The Sun-Herald

I don't mind the New Modesty

The oddest sight at last Sunday's Easter Yearling Sales was a group of overseas prospective buyers skulking around wearing masks.

True, those who customarily drop millions on horseflesh are notoriously shy, but this mob's Michael Jackson-esque get-up is almost certainly a sign of the times.
In-your-face consumerism is currently as unacceptable as public flatulence. Spending in plain sight is plain gauche. It is not cool even to crave - unless you are craving a dented second-hand bicycle with re-re-recycled parts or an apple you've grown yourself.
It's being dubbed the New Modesty- or the New Presbyterianism, if you prefer your trends with a religious flavour - and it's a mood currently colouring our every visible action.
Whether the recession has cleaned you out or not, you must behave as if it has, and this means that flamboyant cities such as our own have had to engineer a swift, dramatic image update.
Smart clubs are hiding away their VIPS in discreet, darkened backrooms instead of displaying them in ostentatious areas resembling fenced stages. In general, underground, off-street venues are rising in popularity. The bars of the moment have understated entrances and few windows. Even the city's most schmanzy new eatery, Spice Temple, is a downstairs, dimly-lit affair where it's impossible to distinguish the faces of your neighbouring diners without a torch. It is the place to be, but not to be seen.
I'm told by my fashion friends that one of the major design houses now offers the option to have your goodies delivered minus the usual logo-festooned bag, glossy box and fat ribbon, but instead in a plain brown paper bag (although this makes me a little wistful because although I can only afford tiny items such as keyrings and notepaper from designer stores, I like being entitled to the same delicious packaging as the big spenders. There is a certain democracy in that).
Furtive spending is good news for those of us who don't have much to spend anyway. It relieves you of such pressures as "building a portfolio of jeans," (an urgent shopping priority identified by a fash mag just over a year ago) or keeping your car shiny. If your natural tendency is towards disrepair, these are actually rather pleasant times in which root regrowth, dropped hemlines, no manicure and a less-than-current wardrobe are signs not of weakness but of moral superiority and - more importantly in Sydney - being totally on-trend.
Hopefully there will be, at least for a while, no more 'rack rage' and unseemly fights over children's toys in shops at Christmas. Even a return to affordable, locally sourced goods and produce which stems the flow of mass-produced tat around the world.
The danger of course is that all this restraint veers into competitive austerity. No-one wants a ban on all the good things in life and there are enough fun-avoiders out there influencing our free time anyway (see my blog 28/02: Let's Banish the Fun Dodgers).
But I suspect the New Modesty will redefine rather than remove our fondness for acquiring stuff. The wealthy will simply go underground, savouring the subversive thrill of secret spending, while the rest of us could cultivate a new appreciation for quality and beauty - including the old, the flawed and the quirky.
In the meantime, expect to see me down at Woolworths in a Phantom of the Opera mask, so you don't catch me overdoing it in the confectionery aisle.