Whether it's sleek leather pants, a shiny new Apple computer, or a designer toaster, we make important decisions as consumers every day based on our sensory experience. Sensory appeals are everywhere, and they are intensifying, radically changing how Americans live and work. The twenty-first century has become the age of aesthetics, and whether we realize it or not, this influence has taken over the marketplace, and much more. In this penetrating, keenly observed book, Virginia Postrel makes the argument that appearance counts, that aesthetic value is real. 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. Intelligent, incisive, and thought-provoking, The Substance of Style is a groundbreaking portrait of the democratization of taste and a brilliant examination of the way we live now.

Whether it's sleek leather pants, a shiny new Apple computer, or a designer toaster, we make important decisions as consumers every day based on our sensory experience. Sensory appeals are everywhere, and they are intensifying, radically changing how Americans live and work. The twenty-first century has become the age of aesthetics, and whether we realize it or not, this influence has taken over the marketplace, and much more. In this penetrating, keenly observed book, Virginia Postrel makes the argument that appearance counts, that aesthetic value is real. 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. Intelligent, incisive, and thought-provoking, The Substance of Style is a groundbreaking portrait of the democratization of taste and a brilliant examination of the way we live now.

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. Intelligent, incisive, and thought provoking, The Substance of Style is a groundbreaking portrait of the democratization of taste and a brilliant examination of the way we live now.

From renowned photographer Melanie Acevedo and founding editor of domino magazine Dara Caponigro, comes a lush dive into the private worlds and gorgeous homes of creative trailblazers in art, design, and fashion around the world. The Authentics is a deep exploration into the substance of style through evocative photography and stimulating interviews that seek to unravel the tenets of taste and talent. The featured homeowners, all true originals, help define our culture--including interior designer Miles Redd, actress Peggy Lipton, and Libertine designer Johnson Hartig. With an artful mix of color and black-and-white photography that includes portraits, interiors, gardens, and still-life shots of flowers, food, and more, The Authentics examines the lives and work of these visionaries in an inspiring tribute to confidence, originality, and the power of finding one's own voice.

"Style and Substance" offers a unique look at hundreds of dazzling rooms the magazine has showcased during its first two decades. Illustrations throughout.

'An inspiring guide to developing your personal brand, achieving your career goals and shaping the future of work' Red 'Everything every career woman needs to know and yet is rarely shared so honestly' Anya Hindmarch 'Refreshingly relevant and practical' Roksanda Ilincic Women have made great advances in the workplace, but despite that - and the overwhelming amount of career advice out there - the same questions continue to arise: how to succeed in a man's world, how to combine a career with a family, how to be authentic and fit in, and whether it is even possible to achieve a work-life balance while chasing career goals. Unfortunately, much of the advice women are offered is badly out of date and lacking in 'cut-to-the-chase' strategies that really tally with their experience of the workplace now. What's more, the advice often tends to be defensive, focused on overcoming obstacles rather than drawing upon strengths. Style and Substance starts from a very different perspective. Written by Helena Morrissey, who has learned through her own experiences as a woman in the workplace and as a business leader, it will help you understand what really matters when it comes to career progression today, whatever your age, situation and aspirations. Style and Substance will show you how to build your own style - your personal brand - and how to have confidence in it, and in yourself. Once you realise how much agency you have and the steps that you can take to look the part, sound the part, feel the part and therefore be the part, you'll be empowered to achieve your goals in your own way, secure in who you are and what you have to offer.

A guide and workbook for women who want to build their confidence, their brands and their bank accounts. The exercises and exploratory questions are thorough and effective, while the chapters are short, digestible and laser-focused on what matters most when it comes to building an engaging brand.

For any woman who last saw forty on her speedometer comes a sparkling new primer for aging—the French way—with grace and style. Frenchwomen of a certain age (over forty) are captivating and complex. They appear younger than their years and remain stylish throughout their lives. They look at birthdays as a celebration of a life well-lived and perhaps a good reason to go shopping before they dress to perfection for a celebration of another anniversaire. American-born journalist and blogger Tish Jett has lived among the French for years and has studied them and stalked them to learn their secrets. Exploring how their wardrobe, beauty, diet, and hair rituals evolve with time and how some aspects of their signature styles never change, Jett shows how Frenchwomen know their strengths, hide their weaknesses, and never talk about their fears, failures, or flaws. After all, in France, beauty, style, and charm have no expiration dates!

If economics is about the allocation of resources, then what is the most precious resource in our new information economy? Certainly not information, for we are drowning in it. No, what we are short of is the attention to make sense of that information. With all the verve and erudition that have established his earlier books as classics, Richard A. Lanham here traces our epochal move from an economy of things and objects to an economy of attention. According to Lanham, the central commodity in our new age of information is not stuff but style, for style is what competes for our attention amidst the din and deluge of new media. In such a world, intellectual property will become more central to the economy than real property, while the arts and letters will grow to be more crucial than engineering, the physical sciences, and indeed economics as conventionally practiced. For Lanham, the arts and letters are the disciplines that study how human attention is allocated and how cultural capital is created and traded. In an economy of attention, style and substance change places. The new attention economy, therefore, will anoint a new set of moguls in the business world—not the CEOs or fund managers of yesteryear, but new masters of attention with a grounding in the humanities and liberal arts. Lanham’s The Electronic Word was one of the earliest and most influential books on new electronic culture. The Economics of Attention builds on the best insights of that seminal book to map the new frontier that information technologies have created.

2022 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Much acclaimed and often imitated, Joan Didion remains one of the leading American essayists and political journalists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The lone woman writer among the New Journalists in the 1960s and '70s, Didion became a powerful critic of public and political mythologies in the '80s and '90s, and was an inspiration for those, particularly women, dealing with aging and grief and loss in the early 2000s. An iconic figure, Didion is still much admired by readers, critics, and essayists, who speak of looking to her prose style as a model for their own. In Joan Didion: Substance and Style, Kathleen M. Vandenberg explores how Didion's nonfiction prose style, often lauded for its beauty and poetry, also works rhetorically. Through close readings of selected nonfiction from the last forty years—biographically, culturally, and politically situated—Vandenberg reveals how Didion deliberately and powerfully employs style to emphasize her point of view and enchant her readers. While Didion continues to publish and the "Cult of Joan," as one author calls it, grows seemingly stronger by the day, this book is the only extended treatment of Didion's later nonfiction and the first sustained and close consideration of how her essays work at the level of the sentence.