How even the super-rich are scrimping in the winter of discontent

At first, I would have thought it was a fashion show (given the extravagance on display) but for the expression on the women's faces. Known in psychological circles as 'anticipatory regret', this is the look of someone sensing that they might be missing out on a deal, because someone else has got there first. The setting was Chelsea Town Hall, the event the Soho Home clearance sale. I suspected everyone in that queue of actually being able - like me - to afford the full retail price. But these are different times.

The latest sport in smart circles is 'competitive thrift'. As inflation soars, global investments nosedive, and the war in Ukraine continues, cutting back has become the 'in' thing to do - even for those who never need to look at their bank balances.

We recently spent a weekend in the country with a hedge-fund couple. The house was big, the garden billowy - suggesting the planting of someone like Tom Stuart-Smith. There was recognisable art. But what did they choose to draw our attention to? The curtains. 'We just bought these at a fire sale in Mayfair,' they said, showing us swaths and swaths of window dressing. 'We found a seamstress and she re-adjusted them.' The specimens were made of silk and garishly tasselled, but who cares? What mattered, quite obviously, was the money they'd saved.

On another occasion recently, I visited a friend in her Chelsea home, newly finished by a world-famous interior designer; it was the Ikea rolling cabinets and flea-market finds (repainted and reworked) that she pointed out. My friend went to great lengths to explain what she had sourced from where - how that oversized light above the countertop was actually from an old operating theatre - suggesting that all the hugely in-demand designer had done was toss a few cushions about (the designer begs to differ).

Tap on the shop button of the most popular Instagram design accounts and you will find a section called 'pre-loved' or vintage, all invariably sold out. It doesn't really matter to the shopper that the flea-market finds have been restored and lacquered and now cost more than they would new; what matters is that they can crow that it was 'sourced' (without saying by whom). 'I go to great lengths to find a secrétaire for €100 at auction then send it to be restored,' says interior designer turned shopkeeper Honor Riley. 'Clients absolutely love it. I use inherited pieces and Ikea finds. If you can mix, you look so much more involved than your friends.'

Riley's new venture in Stow-on-the-Wold, with fellow interior designer Nia Morris, is aptly called Unpolished. The 'rough luxe' aesthetic appeals to consumers shunning the opulence of old. 'We had a recognisable HNW person buy a bunch of vessels by Kate Semple,' she says. 'Never in a million years did we think she would go for something that looks so handmade, but I think this is the mood. People want things that are gentle, that support the local economy, that are made by artists.' Such objects find their way into interiors similar to the hotel Heckfield Place in Hampshire, with clay walls, Bauwerk lime wash, wrinkled linen and creaky oak floors. Redesigned (it was all shiny before) by Ben Thompson, formerly of Studioilse, it's the modern rendition of Belgian decorator Axel Vervoordt, who strips everything back to its bare bones (removing most of the client's furniture along the way).

It's a far cry from the gold wallpaper and rattan furnishings of Downing Street yesteryear. 'No one wants to be seen to be spending,' says Riley. 'It feels out of touch and profligate.' The appeal of the rugged farmhouse look is that no one knows if you spent £10 or £10,000.

Internet influence

Designers themselves often live in beautiful homes, usually bought as wrecks and done up on a shoestring. As they can never post pictures of their paid commissions (the rich do not like others drooling over their kitchens online), designers use their own homes as a shop window: clients now demand that. Platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest are partly to blame for the competitive streak because they are essentially lessons on how to spend less.

Philip Hooper, the managing director of Colefax & Fowler, literally guides his clients (I am one of them) through the labyrinths of warehouse sales and Shepherd's Bush carpet sellers. 'I use eBay to find curtains and fabrics at home. I also reuse various trimming details and reapply them to plain fabrics to make new curtains in bedrooms,' he says. 'Many antiques dealers sell vintage curtains now, and there is clearly a keen market as they sell out straight away. On one client's project we salvaged various items of embroidery and reused them in a new house.'

Reclamation firms such as west London favourite Retrouvius are finding a brand-new clientele. Industrial shelving formerly used by Oxford University is proving popular. 'The whole salvage story is fascinating,' says Hooper. 'We are being asked to find second-hand counter­tops, odd bits of timber and details to include in projects. There is a big kick-back against lighting being over designed with too many downlights. We are currently using vintage pendant and wall lights and not the usual tricks that we used to see.'

Spending less on fashion has long been a trend but here, too, that imperative is urgently felt. Last summer I donned my first ever Zara shirt, in hottest pink. The instant response from friends who have never shopped at Zara either - 'I must get one too' - practically created an internet outage. Why? Because saving money makes you happier. A study conducted by Claremont Graduate University found that when you offer people the opportunity to save money, they experience a greater boost in oxytocin levels than they do when they receive a gift.

Discovering a cheaper alternative to everyday staples such as food is a head rush, even if it's only temporary. 'When we hosted a party we went to Aldi to get the Champagne,' says a friend who never usually shops for food herself. 'It was delicious and it put us all in a good mood just knowing that.' Aldi and Lidl have become the mainstay of the wealthy thrifters, so worthy of mockery that TikTok videos now satirise them.

They go slumming to the budget supermarkets with friends as a sort of cultural outing. Clive Black, a retail analyst at City broker Shore Capital, calls the big swing to shops such as Tesco, Aldi and Lidl an 'unnatural' trade: 'They are gaining footfall that in more normal times I don't think they would get,' he says. A Lidl insider tells me that its dark chocolate with caramel pieces is an HNW bestseller.

It seems only yesterday that Waitrose worshippers were being mocked by Michael McIntyre. Now the boast is which stall at which farmers' market sells the cheapest British cheese. 'I always get discounts at Lidgate,' says a culinary friend, of the Holland Park stalwart, 'because I have a word with the butcher'.

Competitive thrift is insider, and that's the key to its appeal. After all, successful people enjoy winning, even if that's just saving a few quid on bubbly and chocs. Not a week goes by when I don't get invited to a sample sale. The Outnet pollutes my phone with clearance sales daily; even if you shop at Bicester Village, you only go with the additional discount coupons that are bestowed upon the initiated.

Fashion is where the thriftiest of competitors excel. Zoe Suen, a fashion writer and brand consultant, says the mood has shifted from the priceless, unfun, dry-clean-only minimalism of The Row and Celine to grungy looks of the '90s with messy eye make-up to boot. (Balenciaga's romp through dystopian mud at its Paris show in October gave us all an inkling of what is to come.)

The fact that celebrities are wearing vintage on the red carpet means that no one knows for sure whether you have a stylist or happen to know where to shop at Portobello Market. 'What the vintage trend really says is, "I put a lot of effort into finding things,"' says Suen. 'It's also cool to be thrifty.'

Selective thrift

Anda Rowland, who owns Savile Row men's tailor Anderson & Sheppard, says a crop of younger clients are coming in with vintage finds or parental cast-offs they want repurposed. 'People like that what we do is not fashion,' she says. 'They know where their money is going. They know the tailors by name.'

People who can afford very expensive things feel embarrassed to say so, she says: 'It's in very bad taste to brag.' The best humblebrag is to say, 'This old suit? It belonged to my father.'

Of course there are things that even a recession won't change: ladies may forgo Botox injections, but never their Augustinus Bader face-cream habit. They will, however, tell friends how much they love La Roche-Posay (the cheaper beauty brand that is a TikTok favourite). It goes without saying that the wealthy will sell off one of their four houses long before they give up private schools, private GPs and, most of all, expensive lawyers and tax advisors.

Thrift - whether necessary or not - also reminds us of our parents and grandparents, who actually lived through war. It's not a coincidence that the latest cookbook being passed around my book club recently was not by Yotam Ottolenghi but by the late American food writer MFK Fisher. How To Cook a Wolf, which was first published in 1942, includes a chapter called 'How To Stay Alive'. It offers top tips on how to use every minute of oven heat (the warming-up and cooling-off bits too) and how to cook 'sludge' (a soup whose ingredients include 'one floppy carrot') to last you a week. A 'blackout shelf' full of provisions seems eerily relevant (even though a tin of anchovies from Portugal costs £30 these days). When we 'nourish ourselves with all possible skill, delicacy and ever-increasing enjoyment', she writes, it is a way to 'assert and then reassert our dignity in the face of poverty and war's fears and pains'.

A lot of the thrift discussion is about what we don't do. Ladies who lunched now meet for coffee; ladies who shopped now repair what they already own at places such as The Restory, or else watch a YouTube how-to video and spend the evening darning a rug. Joanna Bacon, managing partner at the architectural firm Allies and Morrison, disguises her cashmere sweaters' moth holes with furry pompoms.

I may be the last woman standing who still visits a famous hairstylist - Fred Gielly - but he is also a trained nutritionist - and therefore a great two-for-one deal. What I didn't realise until recently is that my wealthiest friends, who go to expensive colourists such as Josh Wood, only ever see the trainees (for a relative pittance).

The thriftiest blondes of all don't even leave the house. Picture a group of seven women, many of them titled heiresses, sitting around a large kitchen table. Moving between them is an energetic Frenchwoman, bleach in one hand, dryer in the other. As they sip home-brewed non-Nespresso (the original being famously un eco, expensive and not very good), she performs highlight magic.

'I enjoy it because it is a good way to catch up with friends for a few hours,' says one client. 'Best of all it costs £100 per head.' (In a salon it would be four times that). When I delved further, I discovered that only two out of 10 women I consulted visit salons: the others have the salons visit them. Nothing makes you feel more punk than knowing how to look well groomed for very little.

Most obvious is the way the super rich now travel. Gone are the five-star poolside snaps (only travel writers post on social media). Instead guest rooms are back in fashion. We redid ours recently in the full knowledge that many of our friends have sold their London homes only to find themselves outpriced in the capital (everyone wants a sunny lateral two-bedroom flat near a park these days). They still come to London, but rather than stay in an overpriced hotel, they take me up on my Friend B&B offer: you're welcome to stay, but a small contribution towards the cleaner and the heating is appreciated. 'It's warm, it's generous, it's in the spirit,' says Riley. 'Sharing is how we get through dark times.'