I Should Be Rich

Once every couple weeks, a woman comes into the Country Club where I valet. She gets out of the armored personnel carrier most would call a Suburban and hands me her keys on a massive leather hoop keyring, in the style typical of the country club women. On every occasion, she has been incredibly flustered and apologized profusely for holding me up. After a few interactions I think, on some weird level, I have a crush on her. And no, it’s not just my penchant for mature women— it’s because I’m attracted to wealth. 

I should be rich.

It’s that simple. It’s not “oh, I want to be rich,” it’s I should be rich. The universe owes it to me. Why? Because I would be so goddamn good at it.

I’ve had thought this for a while, but the fateful evening when Pinterest decided to show me an ad for monogrammed seersucker garment bags wedged between pictures of Dakota Johnson grocery shopping was a definite sign I’d gone too deep. But it was also a real indicator that I really should be rich.

My tenure at the Country Club has been the equivalent of a wealth-watching National Geographic safari. Few people have as fascinatingly effortless a style as Virginia Old Money. A Patagonia puffer jacket worn under a tweed sportcoat with a well-worn cap from some faraway national park. A woman dropping a bill off in the perfect fitting trousers, vintage sweatshirt, and furlined Gucci mules. The man who almost exclusively wears white vintage wranglers. The sea of Gucci Horsebits at every wedding. And, of course, the ubiquitous LL Bean boat & tote. The issue is that it really is old money I want to modernize that money and well, freak it. A button down and tie with an Arc’teryx jacket and leopard print Belgian Shoes. I’d love to show up to an aristocrat wedding in a tux and cowboy boots. Fuck it, I’d wear Margiela’s to the Club. 

What’s so cool about wealth is that it not only affords you the ability to wear high quality, durable goods, but that you can buy lots of them. Wearing indisposable goods like they’re disposable is incredibly swaggy and chic.

I do think part of my attraction to old money riches, however, is that people’s modern idea of wealth seems wrong to me. Due to the great sins of our time (social media), we have built up this idea of wealth based on influencers and new money. This idea of wealth is inherently tied to conspicuous consumption, be it a Louis Vuitton monogram or a week in Mykonos. I’m not going to claim old money isn’t at times gaudy— there is very little that’s modest about a supercharged Range Rover or a Birkin— but there is a definite difference. Coco Chanel built her empire upon clothes which, though luxurious, were unintrusive. It was about creating clothes that not only allowed you to look good, but allowed you to live your life. People loved Princess Diana because she looked just as good in trousers and Wellingtons as in a silk gown and pearls. Wealth, properly executed, has rarely been about flashing it; it’s about the access it grants to society, travel, and quality garments. The Victorian life of luxury was about just that: life. Sure, a woman could wear as many as eight outfits in one day, but those outfits were about lifestyle, be it horseback riding or ballroom dancing.

But why should I be rich? It’s simple. The tweed-clad quality of wealth can be stuffy. It is rather elitist and, frankly, some of those golfing outfits are awful. Me? I’m not stuffy, I don’t golf, and I’m very online. I could reintroduce to wealth a youthful carelessness while still being respectful of how cool it is. Sure, a lot of rich people are dicks, but we have this idea of the rich as being across the board assholes whose kids post their Ferrari keys and private jets on Instagram. It shouldn’t be that way. It should be nice jeans, worn loafers, and a V8 station wagon.