^{It can be argued that this is an exaggeration.}

^{I think it’s generally true, but I’m of two minds on this: I’m both grateful and resentful.}

^{On the one hand, museums are institutions usually well-funded enough to source some of the most exquisite costumes from around the world.}

^{It’s a net good that rare, artistic pieces are restored and maintained by experts to be occasionally displayed in public exhibits. That’s commendable stewardship.}

^{In a similar vein, it’s often the very wealthy who can afford extraordinary pieces—the haute couture and the rare antique and vintage clothes.}

^{Many of them graciously fund museums and sometimes even donate their high-end pieces for posterity and educational purposes. Thus, the link between wealth and higher institutions remains a very tightly closed system.}

^{Add to that those rental houses and vintage shops that let celebrities borrow red-carpet-ready gowns by the hour but are gatekept by top-tier stylists.}

^{Recently, there was a big brouhaha over the Bezoses being the lead sponsors of the Met Gala. (To be fair, the Met doesn’t fund the Costume Institute, so they need a way to make $$$.)}

^{If people were shocked that billionaires funded the gala, I don’t know why. As far as I’m concerned, it was business as usual: The rich—however ill-begotten their wealth—enriching institutions. Power upholding power.}

^{Fashion-wise, the wealthy have always endeavoured to draw clear marks of separation between their lot and the hoi polloi.}

^{There were even sumptuary laws to do it for them!}

^{Once the poors could not be lawfully excluded from imitating the dress of the rich, the rich would go left when the lower and middling classes went right, up when they went down, in when they went out, all to distinguish themselves and remain the keepers of taste.}

^{What makes resentment creep into this conversation is this latest round of gatekeeping by the wealthy—it’s hyper-gatekeeping.}

^{Although no one is prohibited by law from carbon copying the rich, there’s still a stratosphere-level of luxury most of us can only dream of attaining. Few among us are lucky enough to score archive/museum-worthy pieces at estate sales and thrift stores, but with the second-hand market becoming as popular as retail, those lucky days seem to be numbered.}

^{At the risk of looking like I’m picking on the poor billionaire, Lauren Sánchez recently wore an archive-heavy outfit in Paris that cost over $50,000. That’s my student loans she’s wearing on her back!}

^{Now, the new flex of the rich—at least the celebrity class—doesn’t seem to be just buying ordinary luxury goods like they’re shopping for cereal at the local Whole Foods; it’s buying/renting prohibitively expensive haute couture and archive pieces that are priced—apparently!—especially for them. No normal person, they’ll be comforted to know, could ever afford to wear what they’re wearing. They win and so do luxury brands who also get good press for their designs. When museums, enriched by their funders, go on to purchase these special pieces, they’ll win, too, and all the specialness of rare and beautiful objects and clothes continues to be hoarded at the top.}

^{As a result, the creation of amazing clothes seems less like an art form in which many of us can reasonably partake and starts to appear more like an exclusive game played only by the super rich and the institutions under their auspices.}

^{Yet, I suppose, if fabulous pieces are being made and collected, they will always be around for us to collectively own, even if our portion comes in the form of a photo-op or a brief museum exhibit.}