How do I know whether I want something or just want people to see me with it?

Wanting to be seen is not an embarrassing defect you must eliminate before you are allowed to buy anything. We communicate through clothes, rooms and objects. The question is what you hope this particular object will say for you.

Perhaps you admire its design. Perhaps you imagine someone finally recognising that you have done well. Both may be true.

Try completing this sentence honestly: ‘When they see me with it, I hope they will think…’ Then consider whose opinion appears in the answer. A friend? A stranger? Someone you have been trying to impress for twenty years?

The purchase may still please you. But an object can display success more reliably than it can deliver the feeling of finally being enough. That is a demanding assignment for a watch.

Jing gives the watch a difficult assignment. I would also be careful about giving yourself another one: becoming a person entirely untouched by other people's opinions. That ambition can occupy a life as thoroughly as showing off.

Imagine that nobody will ask about the object. You may use it, enjoy its texture, admire it in private, but its ownership will never enter a conversation. What pleasure remains?

If some remains, attend to that. If very little remains, you have learned something about the audience involved in the wish. Neither discovery requires a trial of your character.

You could simply let the wish sit for a while without obeying or condemning it. Not every desire must immediately become either a purchase or a moral problem.

Jang has invented an object nobody will ask about. At last, a genuine luxury product: the invisible status symbol.

Our first model is a very expensive invisible coat. Magnificent lining. Discreet buttons. Absolutely no recognition from people in restaurants. Customers are furious. One has asked whether we could at least make the price visible.

This reveals a neglected part of the transaction. Sometimes we are purchasing a small audience and receiving a coat as packaging. The audience, unfortunately, has no warranty. It may be distracted, unimpressed or wearing a more expensive audience of its own.

I would still like a beautiful coat. I am simply requesting separate invoices: one for keeping me warm, one for turning heads. The second supplier has been remarkably vague about delivery.