Abstract: We study an economy populated by two type of individuals, high and low ability - who signal their ability and acquire social status through education and conspicuous consumption. A social contact observes the individual's level of education and conspicuous consumption and confers social status. Individuals derive utility from invisible consumption and social status. We show that the presence of two signals implies new results for the literature on social status and inequality. The separating equilibria that satisfy the intuitive criterion of Cho and Kreps indicate that low (high) ability individuals invest only in conspicuous consumption (human capital) when the social contact gives a higher weight to conspicuous consumption in the social status function. On the other hand, high ability individuals invest only in conspicuous consumption when, in the social status function, the weight given to human capital is higher than that given to conspicuous consumption. From the theoretical point of view we discuss why the presence of two signals implies new results. Moreover, we point out how the policy implications change relatively to the existing literature.