Blazingly keen mind, excellent writer, blogger to the stars, and internationally known hottie, Virginia Postrel has a new book out today (thanks for the reminder InstaGlenn), The Substance of Style.

In addition to a nice book description here:

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.

One commentator who has delved into the subject is the libertarian writer and speaker Virginia Postrel. In her new book, The Substance of Style, she contemplates the import of the current aesthetic renaissance and pronounces it a cause for celebration. In part, she suggests, the phenomenon has been made possible by technological advances. Beginning in the 1980s, she explains, companies made great strides in their management and manufacturing processes, enabling the production of a more diverse array of goods without raising costs. And globalization has brought a wide assortment of formerly exotic-seeming styles and products into the mainstream.

More importantly, Postrel suggests, our growing focus on aesthetics indicates that we have reached a point at which, having more than met our basic and not-so-basic needs and wants, our efforts can now be directed toward rendering the abundance of luxuries around us ever more appealing, desirable, and pleasant.

....You emphasize that in terms of style, ours is an age of pluralism, in which there is no such thing as a uniform "correct" style. But you also assert that in recent years design standards have "risen" and "improved." This would seem to imply an evolution from inferior style choices to those that are more acceptable. You describe, for example, a new social service whereby stylists volunteer to give welfare-to-work women a different look for their upcoming jobs. Isn't this to some extent a matter of people gradually getting clued in to commonly agreed-upon "correct" standards of taste? [is this the world's longest question or what?]

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