They're Different from You and Me

I thought I was fairly knowledgable about communication--both verbal and non-verbal--but a segment of the population does not speak a language with which I'm familiar.

How the Super-Rich Signal Their Wealth to Each Other [bold added]

‘The Asprey,’ a Patek Philippe perpetual calendar
chronograph, pictured before it sold at Sotheby’s
for $3.88 million in 2018. (WSJ/Balibouse photo)

gauche display is out. A subtler set of cues and signifiers is required.

The most straightforward symbols start with watches. One Wall Street macher explained, “You see a gold Rolex Daytona, that’s one thing. You see a Patek Perpetual and you say to yourself, OK, this guy’s playing a different game.”

...Pretending to play down your wealth while emblazoning your net worth in neon requires a lightness of touch. You can’t say it outright, but you want it crystal clear.

It’s extra tricky in Manhattan, where you can’t employ the usual clues of estates and automobiles. Here, people live in apartments many stories up from the sidewalk and out of view. They tend to interact at restaurants and galas, and they never drive.

So everything depends on attitude. You must act like big things in life are, well, no biggie. When you can wrangle people to your abode, serve a tub of Ossetra caviar with Lay’s potato chips. Place it out like guacamole on the coffee table.

Verbal cues confer insider status. High-rollers in the art world now refer to the most rarefied paintings as “pictures.” Thus, for a would-be bidder, a $40-million Abstract Expressionist canvas by Rothko is not a “masterpiece painting” but a “picture.” For most people, a picture is what your 4-year-old paints with a thick brush and primary colors for Mother’s Day.

...Of course, how you travel is essential. As a former Wall Street bank chairman told me, “OK, so you went to St. Barts. So what? That tells me nothing. How’d you get there? That is key.”

To telegraph that you flew private over commercial, those fluent in the language of wealth-speak have created new verbs. People say, “We NetJetted into Aspen. We just had to.” Pause. “Because of the dogs.” Transporting “the dogs” is somehow a constant justification for private travel.

Owning your own jet is a huge notch up on the totem pole. The effort to be blasé about your new Gulfstream G650 can be positively tortured. To signal that your NetJetting days are over, you might drop into conversation with a sigh, “We’ve got to find a new pilot.” This should be said in the same tone as a wearied parent complaining about needing a new babysitter.

Most of the top tenth of 1 percent worked hard to get to where they are. However, they can't clip coupons and relax. They must continue to work hard to signal where they are, discreetly, on the totem pole.