Every time I think I'm a step closer to letting go of these damn brands, a situation comes along that makes me realise how utterly brainwashed I have become and how much further I have to go. The burning is only four months away, and though the research I'm doing for the book is helping me to understand how I have come to be this way, I'm not any closer to reprogramming my mind.

Picking up on my obvious cabin fever, marooned on the farm, a friend suggested we go on another shopping trip (like most places these days, shopping is leisure here in Virginia), this time to a sprawling retail park about an hour down the road. Of course, I said yes.



During the hour long drive to the sprawling Valley View retail park (the size of a small country), we planned the day's consumerism.

"I can take you to Wall Mart, and then Sam's Club. Wall Mart does very good, cheap clothes. You can pick up some reasonable shirts there, and they might have tennis shoes on special"

"What kind of tennis shoes? Nike, that sort of thing?"

"No, I think just Wall Mart's own."

"Er, is there not a Footlocker nearby? Or a department store?"

"Those stores are double the price! No, we'll go to Wall Mart. You might even find something to take home to your fiancé… what kind of stuff does she like? How about jewellery"

"Well, I've bought her some Vivienne Westwood jewellry before"

"Vivienne Whatnow?"

"Er, never mind."

Next thing I know, I'm standing in between some waist high bargain bins of no brand, no style, no I wouldn't wear these if you paid me tennis shoes in Wall Mart. 'I wouldn't wear those if you paid me'. That was the kind of thing I would say to my parents when they dragged me around British Home Stores in 1987.



"You're not looking. Nothing take your fancy?"

"No it does not."

I could feel a strop coming on. A strop… I'm thirty years old for God's sake. No, it was definitely coming. I knew a strop when I felt one…. I'm not like the people milling in the isles, dressed in regulation leisurewear. Chino shorts, no name button down polo, some unknown make of sneakers, all bought on special. Nothing fancy. Nothing outrageous. Nothing that would cause anyone to look and stare. Heaven forbid. We wouldn't want to be different. The tyranny of leisurewear. Plain colours, plain cut, plain bloody boring. If this was what life was like on the other side, I might as well pack the book in and go back to the Lacoste store. I'm worth more than this. I'm special. I'm different. You should be able to tell that, just by looking at me.

"Why do ya want to pay a hundred Dollars for a pair of fancy jeans, when you can get the same here for twenty bucks? Its just a label."

"Well, uh, you see, in London it's different, we don't…"

She looked at me blankly. It was impossible to explain. I was crushed by the infuriating simplicity of her argument.

I gathered all the humility a London style mag editor can muster and we pressed on. The bossa nova muzak chugged on in the background. The intercom announced a one day sale on reinforced heel footie socks. I tokenly tried on a fetching pair of durable sta-press nylon trousers (coated with Teflon!). They didn't quite fit. Shame.

At this point in my life, I am finding it both helpful and comforting to remember the following motivational clichés…