All Virginia Postrel Quotes
- Clothing creates the illusion that bodies fit an aesthetically pleasing norm. And that illusion depends on getting the fit right. Garments that bunch, pull, or… Aesthetically
- The Dallas model, prominent in the South and Southwest, sees a growing population as a sign of urban health. Cities liberally permit housing construction to… Accommodate
- The mobile middle class gravitates to the cities where housing is affordable. Affordable
- Even before Sputnik, scientists and policy makers worried that not enough Americans were studying science. American
- Behind the criticism of fashion as an artistic medium is a highly ideological prejudice: against markets, against consumers, against the dynamism of Western commercial society.… Art
- Clothes are unique sculptures, dependent on a supporting human form and created to move. Clothes
- The Elgin Marbles were supposed to be on the Parthenon. For many works of art, a museum is an artificial setting - a zoo, not… Art
- Lofts were never supposed to be homes. They were vacant old factories and warehouses, taken over by artists looking for cheap space and good light. Artists
- Our eyes and brains pretty consistently like some human forms better than others. Shown photos of strangers, even babies look longer at the faces adults… Adult
- We know beauty when we see it, and our reactions are remarkably consistent. Beauty is not just a social construct, and not every girl is… Beautiful
- Airline glamour never promised anything as mundane as elbow room, much less a flat bed, a massage, or an arugula salad. It promised a better… Air
- The glamour of twentieth-century air travel helped to persuade once-fearful travelers to take to the skies and encouraged parochial Americans to go out and see… Air
- Before it became a ubiquitous part of urban life, Starbucks was, in most American cities, a radically new idea. American
- Chains do more than bargain down prices from suppliers or divide fixed costs across a lot of units. They rapidly spread economic discovery - the… Across
- The elements that create glamour are not specific styles - bias-cut gowns or lacquered furniture - but more general qualities: grace, mystery, transcendence. To the… Audience
- The whole point of movie glamour was - and is - escape. Escape
- Like the skyscraper, the automobile, and the motion-picture palace, neon signs once symbolized popular hopes for a new era of technological achievement and commercial abundance.… Abundance
- Storage problems make neon signs the most ephemeral of commercial arts. Arts
- Although people often equate them, glamour is not the same as beauty, stylishness, luxury, celebrity, or sex appeal. It is not limited to fashion or… Aesthetic
- By binding image and desire, glamour gives us pleasure, even as it heightens our yearning. It leads us to feel that the life we dream… Binding
- Glamour is not something you possess but something you perceive, not something you have but something you feel. It is a subjective response to a… Feel
- In the fall of 1978, I left the religious, conservative, biracial, slow-paced culture of South Carolina for the secular, liberal, multi-ethnic, intense culture of Princeton… Better
- America is a mosaic not of groups but of individuals, each of whom carries a host of cultural influences, some chosen, some inherited, some absorbed… Absorb
- We are material creatures who spend much of our lives on material pursuits (even building a cathedral or writing a novel requires stone and mortar… Building
- Religion, art, and science flourish best in a free society. True, freedom does not afford much opportunity for grand gestures. It has little room for… Afford