Kathy Fuld's secret shopping sprees

http://gawker.com/5110265/kathy-fulds-recessiony-10000-secret-shopping-sprees

You can only shake your head when you read about these shameless people.
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Fabulously rich people are nothing if not sensitive. Take Kathy Fuld, who still goes on once-a-week $5,000-10,000 shopping sprees at Hermès, but nowadays, so she doesn't offend anyone, she tries to keep quiet about it.

Well, not really quiet, exactly. But these days Fuld, wife of villainous Lehman Brothers CEO Dick, does request a little white bag in which to carry her $2,225 cashmere throws out of the store, rather than the traditional look-at-me orange sacks the store is so known for. How demure! (Or, you know, shameful.) This is a whole new trend, The Daily Beast reports, with rich ladies all over town opting to, oh mercy God yes, still spend the money, but also to be classy about it and not flaunt they shit. It's called "secret shopping"! (And strangely, this report doesn't carry a byline, which means someone at TDB wants to keep their investigation a secret, too.)

"People are feeling guilty and they’re feeling confused and they’re feeling like they didn’t earn their money, especially within the financial community," said somebody from a marketing research house called the Luxury Institute. Aww, sad and confused and guilty, but not sad, confused, or guilty enough to stop spending money. It's like taking the hood ornament off your Mercedes and being proud of yourself.

Apparently a lot of the high-end shops are building their websites because people want to buy but don't want to flaunt it. They interviewed a New York investment banker (woman) who allowed that it's no longer fashionable to be seen carrying the bags from expensive shops (as long as you're still wearing the $1000 shoes and designer outfits to prove you can afford it).

The division between the rich and the rest has reached Sun King levels.

high end stores.