Just what would that be? It actually says more about how picky I am, about my living environment and the things I use. It may be more labor-intensive for me to mend clothes, for instance, but it is far more convenient (not to mention cheaper) to do that than to find a tailor, drop the things off and get fitted during business hours, pick them up during business hours, etc. As for new clothes, I don't like most available styles, so when I have something I do like, I make it last. My motivations are quality, customization, convenience, and sometimes cost. If someone wants to make status hay out of that, they are entitled to their perspective, but the extra layer is entirely of their own making.
It says you aren't poor and probably not super-close to being poor. Like, first off, you can afford to be picky about your living environment. If you had been evicted from your last place because you couldn't pay the rent, you'd have to take what you could get. Also, if you were poor, your clothes probably wouldn't be worth repairing and it's unlikely it would occur to you to hire a tailor. You would probably go to the Free Store at Catholic Charities and paw through what they had and wear what you found even if you didn't like it a lot and it didn't fit terribly well. Cost is really the only concern and not real cost, but short term cost, because it doesn't matter if something is a better deal if you just don't have the money.
It's like two different families that I know.
One family was in the local paper last year for not using their air conditioner. They both have PhDs, she works at a women's college and he is a stay at home dad. They have two elementary school-aged kids. They're sacrificing their comfort for the sake of the environment.
The other family is a single mom, her four kids, her mom, her disabled brother, her ex-bf, and a twenty-something guy she knows that needed a place to stay. The house they rent doesn't have central air. If she can't afford to buy some window units before it gets to be 90F with high humidity, people aren't going to think she's being eco-friendly or making a lifestyle choice. She isn't going to be in the paper, but she might find herself talking to some social workers about neglect/dependency.
Both sets of kids are going to be baking their asses off. But the kids of the PhDs aren't going to face the possibility of going into the foster system. That is because of their parents' status: they can afford to do shit like that. People might think they're nuts, but they still get to be considered good parents.
Or, like if there are two different people riding bicycles. One is wearing spandex and a helmet and the other one is wearing black pants, black tenis shoes, and a solid-colored polo. The first one is probably making a lifestyle choice. The second one doesn't have a car to drive back and forth to their minimum wage job.
And, there is this friend of my daughter's. Her mother is a prof at a very good engineering undergrad school. The girl is thin and pretty and I know her family is well-off. She came over to my house the other day with really strong body odor. At first, I thought "That can't be A____!" But soon, it was obvious that it was. I didn't think that she was dirty or that her family had run out of soap. I thought, "It's probably one of those hippy things. She doesn't want chemicals on her body." Just like I don't think she's going meat-free because the only food she has in the house is ramen. If she was poor, she wouldn't really have people thinking smelling nasty was a lifestyle choice. They'd think she was dirty.
That's, I think, what Victor means about status.