Quality parties: The marks of men's marginal class positions are written on their bodies, flagging an automatic reject at the door; intuitive calculations to get in include "How many beautiful girls can I get to offset how I look?"

Very Important People - Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit. Ashley Mears. Princeton University Press, May 2020. https://www.amazon.com/Very-Important-People-Status-Circuit-ebook/dp/B0824B49LS/

Comments by Tyler Cowen, Mar 2020. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2020/03/very-important-people.html:

Excerpts about "the Miami club where renting an ordinary table for the night costs 2k, with some spending up to 250k":

Any club, whether in a New York City basement or on a Saint-Tropez beach, is always shaped by a clear hierarchy. Fashion models signal the "A-list," but girls are only half of the business model. There are a few different categories of men that every club owner wants inside, and there is a much larger category of men they aim to keep out.

Bridge and tunnel, goons, and ghetto. These are men whose money can't compensate for their perceived status inadequacies. The marks of their marginal class positions are written on their bodies, flagging an automatic reject at the door.

A clever man can try to use models as leverage to gain entry and discounts at clubs. A man surrounded by models will not have to spend as much on bottles. I interviewed clients who talked explicitly about girls as bargaining chips they could use at the door.

The older, uglier men may have to pay 2k to rent a table for the evening, whereas "decent-looking guys with three or four models" will be let in for free with no required minimum. And:

Men familiar with the scene make these calculations even if they have money to spend: How many beautiful girls can I get to offset how I look? How many beautiful girls will it take to offset the men with me? How much money am I willing to spend for the night in the absence of quality girls?

Girls determine hierarchies of clubs, the quality of people inside, and how much money is spent.

I revisit a second critical insight of Veblen's on the role of women in communicating men's status.  In this world, girls function as a form of capital. Their beauty generates enormous symbolic and economic resources for the men in their presence, but that capital is worth far more to men than to the girls who embody it.