TIME Global Millennials article: Who’s Holding the Handbag?
On a recent Saturday afternoon in Manhattan, Anika, 26, an investment banker, was doing what many women of her generation do on weekends: she was shopping with her mother. And enjoying it. No surprise, either, that both mother and daughter ended up considering the same pair of J Brand jeans. Initially meant for Anika, the jeans caught her mother’s eye too. “I’d wear those to your father’s club with a blazer and heels,” she said.
Retailers of the world, take note: If you want to get into a boomer’s pocketbook, you’ve got to win her daughter over first. According to Resource Interactive, an Ohio-based marketing company, young adults influence 88% of household apparel purchases. It makes sense since members of the millennial generation—those born between 1980 and 2000—are closer to their parents than are members of any previous generation. Millennials and their parents not only take vacations together and text each other several times a day but also consult each other on what to buy. And more often than not, the millennials are the more informed consumers.
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“What we hear women say,” says Doug Harrison of the Harrison Group, a research firm that conducts surveys for LVMH, Neiman Marcus and others, “is they want clothes that ‘make me feel like I’ve still got it but acknowledge that I’m mature and I’ve accomplished something.’”
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De Marne says she has also seen millennials pushing their mothers to buy things they want for themselves, something NPD’s Cohen says he sees frequently. “The mother buys it,” he says. “And six months later, it’s in the daughter’s closet.”
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One look at a college parking lot full of Audis, Saabs and BMWs demonstrates that this generation isn’t waiting to “earn” its luxury products and services; it already feels entitled to them. “There’s an expectation that they deserve luxury now—it’s not something you wait for and earn,” says James Chung, president of Reach Advisors, who is working on a survey of purchasing behavior of young women. “I call them the prematurely affluent generation.”
So who’s paying the bills? Generally, when you have the parent in the store, you have the wallet in the store, according to Cohen. So stores have to influence not only the consumer but also the credit-card holder. Which can be tricky.
Take designer sunglasses, for instance. “The mother wants the discreet logo at the temple,” says Cohen, “and her daughter wants the logo to be bigger than the lens.” So a slightly different product might be needed for each shopper, and different marketing—different ads. “Welcome to the new world,” says Cohen. “You can’t just sell to one market segment.”
Read the entire article here.
So basically what the article is saying is that the mothers are footing the bill because the pressure from their daughters to dress and look cool (as well as to buy clothes that don’t really fit their mothers’ style just so they can have it in their closet later)…
And that these girls are growing up prematurely affluent but don’t seem to know what kind of work goes into making $1.
They say that every $1 is worth $2 because you have to consider the taxes and whatever else, to get that net $1.
But I suppose if the mothers are willing to foot the bill and they aren’t ‘hurting’ for money, it should be OK, right? Right?
I don’t think so, but then again my mother isn’t wearing skinny jeans and belting sweaters wearing logo sunglasses and Tory Burch ballet flats.
It just sounds to me like the wrong values are being passed down to these daughters. I understand a little treat or fun once in a while (heck, look at my February budget!) but when it’s a natural thing… how can the husbands or boyfriends live up to what these daughters will expect them to do for them after they leave their parents’?
Is this another case or example of Generation Gimme-Gimme Instant-Gratification?
Clearly when you graduate from school you CANNOT afford to live in a nice home, with a swimming pool and all the amenities of life you’re used to when you grew up in your parents’ home. Yet why is it that university students have this idea in their head that by the time they graduate, they’re going to be relieved to have ALLLLLLL of this money to spend from their first ‘real’ job, and then are bitterly disappointed when all they can afford is a rat infested toilet bowl in the crackhead area of town?
What do you think?
- Try on a pair of Tummy Tuck jeans in Nordstrom in the name of Breast cancer
- What if everyone wore flipflops?
- Sometimes bad parents ….are good
- I am actually sick right now. Literally gagging over this Lori Drew business.
- Women, get money wise!
Megan
on Feb 28th, 2008
@ 1:18 PM:
As a “millennial” I agree with parts of this article but can’t even imagine doing others. Pushing my mother to buy something that I will take from her later?? Never. As far as I’m concerned, whatever my mother wears turns instantly into rags to me. Not that I don’t like my mother’s style or think that she is a beautiful woman, but she’s my mom. It’s the same as how girls are horrified when they find their mothers searching through their closets. Once my mom borrowed a dress I wore to a school formal for an event, and when she tried to return it to me I told her to keep it. However I do sort of have to agree that we may be prematurely affluent, but I think we also have a grasp on what is reachable and what isn’t. My recently college graduated bf for instance has lots of dreams of being rich and famous someday, but is okay now with living in a neighborhood that consistently gets written up in the local paper for having a lot of crime. He has a good job, and could probably move out if he wanted to, but instead is saving his money to invest it for later. I think it really depends on who you talk to and once again this is an article that WAY overgeneralizes.
Fabulously Broke
on Feb 29th, 2008
@ 6:43 AM:
Megan: Oh really? I took some of my mom’s old stuff without a problem but then again it was a tank top with an interesting detail or something..
If I lent my mom stuff though, for sure she could keep it..