For years she hid the credit card bills from her husband: The $2,500 embroidered coat from Neiman Marcus. The $900 beaded scarf from Blake in Chicago. A $600 pair of Dries van Noten boots. All beautiful items, and all perfectly affordable if she had been a hedge fund manager or a Google executive.<\/p>\n
Friends at first dropped hints to go easy or rechannel her creative instincts. Her mother grew concerned enough to ask pointed questions. But sales clerks kept calling with early tips on the coming season\u2019s fashions, and the seasons kept changing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt got so bad I would sit up suddenly at night and wonder if I was going to slip up and this whole thing would explode,\u201d\u009d said the secretive shopper, Katharine Farrington, 46, a freelance film writer living in Washington, who is now free of debt. \u201cI don\u2019t know how I could have been in denial about it for so long. I guess I was optimistic I could pay, and that I wasn\u2019t hurting anyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, of course that wasn\u2019t true.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n