When Consumerism Gets The Better Of You

An old friend from high school shared this 2010 piece with me.  It's about dandies in the Congo.

There are two threads here, and they are both extremely important and two sides of the same coin.
1) These folks are dressing up as a way to transcend their environment.
2) Some of them would rather spend money on clothing than real estate.

Lest we get about the messy business of shaming people who do what we do but do it to a more extreme extent, best to remember that everyone makes a judgment call about where clothing fits in their priorities.  (On one end, you have tracksuits and cross-trainers.)  Before you decide that spending so great a percentage of your income on clothes is "crazy" or something, put yourself in the shoes of someone born to Congolese poverty.  Ah, but you can't, really, can you, since you weren't born to Congolese poverty?

Just another helpful reminder from the DDSJC.