The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and ConsciousnessWhether it's sleek leather pants, a shiny new Apple computer, or a designer toaster, we make important decisions as consumers every day based on our sensory experience. Sensory appeals are everywhere, and they are intensifying, radically changing how Americans live and work. The twenty-first century has become the age of aesthetics, and whether we realize it or not, this influence has taken over the marketplace, and much more. In this penetrating, keenly observed book, Virginia Postrel makes the argument that appearance counts, that aesthetic value is real. Drawing from fields as diverse as fashion, real estate, politics, design, and economics, Postrel deftly chronicles our culture's aesthetic imperative and argues persuasively that it is a vital component of a healthy, forward-looking society. Intelligent, incisive, and thought-provoking, The Substance of Style is a groundbreaking portrait of the democratization of taste and a brilliant examination of the way we live now. |
From inside the book
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... fashion don't come from Madison Avenue after all. Maybe our relation to aesthetic value is too funda- mental to be explained by commercial mind control. Human beings know the world, and each other, through our sens- es. From our ...
... fashion magazines or go to celebrity - filled parties . They don't dress in black , pierce their eyebrows , or wear Euro - style narrow eyeglasses . This is General Electric . Jack Welch's company . Thomas Edison's company . An ...
... fashion in 2000 was a relief from the black , gray , and beige of the late 1990s , while those neutrals looked calm . and sophisticated after the riot of jewel tones that preceded them . Psychologists tell us that human beings perceive ...
... fashion dictated that a skirt had to be either one inch above the knee or one inch below it,” said the magazine's publication director in its fifteenth anniversary issue, published in September 2000. “And if it wasn't, then the woman ...
... fashion , clothing - the differences of the surface - turned out to indicate differences below , differences of value and perspective . ” While subcultures may remain stylistically distinct, elements of their aesthetics 122 The ...
Contents
The Rise of LOOK AND FEEL | 34 |
SURFACE AND SUBSTANCE | 66 |
MEANINGFUL Looks | 93 |
The Boundaries of DESIGN | 122 |
SMART AND PRETTY | 164 |
Notes | 193 |
Acknowledgments | 229 |
Other editions - View all
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce ... Virginia Postrel No preview available - 2009 |
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce ... Virginia Postrel No preview available - 2003 |
The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value Is Remaking Commerce ... Virginia Postrel No preview available - 2004 |