The Substance of Style

Whether it’s sleek leather pants, a shiny new Apple computer, or a designer toaster, consumers make purchasing decisions every day based on sensory experience. Aesthetic appeals are everywhere, and they are intensifying, radically changing how Americans live, work, and spend. Drawing from fields as diverse as economics, fashion, real estate, politics and design, Postrel deftly chronicles culture’s aesthetic imperative and argues persuasively that it is a vital component of a healthy, forward-looking society.

“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

“Provocative. . . .Underlying Postrel’s trenchant social observations is a jaunty economic libertarianism. . . . She punctures the cult of authenticity . . . and demolishes the false dichotomy between substance and style.”

-Washington Post Book World