Noun
buying expensive services and products in order to flaunt your wealth
Source: WordNetConspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. Thorstein Veblen
For forty years or so this was the world headquarters of conspicuous consumption. Bill Bryson
the conspicuous consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spiritual error, or even bad manners. Barbara Kingsolver
Owning your own racing ship wasn't even wealth. It was like speciation. It was conspicuous consumption befitting ancient Earth royalty, a pharaoh's pyramid with a reaction drive. Daniel Abraham
The basis on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength; and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a conspicuous consumption of goods. Thorstein Veblen
I never strike out at any life form. The only things I attack are icons of conspicuous consumption. People put objects in front of their life, in front of anything that has real importance. They make this 'thing' their God. Wendy O. Williams