Lately I’ve been shopping for women’s clothing and it occurs to me that clothing is art.

Let me explain in more detail. I’m a rare breed of man, who likes to shop for clothes with his wife. I do this for a number of reasons, the number one being that I’m better at picking clothes than she is and she looks better in clothes I pick. There is also the feeling that when she gets a new nice looking outfit, I get a new woman. She looks different and its an erotic thing.

But enough about my psyche. We were recently looking for clothes and went to a number of stores. And it turns out the most expensive ones were the ones with the best clothes. Why is this? Really cost of goods doesn’t explain it. While the more expensive outlets are probably made with better material, that isn’t enough for the price to triple. The law of supply and demand says the price is higher because people are willing to pay for it. If it isn’t the material that makes a person willing to pay more what is it?

It’s the artistic quality of the dress.

They look better. That means they are more pleasing to the eye, just like a Rembrant is more pleasing than a lesser artist’s work. Creating clothing that makes people feel a particular thing – normally some sort of attraction to the wearer – is art.

As an aside, I will often say a particular piece of clothing looks “upper-middle-class”. I don’t really like things that look this way and I just realized what it means. A “upper-middle-class” outfit looks expensive, but doesn’t convey a feeling of attractiveness. It conveys, “I’ve got money to spend on clothes, but I don’t want you to feel good about me.” This goes with the kind of woman who doesn’t want men to like her, usually because they’ve been too much trouble and pain in her past.