Whether it’s buildings, books, clothes or shoes, the Maltese are obsessed with the new in a way I haven’t seen outside of Dubai or post-war Beirut. Indeed, so hell bent are many islanders with not appearing to be anything but freshly minted that, a few months ago, someone actually approached me and remarked that I must really like the dress that I was wearing because she had seen me in it at least twice.
Of course, while many of you might think that this was just a sign of ill breeding, the truth is that it is symptomatic of a far deeper national affliction. Indeed, a close friend of mine who’s not particularly known for being fussy with what she wears once spent two or three months trying to find three different dresses for three separate weddings because she couldn’t stop agonising over what people might think if she wore the same one more than once.
Ironically, our tradition and ‘libsa tal-festa’ culture don’t help at all with this one.
I believe that the key to this conundrum is firmly rooted in our past, where disposable income and resources were hard to come by. Faced with financial comfort, access to a wide open market and relative luxury in the 90s, the Maltese seem to view the ‘new’ as an antidote to their often deprived, dreary past.
We care little about whether the item has intrinsic value or beauty because its age negates all other attributes
Of course this is not a strictly Maltese phenomenon: many an over-coiffed woman in Middle Eastern and eastern European developing countries is equally obsessed with appearance over substance and the new over the old. It is interesting to note that, while the upper classes never gave two hoots about how muddy their boots were because, well, everyone knew that they could afford 20 pairs of them, the poorer strata of society always felt compelled to make much more of an effort to show that they were doing well and the easiest way to do that was through their clothing.
As I always say, no one who has ever been truly poor makes an effort to look poorer than he is. The problem is that, while in many other countries, the standard of taste and acceptable behaviour remains set by those who have been comfortable for far longer than the majority, Malta seems to possess no such equivalent tribal leaders.
Our embracing of consumerism, status symbol purchases and assertion of nouveau buying power has allowed the Maltese to go out of their way to destroy anything old in the name of progress, simply because we give it no value by virtue of its age: we care little about whether the item has intrinsic value or beauty because its age negates all other attributes.
Indeed, nothing made this fact more apparent than when I visited a local perfumery a few weeks ago enquiring after a classic perfume and being told that they don’t stock it anymore because clients are never interested in buying anything that’s been around for more than 10 years. It clearly didn’t matter to the salesgirl that some older perfumes tend to smell less artificial and manufactured or that the quality of more seasoned perfumes is arguably better. The bottom line was the same: the Maltese market was only interested in the new.
Although this is just a small example, I firmly believe that it is this attitude which has people knowingly knocking down (or objectively rebuilding) beautiful old townhouses with architectural and cultural value in favour of hastily designed anonymous concrete boxes you wouldn’t let your least favourite chicken reside in.
Ultimately, these things can only be improved by educating ourselves to look beyond the obvious, shiny surface and to take into consideration quality rather than quantity: if you think education is expensive, try ignorance.