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)