that’s usually a terrible way to start a post, mostly because YouTube is so full of nonsense.

But I’ve been watching channels focused on men’s style. One in particular, that shall remain nameless, has a lot of videos of the channel’s owner getting bespoke suits made on Savile Row, getting bespoke shoes made from all over the world, and all kinds of other sartorial luxuries.

It’s kind of easy to watch a pile of that and think, “That’s the goal.”

The thing is, it’s really not. What reminds me of this fact is an old watch.

The watch is a Zodiac Hermetic my father bought in Antarctica, of all places. It’s a lovely watch, though a bit small by today’s standards. It even has a penguin and the continent’s name emblazoned on the dial, making it pretty unique.

It dates from the 1960s. I know because that’s when Dad was stationed down there. He bought it for his father, my grandfather. After he passed, it was handed to me. Now that my father is gone as well, I can’t help but think of that watch.

Doing research on it, I read that Zodiac isn’t considered a luxury watch brand. It’s known to be a good watch, but it’s not a luxury watch.

It was this watch that made me think of a quote often attributed to Joseph Stalin, only my brain changed it. “Quality has a luxury all its own.”

See, I don’t foresee myself being able to live the luxurious lifestyle. I’d love to be able to take trips on yachts and fly in private planes. I’d love to have a massive estate that would make the nobility of old green with envy. Couple that with those Savile Row suits and custom shoes with a luxury car and yeah, I think I’d be happy.

But is that really reasonable? Maybe not.

Despite that, I can buy quality. I may have to pay a bit more upfront, but it’s like the Vimes theory of boots written by Sir Terry Pratchett that’s been talked about here a couple of times:

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness.

So, spend the money on the leather boots and skip having to spend it later.

As a result, though, that’s kind of luxurious.

Sure, it may help make a political statement or two, but that’s a side benefit at most. What matters is how you can live the rest of your life now that you’re not chasing the latest and greatest.

Timeless pieces that will last through your great-grandchildren’s generation may cost a bit upfront, but you won’t be like we were when a bookcase literally fell apart in our living room a few years back. You won’t have your shoes fall apart while you’re out of town. None of that.

So you won’t have to keep buying, which means the money you’d normally have to spend on clothes? That can go toward a trip to Europe or the Caribbean. That money you don’t have to spend replacing furniture? That can go toward putting in a swimming pool or maybe splurging for a country club membership.

Of course, that might be reaching. What do I know? A lot of what I’m posting here are my thoughts, things that enter my head and spur me on with regard to this whole experiment thing. Maybe this won’t happen. Maybe I’ll try and buy quality on some things and then just toss my money away somewhere else.

What I do know is that doing what I’ve always done won’t get me anything different than what I’ve always had. Doing something different and doing it with a purpose just might, and if quality means I don’t have to replace everything every time I turn around, well that might just mean I’m headed in the right direction.