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Today on The Baller on a Budget podcast, Diane Taha, influencer & host of the Channel Your Influence podcast are discussing our consumer habits & shopping sins in a tell-all fashion confessional. In this episode, Diane & I talk about the cost of building a wardrobe, the exclusionary practices of luxury brands, corporate activism, sexist marketing & much more.

Diane has been an influencer since 2013 & is a full-time social media manager. She also hosts the podcast Channel Your Influence, where she discusses the climate of influencer marketing.

 In This Episode: 

• How Diane began her career as a beauty & fashion influencer (1:43)
• What is “high-low” fashion? (3:38)
• Designer brands are more of a status symbol than style (7:20)
• How much of Diane’s wardrobe is designer (8:02)
• The attainability of luxury brands (10:56)
• Why do we strive to consume luxury? (16:10)
• How online fast fashion brands were popularized by fast fashion (18:19)
• Diane’s main issue with fast fashion (19:52)
• How often do we buy clothes that don’t fit but still keep them? (23:18)
• The percentage of our wardrobes that we actually wear (24:45)
• Why fast fashion sizing is a breeding ground for eating disorders & body dysmorphia (25:45)
• What are capsule wardrobes? (26:54)
• Will our current wardrobes age along with us? (30:39)
• Why designer bags & shoes hold their value (31:26)
• Small changes consumers can make to reduce environmental impact (34:02)
• How retail mark-ups & sales are exploitative (38:08)
• Preventing buyer’s remorse & FOMO (40:45)
• Consuming new items like underwear with less environmental impact (43:16)
• Why class divide makes ethical consumption costly for working-class people (48:20)
• Using influence to advocate for change (49:06)
• The impermanence of canceling corporate activism (51:13)
• Is the real power of ethical change within consumers or corporations? (55:38)
• The majority of household consumer decisions are made by women (58:19)
• How shifting the responsibility of ethical consumption to consumers contains subtle sexism (1:00:07)
• The female empowerment argument vs. the male gaze (1:02:50) 
• How Millennial & Gen Z women are financially independent of men (1:07:33)
• Do your consumer habits sabotage your financial goals? (1:09:00)
• How do we identify ourselves outside of what we look like, how we produce, & how we consume? (1:12:29)

Where you can find Diane Taha:

• Instagram: @stylecontext
• www.stylecontext.com
• Channel Your Influence

Sources:

• Fast fashion & the social media culture of consumption with the Baller on a Budget (Episode 20 Channel Your Influence Podcast)
• Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster (by Dana Thomas) – affiliate link
• Statistics On the Purchasing Power of Women (Girl Power Marketing)
• Who Makes the Call at the Mall, Men or Women? (WSJ)
• The Commodification of Kim Kardashian’s Plastic Surgery (@kardashian_kolloquium on Tiktok)

Did you relate to any of our shopaholic confessions or consumer woes? Let’s chat in the comments! Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my newsletter below for more money tips & tricks. If you liked this podcast episode, share it with someone you know and leave us a review on iTunes so new listeners can find this podcast too.