Virginia Postrel: Smart and Pretty
Virginia Postrel: Smart and PrettyI just finished reading Postrel's The Substance of Style. Enjoyed the book immensely. The book analyzes the growing awareness of aesthetics in every day life, from products to personal appearances. In the last chapter, Smart and Pretty, Postrel discusses the prevalent thinking that if something is pretty, it must be dumb. This thinking stems from an engraved fear of being cheated--if someone is putting in extra effort into making something pretty, it could only mean that he/she is purposefully trying to cover up something else. In line of this thinking attractive presentations are a cover up for mediocre substance. But this line of thinking precludes the other option of having both substance and style, of being both smart and pretty, "Nearly every definition of design starts by emphatically stating that the profession isn
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