Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things

by Stephen Bayley

Design-guru Stephen Bayley approaches the thorny and sometimes elitist topic of 'taste' with typical wit, drawing on his expertise in a number of fields from fashion to food -A new edition of a classic book, brought into the new millennium by Bayley's concise critique of modern design How do we define taste? The only certainty is that it shifts and changes - sometimes abruptly. With the explosion of vulgar consumerism in the mid-nineteenth century, the Victorians seized upon the notion of good taste as a way of codifying middle-class mores. A century later, to talk about taste had become almost taboo, since judgments made about dress, manners, food and art can often be painfully revealing. And today? When this classic text was first published in 1991, Stephen Bayley illuminated the nuances and niceties of our mercurial understanding of taste. In this new edition, he ranges far and wide to bring us exquisitely up to date. 'I don't know anybody with more interesting observations about style, taste and contemporary design' Tom Wolfe on Stephen Bayley

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Design

288 pages, Hardcover

First published November 4, 1991

Reviews

[Fozz]

I liked the first look into kitsch. And obvs a mega research project.

I do think that the author would find me far too ‘woke’ if I called out some of misogyny and elitism creeping into his writing though.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written from a British perspective, it's somewhat academic but interesting and sometimes amusing. For those of us not fluent in several languages, the frequent use of French, Italian or German, with very few translations to English, is a bit frustrating. I don't have the patience to stop reading and go online to try to translate everything, but at least that's an option now, I guess. It wasn't when the first edition was published. (I read the 2017 edition so it felt fairly current.)

The book would have also benefited from more photos to illustrate the specific architecture, etc. that he was discussing. Martin Mull once said, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Writing about all these visual topics needed more pictures.

[Amanda Witt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good compact read of how taste in the areas of fashion, building/architecture, food etc have evolved and changed over the last 200 years.

[Ron Kastner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think there is no hope for taste or for style. It happens or it doesnt. This is a wonderfully erudite, witty and scathing discussion of taste and style and the impossibility of pinning them down.