Give Me Shopping or Give Me Death!

* Play by the new rules. On sites such as TheBudgetFashionista.com there are all sorts of tips for outsmarting the meltdown. One really good one is to observe the 70/30 “golden ratio” rule when taking stock of one’s own closet: 70 percent of what’s in there should be basic evergreen stuff that never goes out of style—white shirts, jeans, comfortable chinos, etc.—while a maximum of 30 percent should be stuff that qualifies as oh-so trend-right or neo-funky. Adhering to the golden ratio means you’ll keep your worst impulsive purchasing in check. Another new rule: The hard-pressed consumer can save on dry-cleaning bills by spritzing fabric freshener on doggy-smelling outerwear, even underwear I suppose, though the blogs don’t go there.

* Knowledge is purchasing power. Customers by the boxcar are logging on to numerous shopping sites that offer the inside skinny on manufacturer sourcing, intel that points to how there’s not infrequently but a gossamer thread of difference between a product that sports a super-premium luxury label and one that costs 10 times less at your nearby dead or dying mall. Last week, for example, the Budget Fashionistas posted an item (ostensibly from “a secret source”) that reported how J. Crew was selling cashmere sweaters ($98) made at the same plant (in Quarona, Italy) that turns out Loro Piana cashmere sweaters ($1,000).

* Goodwill hunting is on the rise. While Peggy Noonan’s semi-dystopian vision of the future projects a world in which Goodwill stores will have taken over retail spaces formerly occupied by Neiman Marcus, it ignores the fact that today’s Goodwill is no longer your grandmother’s shopping destination of last resort. Indeed, the global nonprofit now hosts an auction site [link: www.shopgoodwill.com] where unrepentant shoppers can bid on items initially priced at lower than a cup of coffee at Starbucks. The site is also chock-a-block with designer items—Gucci bags, Ray-Ban shades, Prada men’s and women’s shoes—not to mention items begging to be bought if only to remove them from civil society, such as the eight-inch-tall, iron-cast “mammy” bank I just stumbled across. In other words, even at this wretched moment in time inveterate shoppers down on their luck can find plenty of affordable and only slightly worn buys to stave off the insidious creep of bland affluence.

* Finally, lest we forget, shopping does not mean buying. A site called fashion-era.com takes pains to remind us that it’s the pleasure of the hunt that lifts the spirit of the red-white-and-blue-blooded shopper, not whether she actually bags something. Online shopping is an ideal way to stalk without pulling the trigger—that is, you load up your cart with whatever tickles your fancy, then don’t check out, simply save the cart overnight. Come morning, most of us won’t remember what was in it anyway.

As for Peggy Noonan, she may have once invoked a kinder, gentler nation, bathed in the promise of a thousand points of light, but at this perilous moment she overlooks a trait that’s fundamentally embedded in the American character: Where there’s a will to shop, goddammit, there’s a way.

Plus: Check out Fashion Beast, for more news on the latest runway shows, hot designers, and emerging trends .

Lee Eisenberg, who wrote the bestselling The Number: A Completely Different Way to Think About the Rest of Your Life, is the author of a new book about consumer behavior to be published this fall: Shoptimism: A Journey Through the Brave Heart and Restless Mind of the American Consumer. He is blogging on the subject at ShoptimismBook.com.