Skimp on feet but hang on to your furs

"Don't spend money on obvious fashion labels or any clothing item that screams 'this season'. Instead, buy diamonds. This is precisely the time to buy a $12,000 pair of earrings." Thus spake my neighbour in the front row of the Vera Wang fashion show last week when I asked how the recession would affect her spending.

"Anyway, who is convinced there is a recession?" she continued. "To be a recession, the downturn has to be longer than two quarters and we're not there yet."

Other than the part about the earrings, her words are echoed daily on Wall Street, although financiers are considerably less phlegmatic. My husband was so frantic this week he forgot to tell me he'd moved jobs. I rang the old number only to hear: "I no longer work here. If you wish to reach me, try emailing me on the following ..."

I duly emailed back, asking how he'd like to call the house and get my recorded voice stating that we'd moved out - but, no worries, we were still available on email.

Still, the calm and gloss of Fashion Week, versus the pandemonium on Wall Street, is reflective of an important truism, articulated by social psychologist Jeff Greenberg: "If a person's self-worth is invested in his/her car, wardrobe, apartment, ability to send their kids to private school, they will cut corners in relatively invisible ways that don't affect their self-worth to preserve those things."

So, in New York, don't expect to see furs, couture, or shiny limos disappearing. Instead, maybe people will cut back on pedicures - after all, who is looking at their toes in winter?

The designer Michael Kors predicted that we'd see more classic, enduring clothes on runways this season as a reflection of austerity - Jackie Kennedy shifts and Grace Kelly A-lines - but that isn't what I observed. I saw colour, optimism, risk.

Anyway, the only thing I'm considering cutting back on in the current climate is my husband, which would, arguably, be very cost-effective. This week I've been woken at 5am, 5.30am - and last night, the final straw, at 3am, because he had a "conference call".

If he has one more pre-dawn work call, I've told him it will be divorce-lawyer time. Recession, down-turn, blip, whatever you call it, a woman cannot hope to make her own money (essential, after all, to invest in that $12,000 pair of earrings) without her beauty sleep.