Jimmy Choo shoes

Any appraisal of the decade of excess should include the new social class that emerged. Wedged somewhere between the haves and the have nots came the 'might haves if we can get a loan'. As we now know, most of those cheap takeaway loans were the chicken nuggets of the financial world – reconstituted bits of this and that, okay for filling a gap when desperate but leaving a bad taste in the mouth. But if the nation can no longer indulge in what was the most popular pastime of the decade – buying stuff – there's the rediscovery of an older family favourite – having a good whinge about those last misspent 10 years. That new-found national virtuousness is summed up in the famous old movie quote: "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin."


Warnings against the promiscuous spreading about of money didn't come from the economists and social commentators who are now, incidentally, on a nice little earner with books about where we all went wrong. It was the elderly, who've seen out several recessions, not to mention the government's plan to scrap their medical cards, who warned that such recklessness would leave us living nun-like existences.


"It's far from penthouses and designer handbags you were reared," they warned. Or words to that effect. We were in danger of becoming the national equivalent of the late Michael Jackson, let loose in a Las Vegas store and ordering millions of dollars worth of tacky ornaments. Which was ironic, given the big style trend that kicked off the decade was 'less is more'.


It referred back then to interior design rather than the size zero that was held up as the aspirational female body shape in the middle of the decade. A 'less' lifestyle has come to pass now, although not in the way 2000's minimalist trendsetters envisaged. And cream carpets, leather sofas and potted orchids aside, the obvious, most expensive 'must have' of the decade was a house.


Safe as houses?


Just talking about property was the social intercourse that got people really excited. Pub or dinner party, the topic of conversation would be about how much someone paid for a wreck they planned to knock down and rebuild just as soon as they got their hands on a good architect, builder, plumber and bank manager. There was the phenomenon of people queuing overnight to buy off-plan – not a home, but a hole in the ground. Buyers went crazy for what was originally known donkeys years ago as the humble flat, but now given the more sophisticated New York connotations of 'apartment', where new owners could imagine themselves sipping martinis while gazing at their collection of contemporary art. Even if it was somewhere in Carlow.


Those with a bigger budget went for the 'family home', typically a period redbrick and ideally one that hadn't already been restored or had its potential realised by someone with bad taste. As one estate agent told this paper, it wasn't uncommon practice for a new owner of a property to rip out a perfectly good, recently fitted kitchen and replace it with the one they preferred. Apart from skip-hire companies making a mint, new kids on the services block included 'declutter' advisers who could tell you where to put your old tat, and property stagers. For a fee, those selling their homes but needing to present it to the market in a certain light, could hire the property stager to blitz their home and fill it with tastefully selected furniture and art work.


Such was the craze for bricks and mortar that investing almost became a religious sacrament. First Holy Communion, rather than first time buyers, was where it was at in 2005 when possibly the most over-the-top press release of the decade landed on the Sunday Tribune's property desk. "Calling on all godparents wracking their brains trying to find the perfect First Communion present," read the blurb from the estate agents specialising in overseas property, urging investors to snap up "a variety of houses beside the lakes in Bulgaria priced from as little as €3,000". It emerged most of the "really sassy godparents" hadn't bothered to go and visit the properties – possibly because, no more than their intended Tiger cub investors, they weren't exactly sure where Bulgaria was.


Similarly, if a lot of the Irish investing in Germany during the boom had been asked to name the capital, they might have needed to phone a friend. That's according to one of the country's estate agents, quoted in journalist Tony Connelly's book, Don't Mention The War. Increasing numbers of Irish buyers were "too enthusiastic" said the Berlin agent. "I have to tell them to calm down, there is plenty of property around for everybody."


While Scandinanvian and Spanish buyers were simply looking for a holiday home, the Irish just wanted "to make money. They often don't know where Berlin is, but they arrived and on the same day leaving €120,000 on a property." By 2006, Irish investors were the most active in the London property market. Others were investing in Dubai – yet another location many might have found hard to pin down on the map. One of the most sought-after areas became The World, the replica of all the countries of the globe laid out on a reclaimed patch of the Persian Gulf. The real world was no longer big enough.


Because you're worth it


How to accessorise all that wealth? The status symbol of choice was the trophy handbag, ideally big enough to accommodate a miniscule yapping dog and the owner's massive ego.


During the height of the 'hey look at me I've arrived' designer handbag phase, journalist and broadcaster Janet Street Porter summed up all that's ridiculous about them: "One of the reasons I loathe fashion's current obsession with handbags that cost over £1,000 is that they represent the most vulgar way possible of flaunting your wealth. Utterly without any merit, totally impractical, festooned with an obscene amount of decoration and generally fashioned from the skin of rare reptiles, the designer bag just about sums up the huge gap between the people who've got too much and those who have almost nothing."


The Hermes Birkin bag, the must-have to crown all must-haves, arrived in Brown Thomas in 2004 – but allegedly not onto buyers' wrists until two years later. Along with the jaw-dropping price – from around €4,000, give or take the odd thousand – the long waiting list for the bag only increased the feverish demand. Or so we were told. Whether or not it was worth clubbing some unsuspecting alligator over the head for never came up for discussion. Nor did the practical worth.


As most women know, a proper handbag will hold keys, mobile, wallet, year's supply of unredeemed bus ticket refunds, boiled sweet covered in fluff, hair straighteners, and a Black and Decker drill. And possibly a pair of flat, comfortable shoes. Because a bag with a moon-orbiting price tag demanded skyscraper heels to match and the first Manolo Blahnik concession store in western Europe opened in Brown Thomas in 2008, joining another Sex and the City favourite, Jimmy Choo.


Fashion slaves no longer had to get on a plane to New York to buy them but, coming just after the government's bank bailout, customers wanting a pair would have needed a bailout of their own to foot the bill. If the timing seemed odd, the Tommy Hilfiger store opening on Grafton Street a couple of months later seemed as off-key as a Jedward ballad.


Whatever about the concept of 'luxury labels', the answer to "What do you give the woman who has everything?" during the noughties was: blonde hair, the biscuit whiff of fake tan, Botox and bigger breasts. There were stories in the press about parents paying for breast augmentation surgery for teenage daughters, while the sight of little girls wearing tee-shirts with the Playboy logo almost caused lockjaw generally. Even Barbie briefly became the role model for women when Mattel teamed up with Mac cosmetics. The range was launched in Brown Thomas in 2007. As the store's cosmetics buyer told this newspaper at the time. "It might be assumed that this is just for the Paris Hilton lookalikes, but that's not strictly the case. We have mothers and their daughters who are into that whole retro look that Barbie demonstrates, with eye liner, huge lashes and lip gloss... In fact, the lip gloss sold out in a matter of days."


Now that the emphasis has switched to thrift rather than spend, the body-conforming, label-wearing, property-investing image of the decade past may finally be consigned to the back of the cupboard along with the George Foreman grill. The haves, as always, still have it, while the have nots are swelling in number.


But, there is some consolation in not having wads of money to buy pointless stuff that will supposedly make us fabulous. We can have an identity beyond wearing the name of some designer emblazoned on bags or tee-shirts, owning property abroad, or going on spending sprees in New York. And that identity is priceless.