Stephen Bayley, design guru and cultural critic, explores shifting attitudes towards art, architecture, design, fashion, food and shopping in a new book titled "Taste: The Secret Meaning of Thing." He concludes that taste has more to do with manners than appearances; that 'good taste' is both myth and reality; and that taste -- good or bad -- has nothing whatever to do with style. In the photo, Donald Trump sits in the living room of his home in Mar-a-Lago.
Stephen Bayley, design guru and cultural critic, explores shifting attitudes towards art, architecture, design, fashion, food and shopping in a new book titled "Taste: The Secret Meaning of Thing." He concludes that taste has more to do with manners than appearances; that 'good taste' is both myth and reality; and that taste -- good or bad -- has nothing whatever to do with style. In the photo, Donald Trump sits in the living room of his home in Mar-a-Lago.
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Giovanni Antonio Fumiani's San Pantalon (1684-1704) in Venice is the largest oil-on-canvas painting ever made. Its Baroque busyness excited the critic John Ruskin into a fuming rage.
Giovanni Antonio Fumiani's San Pantalon (1684-1704) in Venice is the largest oil-on-canvas painting ever made. Its Baroque busyness excited the critic John Ruskin into a fuming rage.
Circa Press
New houses in Poundbury, Prince Charles's model community in Dorset, designed by Robert Adam. Writes Bayley: "The contemporary debate in architecture begun by the Prince of Wales in 1984 hints at a complex underworld of ideas that support the English perception of self and culture. In the rhythms and textures of English life you can detect the idea that elsewhere there is a dream world that can somehow become accessible. A shortcut to it involves putting classical doodads on otherwise unremarkable buildings, as in Royal Poundbury."
New houses in Poundbury, Prince Charles's model community in Dorset, designed by Robert Adam. Writes Bayley: "The contemporary debate in architecture begun by the Prince of Wales in 1984 hints at a complex underworld of ideas that support the English perception of self and culture. In the rhythms and textures of English life you can detect the idea that elsewhere there is a dream world that can somehow become accessible. A shortcut to it involves putting classical doodads on otherwise unremarkable buildings, as in Royal Poundbury."
Circa Press
Coco Chanel with Duke Laurino of Rome on the Venice Lido. Paul Poiret described Chanel's elegantly restrained style as 'misérabilisme de luxe'.
Coco Chanel with Duke Laurino of Rome on the Venice Lido. Paul Poiret described Chanel's elegantly restrained style as 'misérabilisme de luxe'.
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Singer/songwriter Beyoncé Knowles attends the 'Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology' Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 2016. Writes Bayley: "Beyoncé, the popular singer, wore a pearl-encrusted sheer latex Givenchy gown, apparently inspired by a condom. Someone on Twitter nicely described the lady's costume as 'a rough endoplasmic reticulum with ribosomes attached."
Singer/songwriter Beyoncé Knowles attends the 'Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology' Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 2016. Writes Bayley: "Beyoncé, the popular singer, wore a pearl-encrusted sheer latex Givenchy gown, apparently inspired by a condom. Someone on Twitter nicely described the lady's costume as 'a rough endoplasmic reticulum with ribosomes attached."
Larry Busacca/Getty Images
Whitebait on a board -- rustic chic has overwhelmed haute cuisine.
Whitebait on a board -- rustic chic has overwhelmed haute cuisine.
Circa Press
The Toilette of Venus, 1751 (oil on canvas) by Francois Boucher. Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, was Boucher's patroness and commissioned this for the dressing room at Bellevue, her château near Paris. In 1750 she had acted the title role in a play, staged at Versailles, called The Toilet of Venus, and a flattering allusion may have been intended.
The Toilette of Venus, 1751 (oil on canvas) by Francois Boucher. Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, was Boucher's patroness and commissioned this for the dressing room at Bellevue, her château near Paris. In 1750 she had acted the title role in a play, staged at Versailles, called The Toilet of Venus, and a flattering allusion may have been intended.
Circa Press
"Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things" is published by Circa.
"Taste: The Secret Meaning of Things" is published by Circa.
Circa Press