Trophy Wife Hierarchy

I bet you didn’t know that there are different tiers of the trophy hierarchy! I believe the best way to explain the segregation between these different tiers is through the use of the designer handbag analogy – you can always tell which tier the TW fits in through the handbag she carries.

The Knock-off Trophy Wife

Listen, we’ve all been there; as a young girl (and an Asian), I started to get into fashion at an early stage in my life – I believe it was around my early teenage years.  As you may have read in my previous post Fat-Phobia, I started off my high school career at a girls’ only private school. Already in grade 7, those stuck-up wealthy bitches were carrying their books around in Gucci and Louis Vuitton totes, while I was still slumming it in my regulation navy blue school bag. As a fat girl, I knew the universal fat girl rule: You might not be able to look great in the latest fashions, but you will never be too fat for shoes or handbags (obvi, comment excludes heffas with kankles – only god or plastic surgery can help them.) Unfortunately, at this time I was still blowing my allowance on junk food, and did not possess the thousands of dollars to purchase said designer bags.  On the other hand, I was Taiwanese, and traveled back to the homeland many times each year – it was during one of these trips that I learnt about the excellent quality of Chinese knock-off handbags, which you were able to pick up from some random dude selling them at a busy intersection for about one tenth of the price of a real Vuitton. Coupled with my crazy Chinese mother’s outstanding bargaining skills, I returned back to Sydney with an armful of fake Guccis, Vuittons and even my dream bag at the time, the pink Dior Saddlebag. In fact, as I rummage through my wardrobe right now – I actually still HAVE the fake Gucci! See below!

As embarrassed as I was to think back at those memories, I was 13 for god’s sake; it’s 100 times worse when you’re  a woman in your late 20s or early 30’s and still carrying a faux Gucci. Well, much like Chinese knock-off handbags, you will also get the knock-off trophy wife.  You know the ones I’m talking about – they’re the ones with just a little too much make-up on, wearing their rhinestone studded J’adore Dior t-shirts (made from a t-shirt from Target, rhinestone courtesy of a bedazzler and glue-gun). You can sense them a mile away, purely from the wafting scent of their ‘Every Bit As Good as Obsession’ fragrance purchased from Walmart, talking loudly on their bejeweled cell phones about how their husband is in the finance industry – yeah, he’s a security guard at the Bank of America branch.

The Beginner Trophy Wife

The beginner Trophy Wife is all about new money – once again, I can relate from personal experience.  While my family never struggled growing up, we also didn’t have a yacht with a jet ski on it (seriously, there was a girl in my class that had one. I was seriously like WTF? Who ARE these people?) We started living a little more comfortably after my father went into the private banking business, and the possibility of owning such luxuries as real Guccis and Pradas became a reality. I always refer to Gucci and Prada as the ‘coming out’ handbags, because they’re always so ostentatious with their heavily logoed prints and that random little ‘Prada’ badge on the black polyester fabrics.

Well –new money is ALL about logos and so is the beginner trophy wife. She is the one who wants to yell out to the world “My Husband is FINALLY making money, and I want everyone to know!” You can spot them through their tacky displacement of loud designer clothing (seriously, no one can wear Missoni AND Pucci together?!) while carrying that horrible Vuitton graffiti bag, or even worse the LV multicolored monogram.

Yes – I did ask my mother to buy me the multicolored monogram. Thank god my mother has better taste than me.

Mainstream Trophy Wife

I call the Mainstream Trophy Wife the Louis Vuitton Monogram print of trophy wives.  They’re uninteresting, safe and overall blah.  They’re the missionary position of Trophy Wives, and their husband is probably having an affair with a knock-off Trophy Wife (forgot to mention, knock-off Trophy Wives are ambitious bitches.)

Of course I have also been through this stage – during this time, I had seven LV monogram bags. And yes, my boyfriend was having an affair with the skank that lived in the apartment across the street.  If you find yourself in this tier, take my advice – sell a couple of your LV’s and use that money to get a boob job and some lipo. You can then watch your man come running back, or trade up to a richer financier.

The Elite Trophy Wife

You can tell an Elite Trophy Wife by her Chanel bag collection. Chanel has always been synonymous with classic, timeless beauty much like the Elite Trophy Wife, and it might be said that Coco Chanel herself may been the ultimate Trophy Wife. She was born in an orphanage where she was taught to be a seamstress. Unable to afford the expensive corseted fashions of her days, she started developing her own style and made her own garments. Coco ruthlessly climbed the social ladder and soon began an affair with an international playboy who backed her business expansion.  Hello? Trophy Wife much?

She is the woman I aspire to be; after all, it was Mademoiselle Chanel who came up with the few phrases I live by:
[list type="1"]

[/list]

And most importantly:
[list type="1"]

[/list]

There is no singular defining element to the Elite Trophy Wife – she continues to reinvent herself over and over again, much like how Chanel caters to the woman who prides herself on being indefinable. Ultimately, perhaps the true definition of the Elite Trophy wife is beauty, class and grace mixed with an indomitable spirit of a life well lived.

The Untouchable Trophy Wife

The untouchable Trophy Wife does everything the Elite Trophy Wife does – with a Hermes Birkin.

I don’t know which Trophy Wife you define with, but the good news is that you can always better yourself and move up a tier. Unless you’re an Untouchable. Then I hate you, and please pass on to me your Hermes contact, so I can finally get my dream bag below…