Statement
Louise Anderson rarely goes shopping at the weekend.
Text - The Extreme Shopper
Last Saturday morning Louise Anderson was up early, ready to begin her usual weekend routine. First stop was the shoe department in Selfridges, in London’s Oxford Street, then she moved on to other department stores and finally to the designer boutiques along New Bond Street.
When she arrived back in her flat she had three pairs of designer shoes and a matching handbag. She had also picked up two cashmere sweaters, a $200 pot of face cream and another $200 worth of make-up. ‘Shopping is my reward to myself for working hard all week,’ says 31-year-old Louise, who is single and childless. ‘And buying shoes gives me such a high.’
In the last month, Louise has also bought eight designer bikinis and a set of black Gucci luggage.
Louise admits that she doesn’t even wear all her purchases. There is an entire wall of my bedroom which is covered in boxes of shoes, all carefully labelled,’ she says. ‘Sometimes I don’t actually wear them to go out, I just put them on in my bedroom and admire them.’ So what drives her to spend so much on things she will never need?
Louise believes that she deserves these luxuries in return for the stresses of her highly paid job. ‘I see shopping as my main hobby. I don’t drink and I don’t smoke. Most of my money goes on my shopping habit, but it’s my money that I’m spending.’
Consumer psychologist Dr Paul Marsden encounters more and more women like Louise, who are ‘addicted to shopping’. He believes that the lifestyle of modern women is to blame. Women today are time-poor. If they have busy careers, other parts of their lives are often not very satisfactory, but they want to feel good about themselves. Shopping is a quick-fix solution. It’s a way of telling themselves that they matter and are important.
