Nobody likes a whore.

A label whore that is.

Urbandictionary.com defines a label whore as “someone who only wears brand name clothes, with the name of the brand usually placed somewhere for all to see. A walking advertisement for a clothing store or brand.”

As in: “Look at that girl carrying a Louis Vuitton bag and wearing Seven jeans and an Abercrombie shirt. What a label whore.”

Contrary to popular belief, wearing brand labels does not necessarily mean you are stylish. Style is about reflecting your own personality on to what you wear. We’ve all fallen victim to the allure of the label at some point. I ran into my own label dilemma this year when I was shopping for coats before coming back to school.

I was having trouble finding a jacket I really loved. Granted, the selection of winter coats in August is limited but I needed a new coat before I returned to Northwestern. Apparently it snows here in October.

In the end it came down to two coats. One was by a well known label, the other by a label generally not found in the pages of Vogue (or even US Weekly). The designer coat was very nice, stylish, and looked good. The other coat was also nice, stylish, and looked even better. I was perplexed. I thought designer wear was always supposed to be better?

The moral of the story? I was being a label snob, which was a bad thing. Realizing this, I put the designer coat back on the rack.

The October issue of Vogue ran an article on the virtues of the “Anonymous Coat.” The piece referred to an item that is still stylish but not necessarily by a well-known designer label. What’s the fun in having something cool if loads of other people have the same trendy item?

The concept of the “Anonymous Coat” should be applied to all areas of wardrobe. I’d rather see someone carrying her grandmother’s hand-me-down purse from the 1950s than a Louis Vuitton (fake or real) with a hundred “LV” logos printed all over it.

Avoid being a label whore at all costs. It’s great if you have the funds to buy expensive clothing. But if you wear something that screams “designer,” pair it with something that looks unique. Don’t buy things solely because of their label. Buy it because you genuinely like it.