If you ever want to get an interesting snapshot of what constitutes taste, one need only talk to someone in the art world. A friend visited recently from London, owner of a tony art gallery, and we had a long chat about “taste”. One of the interesting takeaways was that with art, fashion, or even furniture, people have always seemed most comfortable buying taste. He was telling me the story of an artist named Lucio Fontana, whose paintings are famous for being a colored canvas with slashes. Thats it. A painted canvas, generally a solid color, with cuts in the canvas. Its said he actually used (in addition to a scalpel) a Stanley knife. Paintings that at one time fetched “reasonable” prices. No beautiful landscape, shapes or colors to interpret, just a color….and some slashes. Someone “important” buys one, then someone who wants to look “important” buys another. And so on and so on. … One of these recently sold at Christies for around $2,000,000.
I often wonder if this is how fashion trends start. Some designer somewhere decides mens pants look fantastic if they’re just long enough to go over your knee but 6″ higher than your ankle. A “style” that looks good on roughly .0005% of men. Then a model appears in GQ, then a mannequin in Bergdorfs window, then…. some pathetic soul walking down 5th Ave wearing what are for all intents and purposes, mens clam diggers…. convinced that dammit, he paid $3500 for these things and he looks GOOD. If theres one thing Sofia and I hope to get across at StyleAficionado.com, its that everyone has taste, everyone has style. No amount of money can buy either.