The recessionista trend: Beyond the buzz word

November 15, 3:30 PMLA Health and Beauty ExaminerSarah Torribio

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A new term has entered the national consciousness of late: recessionista.

A recessionista  is a trendsetter who makes herself beautiful and hip without spending a lot of money. (The name is a hybrid, of course, of the words recession and fashionista.)

A recessionista hunts for bargains, puts look before label, and embraces a DIY aesthetic. She takes this down-to-earth approach either because she cannot afford conspicuous spending, or because she does not feel comfortable shopping till she drops when so many around her are living from paycheck to paycheck. (Most of us fall into the former category.)

And, she is the It-girl of 2009. Earlier this year, the Macmillan Dictionary named recesionista the word of the week. According to a February 2009 article on Forbes.com, the term has emerged as this year's most popular fashion buzz word.

There are many faux recessionistas—women who lay claim to the name but who clearly do not have a handle on what it means to live and shop on a real budget. The difference is pretty easy to discern.

Your stylish friend rocking a $20 all-in-one Norma Kamali dress from Walmart? She's a recessionista. Oprah, touting a $69 plaid cotton long-sleeved shirt  as The Great Buy of the Day for Nov. 13 on her Oprah.com website? Sorry, but no.

The blogger behind the The Next Rich Girl site, who suggests eschewing a salon and giving yourself a manicure—exfoliating with your own homemade body scrub? She's a recessionista.

Laura Hollinger, who wrote a piece for Elle printed in October called My Year of Living Frugally, about living frugally and fashionably on her paltry six-figure income in order to mitigate the pain of a lost annual bonus? No.

Hollinger, a  self-described girl-about-town, patronizes people who are really struggling by blithely describing "sacrifices" like swooping down on recession-fueled bargains (“I smugly plopped down $1,000 to buy three sweaters, a knit dress, and a season’s worth of tights, all of which were reduced by a heart-stopping 60 to 75 percent”); taking a bus instead of a cab so she doesn’t have to “even blink” at the idea of going out for dinner with friends; vacationing on the cheap in Aspen, and falling off her retail-diet wagon to splurge on a pair of $800 Lanvin silk sandals.

It is people like this—perhaps they’re too clueless to be called hypocritical?—who have brought on a recessionista backlash among women like Latoya Peterson, who wrote a response to the Elle piece for Jezebel.com called “Why I Hate Recessionista Lifestyle Pieces.”

It is understandable when she vents her ire about those who exploit terms like recessionista, frugalista "and any other f---ing thing I read about how 'trendy' it is to be financially conscious. I'm not on a trend, damn it, I'm f---ing broke!"

Likewise, I can see why the folks at 39thandbroadway.com—a blog catering to fashion industry workers—would assert the following in a blog titled "Goodbye Recessionista Glamorizers":

"We find it extremely insulting in a time when many are suffering with real financial difficulties, from losing a home or job to choosing between paying utility bills or buying groceries, to have wealthy people use the recession as a marketing tool for profit."

 At the same time, I do like the make lemonade-out-of-lemons attitude of the true recessionista. It’s about using words and attitude to turn the grim grind of “getting by” into an adventure. Even if scraping by is nothing new and not a voluntary choice.  

  The bad news

 Let's get unfashionably financial and talk about the impetus for the recessionista craze.

 If you’ve been hiding in an oversized mink coat for the last few years, I’ve got some news for you: We’re in the middle of a pretty tough recession.

 A week ago, a Reuters article reported that the U.S. jobless rate has reached a whopping 10.2 percent.

The number is startling, but—according to the Reuters story—it’s even worse if you factor in those unemployed Americans who have become discouraged and stopped looking for a job. This brings the jobless rate to 17.5 percent, says the U.S. Department of Labor.

 It gets grimmer. Many Americans who have jobs are underemployed, which means they are working part-time when they need full-time work to pay their bills.

 The underemployment boom is caused by budget-beleaguered employers saving jobs by cutting hours, or by laid-off workers returning to the workforce in a part-time capacity, not out of choice but because that’s all they can find.

 The state Employment Development Department estimated California’s underemployment rate at 21.9 percent in September of this year, according to an October article in the San Fransisco Chronicle.

That figure, wrote Chronicle staffer Tom Abate, included the 1.9 million Californians who were jobless, the 1.4 million people in the state who had to resort to part-time work, as well as some 865,000 adults “loosely described as discouraged.”

An Oct. 30 article  on CNN.com elaborated on the part-time blues, which as of the news outlet's press time was escalating: 

“Employers haven't only been slashing jobs in this downturn. They've been reducing the hours of the workers they keep in order to keep a lid on wages. The average work week is now 33 hours, a record low. A record 9.2 million people that have jobs are working part-time because their hours have been cut or they can't find full-time work. That's more than doubled since the start of a recession.”

Okay, I’m done depressing readers. The point is that financial uncertainty and hardship has touched a significant portion of Americans, enough so that conspicuous consumption has been replaced with on-a-budget chic.

The good news

There are a few benefits of the widespread financial crisis. One of these is an epidemic of camaraderie.

 Not too long ago, it was pretty demoralizing to confess to someone that you lost your job or were having trouble paying rent. Nowadays, the most likely response to this sort of admission is, “Me too” or “Things are tough everywhere.”

 Though the saying goes, “Misery loves company,” it is not the fact that others are hurting that gives comfort to the would-be recessionista. It is the fact that there are so many people out there learning how to cope in the current economic climate and sharing their ideas.

 Visit a shoe-repair shop and have run-down shoes repaired for $5 to $30 instead of splurging on new shoes, advises the Ssassy Chic blog—or head to Payless to check out their new designer lines. (These include just-for-Payless lines by Christian Siriano, alice + olivia, and Lela Rose.)

Makeup artist Carmindy  (“What Not to Wear”) offers some great money-saving ideas, such as the following waste-not-want-not tip:

"If you have a drawer full of half-used lipsticks, don't throw them away and buy more. Take a pillbox and dig out the lipstick colors and put them in each square. You'll have a great carrying case and palette to create new colors like the pros do."

This upturn in resourcefulness and empathy has coincided with the explosion of the blogosphere. According to Technorati’s most recent State of the Blogosphere Report, every 24 hours in 2008, 900,000 blog posts were created and uploaded onto the web.

This represents a lower number than in years past, most likely because the novelty of blogging has worn a bit and the reality of the work involved has become apparent. (Don't get me started!) It is still, however, a fantastically robust number. We may even see this number grow again, as an increasing amount of displaced journalists, writers and every other imaginable kind of workers find themselves, as the Styx song bemoans, with too much time on their hands.

 Add to this the number of “vloggers,” video bloggers, who offer video advice via sites like YouTube and it represents a veritable glut of self-styled mavens giving advice. Nowadays, a lot of that advice has to do with looking, feeling and living well without spending much.

 Do you want to find out how to bloom in the infertile ground of the recession? Get onto a search engine like Google and type in a key word like recessionista; or pair words like fashion, beauty and style with the term bargain or recession or cheap.

 You will be amazed at how many blogs out there are devoted to helping you sparkle while saving. The following are just a few examples of these budget blogs (I’ll leave it to you to judge whether each of these bloggers is a true champion of cheap chic or a fashionista in recessionista clothing):

 The Recessionista

US Weekly’s Recessionista Blog by Sasha Charnin Morrison

I am a recessionista

The Budget Babe

 and

 The Cheap Chica’s Guide to Style

 

My recessionista suggestionistas

 I am one of those people for whom a bargain is not a bargain unless it slaps you across the face with its ridiculously affordable price. Free’s good, too. I like free.

 I also dig do-it-yourselfing, handmade stuff, thrift and vintage stores, supporting small entrepreneurs, fair trade, recycling and creative reuse. In other words, the trends that are flourishing in the current economic climate.

I’d like to share a few recessionista tips, gleaned from sites and sounds I have come across while researching online:

* Ditch the hot rollers and embrace the paper bag with a curl-ific tutorial by YouTube beauty sensation Michelle Phan:

Phan, also known as RiceBunny, also shares tips on how to get beautiful skin using a sip of champagne, aspirin, a tomato, or an egg  and DIY techniques like how to make your own lip color and eye makeup remover.

* Visit one of the many sites specializing in printable coupons, such as the MommySavesBig blog.

A Nov. 15 stroll through the site turned up coupons for companies and products such as Almay, Aveeno, Bath and Body Works, Clean and Clear, Dove L’Oreal, Maybelline, Sephora, The Body Shop, Sally Beauty Supply and more. 

* Keep your focus on eye-catching accessories. They are invaluable for their ability to dress up anything that might otherwise feel old and plain.

You can pick up a pair of berry-colored tights at Target for $7 (if you're not squeamish about head-to-toe vintage, there are also adorable tights in every color to be found at thrift stores); a gorgeous and funky vintage blue Lucite bangle with opalescent confetti accents for $19 from Etsy vendor Novel Josephine (The online shop also offers 168 other items); or browse PriceGrabber.com to find a great on-sale belt such as the one I spotted as I wrote this blog, a reversable floral belt with a mod-sophisticate vibe)

I’ve got one more tip:

* If you are improvising in order to look good while saving money, confidence goes a long way.

Want to channel 1990 with old jeans, a Hanes T-shirt and a vintage men’s suit vest from a thrift store? Do it with a smile.

Want to get in on the DIY phenomenon of making your own paper dress? (Check out a haute couture example made of paper towels on the A Fanciful Twist blog.) Wear it with your head held high and a swing in your step, and make sure you stay out of the rain!

And whatever you do, recessionistas in training, try to resist those $800 sandals.