After months of eyeing a black Chanel tote at Saks Fifth Avenue, Shalla Azizian was ready to splurge. Instead of charging the US$2,000 bag to a credit card, Azizian, a lingerie boutique owner in Manhattan, discreetly plunked down a stack of crisp bills she brought for the purchase.
Through her store, Pesca, Azizian has earned her financial independence, but to avoid the disapproval of her husband of 27 years, she adopts a low profile by using cash.
"His tastes aren't as expensive as mine, and he doesn't understand the need to have so many pricey things," Azizian, 50, said.
PHOTO: NEW YORK TIMES
Though this is 2007, not 1957, the age-old practice of women disguising personal indulgences by paying in cash persists -- even though the majority of women in the US today earn a salary.
Women cite a variety of reasons. Some, like Azizian, hope to head off an argument with a penny-pinching husband or boyfriend. Others feel guilty spending lavishly on themselves, and so they prefer to pay with cash, which is more easily forgotten than a monthly reckoning.
While hard data is difficult to come by, the number of women paying in cash for designer goods has increased in recent years, according to retail analysts and interviews with 10 upscale boutique owners nationwide.
Marshal Cohen, an analyst for NPD Group, a market research firm that conducts 45,000 online interviews about consumer habits each week, said women reported paying with cash to disguise purchases as low as US$150 and as much as US$10,000.
Howard Davidowitz, who has studied consumer habits firsthand for decades, said that in the last three years he has seen more cash purchases at luxury boutiques like Louis Vuitton and semiluxury chains like Coach. Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates, a retail consulting firm, suspects now that US$2,000 handbags and US$700 shoes are common, more women pay in fresh bills to cover their tracks.
Women purchase about 65 percent of luxury goods, according to Unity Marketing, a consulting firm.
These purchases harken back to a time when far fewer women worked and in some cases received allowances from their husbands, whose hold on the family purse strings enforced their power as head of household.
But today, even though about 56.2 percent of women 16 and older work and though marriage has become much more of a partnership of equals, a surprising number of women still find it necessary to hide how much they spend on personal items, especially stereotypical female indulgences like clothing.
"Women have this fear about their spouse's reaction to their shopping bills," said Amy DiFrisco, who was a witness to cash buying as a personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman for nearly a decade.
DiFrisco, who has been married for 17 years, has her own bank account and credit cards, but even she uses cash sometimes for an expensive indulgence.
It's not just married women who make purchases on the sly. Amy Butewicz, 23, a pharmacy student who lives with her parents in South River, New Jersey, pays cash for half of her indulgences, such as her new Louis Vuitton agenda.
She plays down her taste for luxury items to her boyfriend, who prefers Old Navy.
"If he was more into designer stuff, I don't think I'd have to hide as much, but I feel so guilty," said Butewicz, who uses money earned from a part-time job.
Marlin Potash, a psychologist in Manhattan who frequently addresses financial issues in her practice, said that even if a couple's money is not pooled, women fear that men may be dismissive of their spending.
At a time when women make up close to half the labor force and hold executive-level jobs, the notion of hiding purchases may seem antiquated, even perverse.
"Traditionally, women are supposed to be altruistic and put others first and aren't supposed to lavish on themselves," said Kathleen Gerson, a professor of sociology at New York University and an author of The Time Divide: Work, Family, and Gender Inequality.
Women hide their personal purchases to cope with this labeling, she said.
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