The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value is Remaking Commerce, Culture, and Consciousness ANNOTATION
Staff Favorite of 2003
A leading social scientist examines everything from toilet brush design to trendy hairstyles in her invigorating challenge to the conventional notion that aesthetics matter most to buyers of high-end goods. By placing human sensory experience at the center of an argument about commercial value, this ingenious work, which Tom Peters rightly calls "a profoundly important book," offers a new context for appreciating both objects and ourselves.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
From airport terminals decorated like Starbucks to the popularity of hair dye among teenage boys, one thing is clear: we have entered the Age of Aesthetics. Sensory appeals are everywhere, and they are intensifying, radically changing how Americans live and work.
We expect every strip mall and city block to offer designer coffee, a copy shop with do-it-yourself graphics workstations, and a nail salon for manicures on demand. Every startup, product, or public space calls for an aesthetic touch, which gives us more choices, and more responsibility. By now, we all rely on style to express identity. And aesthetics has become too important to be left to the aesthetes.
In this penetrating, keenly observed book, Virginia Postrel shows that the "look and feel" of people, places, and things are more important than we think. Aesthetic pleasure taps deep human instincts and is essential for creativity and growth. 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 THE CRITICS
The Washington Post
What redeems The Substance of Style is the acute social observations Postrel makes in the course of laying out her argument. She punctures the cult of authenticity -- the idea that something unadorned or unaltered is intrinsically superior to something gussied-up or cosmetically altered -- and demolishes the false dichotomy between substance and style. Form has function, she argues. The personal styles we adopt, the clothes we wear, the toilet brushes we keep in the bathroom -- all of these are outer representations of our inner selves, clues about our self-perception that help the world to place us in proper context.
— Scott Stossel
Publishers Weekly
At the Great Indoors, a hugely successful department store chain, customers can choose from among 250 lavatory faucets. If that represents too little variety, there are more than 1,500 distinct models of drawer pulls. Like it or not, we live in an age where we can minutely dictate every aesthetic choice, to an extent our ancestors would certainly have found disturbingly wasteful and superficial. It is this censure that New York Times economics columnist Postrel is dead-set on dismantling. Aligning herself against "pleasure-hating" modernists like Walter Gropius and Adolf Loos, Postrel adopts the position that fashion has meaning. One of her argument's charms is that she allows Joe Q. Ray-Ban his own justification for his purchase ("I like it") against the interpretations of theorists who insist an interest in surfaces is linked with deception, status or falsehood. Postrel's apt example of the proliferation in toilet-brush design is an effective rebuttal against such theorists-after all, nobody buys a sleek toilet brush to impress neighbors who will never see it, so aesthetics must constitute much of the rationale. Increasingly, form is simply part of the function. Postrel begins by explaining that appearance has a meaning commensurate to loftier values, then examines the many manifestations of this truth. While her argument is intellectually sophisticated, Postrel's journalistic training ensures the examples she cites are well-chosen and the prose remains crisp and readable. Gracefully representing one endpoint of a certain debate, this ambitious book may someday become a classic of the genre. Agent, Andrew Wylie. (Sept. 5) Forecast: Postrel's point of view is underrepresented, and her book has stronger prospects long-term than short-term. It could become a staple of syllabi in certain disciplines. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
An examination of the nature of decoration and adornment. In an age when people are told aesthetics are a mere marketing tool, former Reason editor Postrel (The Future and Its Enemies, 1998) argues that style is part of our consciousness itself: "The issue is not what style is used but rather that style is used, consciously and conscientiously, even in areas where function used to stand alone." But if, as she argues, aesthetics is more widespread than it used to be, transcending economic boundaries, why is this so? Examining the subject of clothing, Postrel notes that in the late 1920s, a typical woman would have owned nine dresses—outfits that would have to be worn through all seasons, for work and for leisure. She contrasts this with a conversation overheard in her local Target, where a mother informed her preteen daughter that she couldn�t have another top since she already owned at least 30. Rising incomes and falling production costs don�t explain the whole story, she posits. Social and cultural shifts of the late-20th century have also put more emphasis on aesthetics—but that raises a question. How can something that�s been deemed innate gain cultural importance? The question is never fully answered, but the author takes us on an entertaining romp through the aesthetics of cars (in the �50s and �60s, car buyers focused on looks, while the gasoline shortages of the 1970s gave fuel efficiency more importance) and toilet bowl brushes (it�s possible to buy a $400 crystal and gold brush). She covers the popularity of Starbucks, the cycle of children�s names ("Sarah" and "Jessica" have eclipsed "Susan" and "Kimberly"), the role of hair, and more. Postrel concludes that as newstyles and technologies develop, at some point the primacy of aesthetics will fade, and a new "age" will come to pass. Engaging, even while some of the author�s ideas fail to coalesce. Author tour
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
Thanks to affluence and technology, among much else, the way things look matters as much to us now as what they do. . . . . Ms. Postrel makes a persuasive and well-researched case for the value of such magic. Far from being at odds with "substance," as various critics have argued, it has a meaning all its own. — Wall Street Journal
Tom Peters
This is a profoundly important book. The topic is absurdly under-studied; and Virginia Postrel has turned in a magnificent performance. My only irritation: That I didn't get there first. — author of In Search of Excellence
Steven Pinker
A brilliant analysis of a major new phenomenon: that people care more about how stuff looks. In this delightful book, Virginia Postrel invents a new kind of social criticism, one that is economically literate, brimming with psychological insight, and deeply respectful of ordinary people. After reading The Substance of Style, the world will literally look different to you. — Professor, MIT, and author of How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate
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