INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

Q: What do you mean by the "aesthetic imperative"?

A: Aesthetics--the look and feel of people, places, and things--is increasingly important as a source of value, both economic and cultural. We see both increasing intensity and increasing variety, or pluralism.

Aesthetics shows up where function used to be the only thing that mattered, from toilet brushes to business memos to computers and cell phones. And people's expectations keep rising. New tract homes have granite countertops, so hotel rooms have to have granite countertops too. Family restaurants used to be all about price and food, but now they have to worry about their decor. We've gone from Pizza Hut to California Pizza Kitchen. If you're in business, you have to invest in aesthetics simply to keep up with the competition. That's intensity.

At the same time, people expect to have the freedom and the tools to express their own aesthetic identities. One-style-fits-all won't work. So you can choose from 1,500 different drawer pulls at The Great Indoors. Jeans come in a whole array of washes and cuts--not just different sizes or shapes, but different personalities. Bank One advertises a credit card that not only lets you pick your financial terms but also your card color. Even a basic word processing program includes hundreds of different typefaces. That's variety.

Q: What's the best example?

A: The touchstone example is Starbucks. Starbucks is to the age of aesthetics what McDonald's was to the age of convenience or Ford was to the age of mass production. Starbucks isn't just selling gourmet coffee, itself an aesthetic good. It's creating a whole sensory environment of sounds, smells, lighting, and textures.

Another famous example is Target, which has used high-design products at mass-market prices to compete with Wal-Mart's low-price strategy. Its Michael Graves line of housewares has been a big success not because Target shoppers know who Michael Graves is but because they think the toasters and picture frames look cool. Kinko's caters to our need for slick graphics, even for such mundane purposes as finding work cleaning houses.

On the supplier end, I talk about GE Plastics' global aesthetics program, which offers special-effects plastics and custom services to make the company's products more than just commodities.

Q: Why is this trend happening?

A: There isn't a single cause. A bunch of different social and economic trends are all pushing us in this direction.

Incomes are rising and households are getting smaller, which means more income per person. We can buy more aesthetic goods because we can buy more of everything.

But, more important, aesthetics is also becoming more prominent relative to other goods. When we decide how next to spend our time or money, considering what we already have and the costs and benefits of various alternatives, "look and feel" is likely to top our list. We don't want more food, or even more restaurant meals--we're already maxed out. Instead, we want tastier, more interesting food in an appealing environment. It's a move from physical quantity to intangible, emotional quality.

For many businesses, competition has already pushed function and reliability so high and price so low that style is the only way to stand out. All radios or trash cans work pretty much the same. Most computer buyers don't need more speed or more powerful chips. Once quality and price are already good enough, what we care about is how things look and feel. We're buying not just function but pleasure and meaning.

Innovations in technology and distribution have made aesthetic variety cheaper and more widely available. Computers and lasers have become aesthetic tools, for everything from graphic design to plastic surgery. First catalogs and now Internet sales have made niche markets big enough to be profitable.

International trade has increased stylistic variety and, combined with retail competition, lowered the costs of aesthetic goods, from clothing to Christmas lights.

Finally, we've been moving away from the Puritan idea that aesthetics is frivolous or deceptive, the Victorian notion that aesthetics is unmanly, and the 20th-century notion that there's one best style--whether it's modern architecture or whatever the fashion magazines are pushing this month. American individualism is manifesting itself in style.

The changing roles of women and gays and the increasing influence of African-American and Latino cultures also play a role. Thinking style is frivolous and effeminate is an Anglo-American prejudice. Other cultures have long seen personal style as a valuable achievement rather than something suspicious or superficial.

Q: You argue that aesthetics has value in and of itself, that surfaces are not just "superficial." Where does that value come from?

A: Pleasure and meaning--our biological response as visual, tactile creatures and our cultural memories and associations. In between is our desire for novelty. As biological creatures, we notice and appreciate changes in sensory stimuli. But culture determines what's aesthetically new. Both biology and culture drive fashion.

Q: You write mostly about economics and politics. How did you get interested in this subject?

A: The simplest answer is that I started to notice the trend all around me and wondered about its causes and implications. In some ways, it's easier for someone like me, who comes from outside the world of design or aesthetics, to realize how much things have changed. Style has never been one of my central concerns--I'm not immersed in it--so it's easier for me to see how prominent it has become for all of us.

Also, when I wrote The Future and Its Enemies I learned a lot about the world of design. I was interested in design for two reasons. First, that book was concerned with creativity and innovation--how they work and what barriers they face--and design is an example. Second, The Future and Its Enemies was also interested in the limits of conscious design, in how order can and should arise without planning. So to think about that, I needed to think about when design is valuable. Some of these themes reemerged, unintentionally, in chapter five of The Substance of Style, which is called "The Boundaries of Design."

Q: What do you mean by the "boundaries of design"?

A: As people value aesthetics more highly, they're more likely to take offense at other people's stylistic choices and try to restrict them by law. We're seeing a rise in aesthetic conflict. Some of it happens in the workplace, over dress codes and hairstyles, but the biggest area of conflict is over architecture and land use. People protest their neighbors' paint colors, their plants, their window frames, their kids' play equipment.

We increasingly treat aesthetic differences as pollution. Ten years ago, 83 percent of American towns had some sort of design review, and three-quarters of those regulations had been passed since 1980. There's no current count, but the number has grown.

The idea of "design boundaries" is a way to think about these conflicts. A "design" suggests a single, coherent purpose (or group of purposes) and a matching aesthetic. But people are different. They have different tastes, including the taste for variety versus homogeneity.

For public policy, the question is not to pick the one best design. It's to decide where the boundary is--the front yard, the block, the neighborhood, the city, etc. Part of that process is recognizing that not all design choices are equally intrusive, fundamental, permanent, or costly to escape. Sometimes the easiest solution is simply to ignore what you don't like. Other times that's not practical. The difference between two styles of window frames isn't the same as the difference between setbacks or lot sizes

Aesthetic conflicts will never disappear altogether, because people find pleasure and meaning in very different styles. But the right boundaries can mitigate the problem.

Q: What interesting examples have you found since you wrote the book, things that aren't included in it?

A: My favorite new discovery is something called WacKeys. If you go to Lowes to get a key copied, you have two choices. For $1.24 you can get a standard plain-metal key. Or, for $2.97 you can choose from a half dozen different designs--flowers, butterflies, American flags, flames, tie-dye colors, etc. The blanks are exactly the same shape as the standard ones. They just have an aesthetic twist. I think they could come up with some better designs, but the concept is great, and they're getting a huge premium for it.

Lowe's also has a paint "Color Design Center" whose slogan is "Autograph Your Home with Signature Colors," which is a nice expression of the way we use aesthetics to express individual identity.

In terms of places, a broad trend that didn't make it into the book is the growth of "fast casual" restaurants like Panera, Cosi, Baja Fresh, and Chipotle. Unlike traditional family restaurant chains like Chili's or TGI Friday's, they don't offer waiter service. Instead, they sell fresh food in a stylish environment. They're selling not just food-as-fuel but an aesthetic experience, but they're almost as fast and convenient as fast food chains. They're taking customers from both ends of the mass-market restaurant business.

Finally, we've seen the explosion in makeover shows on TV. I talk in the book (and in this column) about home makeover programs, like Trading Spaces and Design on a Dime. Now we're now seeing more, and more successful, people-makeover shows: Extreme Makeover on ABC, What Not to Wear on TLC, and, of course, Bravo's smash hit Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which does both personal and room "make betters." These kinder, gentler reality shows appeal to our desire for aesthetic self-improvement and for the expertise to make it happen. The Oprah Winfrey Show even gave a makeover to Coretta Scott King.

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