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November 2, 2004
Importance Of Style
Interview
with Virginia Postrel, author of the book, The
Substance Of Style
Mike
Carruthers:
When you think about it in just the last fifteen years or
so we've really been putting an emphasis and value on style and esthetics.
Virginia
Postrel:
People have increasingly gotten away from the idea that
style is just fluff that its not legitimate value. People want
it.
Virginia
Postrel, author of the book, The
Substance Of Style says in the past the emphasis was always on function. Yeah,
you want something to clean your toilet you could buy just the basic functional
brush for five dollars or you can spend ten dollars and get something that's got
a little style to it and the extra five dollars gives you a lot of pleasure over
a long period of time. If you go into a store like Bed, Bath and Beyond you'll
see a whole lot of different styles. And
this emphasis on style and esthetics is not just for things but also places. The
touchtone example for the age of esthetics is really Starbucks. If you were to
go back even fifteen years it was a very uncommon thing to have a place that was
this attractive and a place that people didn't just get coffee but they got a
whole multi-sensory esthetic experience. So they've established a new esthetic
standard for what people expect when they go into a public place, into a restaurant
or store… all of those things are influenced quite directly by Starbucks. At
somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm
Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.
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