// Considering how fashion’s tension… “influencing patterns of taste”… can inform our daily thought and decision processes as designers and creative directors. 100% data-driven is an imperfect answer, unless your strategy and mission is incrementalism. Intuition, taste and life experience… earn their seats, over time, in front of the critique boards. And, yes, “boards”, not just screens, because there’s huge value in seeing the entire landscape of the design process.//

Fashion is a world of reflection and imitation, and taste is fashion’s primary currency. Anna Wintour promises her readers good taste in exchange for their paying subscriptions to Vogue; designers, in exchange for buying $4000 beaded cocktail dresses over something from Target, and so on. It’s a struggle for control and authority, and fashion critics strategise in order to prove why their opinion is worth more than yours—the consumer. A fashion critic, by virtue of working in such an exclusive world with an all-access pass to beautiful clothes and decadent parties, supposedly has good taste. You rely on their expertise to tell you what looks good. Fashion magazine editors are so confident in their taste that they will invent trends in order to compel you to spend, typically presented in a price spectrum that caters to the tasteless masses: “from luxe to less.”

The sociology of taste can be traced back to Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, originally published in French in 1979. In his seminal work Bourdieu attempted to expose the social logic of taste, encouraging us to look beyond simple circles of rich and poor to the everyday symbols that reinforce class: education, physical appearance, appreciation for cuisine, art, music, literature, and (surprise, surprise) fashion. He developed the theory of cultural capital, an umbrella term that describes the non-financial resources we employ to exert power and command in society. You only need to watch one episode of Gossip Girl to understand what I’m talking about. Focus specifically on how Dan Humphrey, the underdog from Brooklyn, uses education as a weapon, in the same way that his sister, Jenny, uses her social alliances to steal the throne from Queen Bee, Blair Waldorf. (Yes, that’s how the characters speak on the show.)

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Attempting to deconstruct hierarchies of taste in the fashion industry reminds people of the precariousness of their position. Fashion’s power figures enjoy being arbiters of style and taste, and fear that we—the unwashed masses—may wake up one day and be able to determine for ourselves what looks good. Still, I don’t necessarily think that fashion criticism is a bad thing in itself because I value the historical knowledge that writers bring into the conversation, even if I don’t agree with their overall observation. But now that I am aware of the social logic behind taste, and how closely taste is linked to cultural capital, I no longer have to wonder why these critics’ opinions differ so greatly from my own.

The next time you read a fashion review and find yourself disagreeing with the writer, just remember that their opinion is simply a projection of taste (if an “opinion” in the true sense of the word is still discernible once an article is processed through the editorial carwash). 

Knowledge and experience aside, a large part of fashion journalism is about influencing patterns of taste. There’s a certain cachet in saying that you work in fashion, and those who find themselves working in a superior industry try to justify it by pretending they are also superior in spirit. We all know by now that this is a hideous lie rooted in self-preservation, and Pierre Bourdieu spent much of his life trying to unmask the pretentions of the elite.

http://antwerpsex.wordpress.com/2014/02/15/good-fashion-bad-fashion-and-the-truth-about-taste/