pretentiousness everywhere

I've just read this ludicrous article in which a company which I view as merely purveyors of bland mediocrity to those with more money than sense, Ralph Lauren, have decided to sue the management agency which owns the building in which their glasgow shop is housed on the grounds that the agency has allowed a hairdressing salon to open up there. Apparently, this hairdressing salon is simply not the sort of business they want to have in the block with them.
This begs the question, if they are that high-class, why did they open a shop in violent, drunken ned-ridden glasgow?
Given the locale, they are lucky that it wasn't a Greggs, Poundland or a charity shop which opened up next to them.

On a similar tip, I was verbally abused today by a blonde fake-tanned scumbag behind the wheel - I hesitate to say "driving" - of a crappy little bottom-of-the-range Porsche (she was probably wearing Ralph Lauren, but I didn't look too hard).
What caused her to lean out of the car and scream like a harpy? To swear like a sailor? What provoked this outpouring of crude opprobrium?
It seems that she believes that the green boxes at traffic lights with a big white bike painted in them are not, in fact, to be used by bikes. It also seems that I don't pay any taxes and have no right to be on the road. Furthermore, if she ever sees me again, I had "better watch out", which strikes me as a direct threat and thus actionable... Perhaps her very memorable private plates weren't such a good idea after all?

Both of these incidents strike me as examples of the utterly vacuous pretentiousness into which Britain has sunk. Apart from the price, what is the difference between Ralph Lauren and Primark? Both are "labels", both are multiple retaillers, both are selling mass-market clothes. And at what point did behaviour which can only be described as "common" become the norm for people who drive a Porsche?
It all boils down to the same thing: belief in money without any moral dimension.