Both of you would probably admit that you judge people by how they dress. Also, you would think of an iPad-owning person as richer than someone who does their work on an older laptop.

This is because by owning stuff, people signal their environment, and most want to signal that they are near the top and not the bottom of whatever hierarchy they deem most important. Buying an expensive but impractical luxury car does just that. People imitating signals used by those on top of your hierarchy is also a sign of that, think of the age old leopard pattern, labeling everything "VIP", etc. In areas where not money but criminal activity is prized, gang or prison signals are imitated instead.

All this behavior falls under Signalling theory which is part of evolutionary biology. In non-social animals those signals are mostly whatever genes you were born with, but once a social hierarchy comes into play and it becomes as complex as in humans behavior and possessions come into play. The top of the hierarchy is associated with evolutionary success, and you want to judge your opponents position quickly and accurately and adjust your behavior accordingly. Deception is of course always present here, but eventually a stable pattern (ESS) emerges.