Dirty little secret called perfume

In my first ever job, a lady sitting next to me in the office asked about the perfume I was wearing. Proud and happy, I told her the name. It was DSquared Crystal Creek Wood. She looked it up online. "You must have a lot of money to be able to afford such expensive perfume!", she exclaimed. I felt really embarassed. Someone behind me turned around. I started making excuses, I was saving up for it for a long time, it was discounted, it was a birthday present from myself to myself. Because clearly, no one in their right mind would pay this much for a scent.

It was not the only time it happened, and while sometimes the interlocutor didn't mean anything by it, on few occasions there was an element of (harsh) judgement, suggesting vanity, being spendy, being unreasonable. Maybe it's not entirely wrong :) But I do wish they kept the thoughts to themselves.

Don't get me wrong. I feel extremely priviledged to be able to enjoy perfume. It's a wonderful and amazing hobby, it allows me to travel in time and space without moving, it helped me make amazing frienships with people from all over the world. But I know it's a very fortunate position to be, to be able to sample, to exchange with others, to get to know so many wonderful creations.

But that element of being judged did make me a lot more cautious about sharing the passion. It also made me wonder, what it is that makes people so unfavourable towards some hobbies, and not others. Do people deem all past times in the same way, or are some superior/inferior, and what makes them so? What makes spending money on one thing more socially acceptable than spending money on something else?