Has our nation really stopped using retail as therapy? Er, no, but the nature of that therapy has transformed dramatically. Even the more excitable fashion and celebrity magazines have replaced their “Get It Before It Goes” slots with more sober suggestions, along the lines of “This is Quite Nice, Wanna Have a Think About It?”.

Net-a-porter, famous for its luxurious packaging, is offering a discreet brown paper service. As a colleague remarked sotto voce at the British Fashion Awards this week (where such utterances are generally deemed as sensitive as yelling “Fire!” in Pudding Lane): “It's not cool to be seen spending money any more.”

What a wondrous word cool is, evocative of all that is ephemeral, quixotic, eternally elusive. Six weeks ago it was still, just about, cool to hop to New York for a weekend of shopping, plan your wedding in Tasmania, blow far more than you could afford on an It accessory. Now you could sauté your left kidney in an attempt to produce a nutritious meal for 4p and instead of being committed to an institution, Channel 4 will probably sign you up for a cook-along. What happened? OK, some mighty banks have been crashing, economies have been crumbling and Gordon has been smiling. It's horrid. It may get worse. But for the moment, petrol is cheaper, interest rates are down, the cost of consumer durables is sinking. So how come we suddenly find them utterly resistible?

The psychology of shopping is a riddle wrapped in a carrier bag. When I asked my friend the lawyer (also married to a lawyer - was there ever a more recession-proof unit?) why she had been to Morrisons, she outlined in joyous detail all the savings to be made on branded goods. This would have made excellent economic sense had she ever bought branded goods in the first place, instead of Waitrose's own, and not had to spend two hours going there and back instead of doing it on the internet.

Experts talk of a hunkering-down effect (buying for the home, buying nice food). They speak of the high-low factor which safeguards luxury and dirt-cheap brands, but places an almighty squeeze on the middle market. So far, however, this recession is defying the laws that governed previous recessions - the beauty market, traditionally a beneficiary of recessions, is soft. Three Fridays ago not one customer even entered the Madison Avenue outlet of one well-known Italian luxury fashion label. So much for high end: the wise men who run Bergdorf Goodman, Saks and Bloomingdale's in the US agree that they have never seen a recession quite like this.

A buyer for a very upmarket London department store tells me vintage will make a comeback and that some small labels are ready to throw in the towel. As for low end ... Woolworths anyone?

Meanwhile, Next is performing better than it expected; what's selling is not the cheap (by Next standards) £20 blouse, but the £65 one. The 43 acres of the Westfield shopping centre in West London has been crammed, at least at weekends. That looks like middle market to me.

Customers want an investment. They want purchases to make them feel sensible and virtuous, whereas a year ago they wanted to feel bold, devil-may-care, spontaneous. The search for validation through ownership of the right kind of product continues. Yet if you're British, born some time between the 1930s and 1970s, either directly, or via you parents, you experienced the frugalities of war. I grew up not wasting, not wanting and firmly believing that Britain's finest hour had been inextricably connected with Spam.

Arguably, belt-tightening is this island's most comfortable setting and the spendthrift mood of the past decade but a blip.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Shrinking violet Gordon turns into raging bull
• Eddie Izzard: 'I keep thinking if I do all these things she'll come back'
• Is sex for the disabled the last taboo?