When I say standards are rising, what I mostly mean is that whether somebody's putting themselves together, or putting a restaurant together, or designing a product, much closer attention is being paid to making sure there's the kind of stylistic harmony and interest that innately gives us pleasure. There's no one way to achieve that. You can have radically different styles that are all thoughtful and pleasant and interesting. It doesn't have to mean "pretty" in the classical sense. But I do distinguish between pleasure and meaning with respect to style. Pleasure is primarily biologically ingrained. There are things that inherently appeal to us - like symmetry in faces, certain kinds of lighting, and that sort of thing. Then there's meaning: do you look "professional" - do you look right for the context? We associate certain things with certain styles. In most workplaces, for example, there's a kind of formal or informal norm. It may be very prescriptive - like people having to wear uniforms. But these days, even at places where there have traditionally been very prescriptive policies in the past, you see variety. So for example, all nurses used to wear white uniforms. Now they wear scrubs in all different colors and patterns. It's more personalized - one nurse might be wearing plain blue, while another one might be wearing flowers. It's also less specific to the job. It's not just a nurse's uniform, it's a medical personnel uniform.

Now, going back to the women moving from welfare to work. What you're seeing is two different things. First of all, when they get these makeovers, the women just look better. They have better haircuts, they have more flattering makeup. The pleasure aspect is there, because somebody who knows how to design for people has put that intelligence to work. In the same way, when an expert designs a restaurant or a product, he or she can make it look better than an amateur can. The other thing that's going on is that people are learning to adopt styles of clothing that are appropriate to whatever environment they're going into. If someone's going into an office environment the expectations are going to be different than if they're planning to work at Target. Target's dress code is that you must wear red. That's the whole dress code. If you want to wear a full-body, all-but-your-face-hidden Muslim covering you can wear that - as long as it's red. Their dress code is an example of specifying something that unites the environment, without prescribing so much that people feel that their personal style, or in some cases their personal religious convictions, are compromised.... I need a copy of the book forthwith!