Where did you get that dress?

I grew up in a small American town on the shores of Lake Michigan, an affluent resort community for the past 150 years. That's how barely 5,000 year-round residents got a Saks and shops that sold Paris-made hats and Scottish cashmere.

My mother waited for sales at "the summer shops" but occasionally bought at full price because my father did not want us labeled as 'sale people'. My parents were native Chicagoans, and would make the long drive back once each year to visit family, shop, and live it up.

I awaited their return, which, wardrobe-wise, was better than Christmas. They'd return hauling garment bags that held a tweed suit, silk party dresses, a peignoir, and four pairs of shoes. Exuberantly flowered hats in their boxes. And always things for me: a dress with a velvet bolero or a pair of leather pants, daring and sophisticated for our town. ("Don't look like a plow-jockey" was one of Mom's fashion credos.)

These sprees were necessary, she thought, because "you don't want to see yourself coming and going". While she saw the necessity of patronizing local businesses, she really preferred something from Marshall Field's.

In the etiquette of the small town, you did not ask where a dress was from. If you hadn't seen it on the rack at one of the stores, it was "from away", and took on much higher status for that. Sometimes a friend would show up wearing the dress you had agonized over and put back. That was hard.

Apparently the Obama inaugural ball included a registry so you could check whether another guest was planning to wear the same dress. If I were to attend a formal function, I hope I'd enjoy seeing two of us in the same gown, but ever since those "Who Wore It Better?" features, I'm not so certain.

My sons' girl friends dress identically, in jeans, hoodies and tees, whose provenance (Hollister, Abercrombie, Gap) is known by all. Only a few (usually art students) sift through Goodwill bins for the '70s high-waisted pants no one else has.

Do you care about exclusivity?

In one office, five of us bought the same Gap techno pant, because we all loved Lisa's pair. But in another office a co-worker misattributed the maker of an admired sweater so no one could buy the same style. I've also seen some women become deliberately vague about the source ("Somewhere on Bloor Street") or say they "don't remember".

Barbara Amiel, now Baronness Black, told a story about "where the dress came from." In her student days was poor. She found a two-piece Chanel silk dress in a resale store and scraped to buy it. A beau brought her to his impressive home for dinner, and his mother said, "I know that dress", then reached out to deftly turn the sash to show a small burn hole Amiel was hiding by a careful tie.

When I read her anecdote, I felt her embarrassment. Lady Black has been criticized for her extravagance. I wonder if that early incident was formative.